What are Ad Networks?

Does this sound familiar...?

“Ahhh...I wish I could spend some time to find the right spots for my ads, but it’s such a hassle?”
Hey relax...

Advertising on the worldwide web has now become faster and more effective than it ever used to be. With the advent of ad networks having hundreds and thousands of websites in their network, an advertiser’s life has become extremely easy. If you desire to place your ads on a high number of websites but are unable to devote the time and energy to find and negotiate with those websites, you can choose to hire an ad network and make your ad appear at thousands of web pages attracting thousands of potential customers at once.

Ad networks act as brokers between publishers and advertisers and assume the responsibility of placing your ads all over their network. In addition to that, they also track each and every activity of your ads placed with them. Many advertisers choose this option to save the time and energy they can otherwise use to spend on efforts which create additional monetization options for them.

There used to be a time when all you could do was submit your ad to a network and then wait passively for the results as happens in blind networks. However, today’s advertisers are smarter and with the latest technologies around, they actively monitor their ads and track their performance to eliminate those ads which are draining cash out of their pockets and keep the ones which actually bring traffic and provide conversions.

Ad networks provide all kinds of network packages, sometimes with a flexibility to define and choose the right category for your ad. They serve advertisements all over their network from their own ad servers which respond to a website in their network whenever a page is loaded anywhere in the world. Using latest technologies, you can even track users by placing cookies on visitors’ browsers and even generate individual visitor profiles by observing their IP traffic at ISP’s.

Ad networks can be classified into three major categories:

Blind networks: Highly economical and promising, but essentially blind. This means that the advertiser has no idea where his ads are being served over the worldwide web. As an advertiser, you can certainly opt for these ad networks but you won’t be able to track your activities. If you are a start up and on a low budget, use of these ad networks is recommended.

Representative ads: Better than blind networks as it allows more control to advertiser over ad placement. These ad networks are medium priced and are able to bring in huge amount of traffic in a very short time.

Targeted networks: Incredibly effective and highly targeted technology is used by targeted ad networks and uses the most advanced form of technology available for ad distribution. With the ability to identify relevant content in an ad and putting it in just the right place where the ad can attract targeted customers is the biggest strength of a targeted ad network. As an advertiser, you can expect just the traffic you want with highest probability of conversion.