By Iryna Kozirevych
With the global market for digital advertising projected to hit $786 billion by 2026, the prospect of starting an ad network in this era is not only enticing but promising. But creating your own ad network goes beyond wishful thinking or the programming task.
How to define an ad network? Ad networks and ad exchanges are the operational houses for programmatic advertising. They provide the advertising technology flow through robust ad servers that automate the process of programmatic ad display. The increasing adoption of programmatic advertising – ad spend is projected to reach more than $725 billion by 2028 – suggests the need for more ad networks.
But while ad and marketing entrepreneurs are usually excited about having an ad network platform, they often fail to calculate the cost of building one from scratch thoroughly.
This guide is a tell-all on the intricacies of starting a digital ad network, including possible costs and efficient alternatives.
What is an Ad Network?
An ad network refers to a technology that links advertisers with publishers (media owners of websites, blogs, applications, etc.) who wish to monetize their inventory through advertisement. An ad network’s primary job is to aggregate ad inventory from publishers and link it with demand. The ad exchange term, meanwhile, is often used interchangeably, however, these two technologies have some minor differences.
Advertising network examples include Google AdSense, Facebook Audience Network Ads, mMedia, Apple Advertising, Adknowledge, Publift, PopAds, Adcash, and many others.
How Does an Ad Network Work?
We cannot exhaustively discuss the topic and operations of online ad networks without referring to programmatic advertising. Programmatic is an automated process of procuring online advertising spaces through specific third-party technology – an ad network, DSP, SSP. The company deploys a robust algorithm that automatically links the ad content to ad servers, and uses the RTB (real-time bidding) algorithm.
Here the advertiser doesn’t deal directly with the publisher but is charged a fee for every impression. The digital advertising network has to disclose the rates.
Many businesses are considering using a white-label programmatic solution to streamline their advertising efforts.
How does an ad network work? The ad network first compiles available ad spaces from publishers and media platforms and offers these spaces to interested buyers (typically in RTB auction). DSP (demand-side platform) bid on impressions in the RTB auction. When the highest bidder is defined, the ad content is immediately transmitted to the publisher’s SSP (supply-side platforms) through an ad server. The ad server calls for the ad. Next, the ad is transferred from the ad server to the publisher’s site or application.
If you want to build your own publisher ad server, it is important to note that the RTB auction process or the process of buying and selling ad spaces as described above is quickly done using automated technology.
In essence, talking about how an ad network for a website works, the network is simply the link between the publisher and the advertiser. Publishers sell inventory through third-party SSPs, while advertisers purchase inventory through DSPs.
How to build a programmatic ad server? The ad network technology automates the buying and selling of ads, relieving publishers and advertisers of the need to:
• Identify relevant media platforms for each ad.
• Identify relevant media platforms for every ad.
• Negotiate CPA and PPC.
• Manually place ad banners or content, etc.
Ad networks earn profits by keeping a percentage of ad income paid by advertisers (also known as margins or commissions).
There are simply two ways to create an online ad network: you either build from scratch or procure a white-label solution that you can immediately deploy for business. If you think that building technology from scratch is better, this is not always true except because it can take a lot of time and costs (including hidden ones).
If you plan to make your own advertisement exchange it’s time to find out the specifics of building technology from scratch and compare them to the benefits of building a white label ad network.
How to Build an Ad Network From Scratch
The question of how to build an ad network with easy-to-use technology and a friendly ad network dashboard at first glance may seem very complicated and general, but if you look at it consistently, it turns out to be quite understandable and explainable. Here are steps to consider if you want to start your own digital advertising network from scratch.
Identify and Define a Specialty
You can’t accomplish everything at once when you’re new in a business. As a result, your safest choice is to pick one or two comparable areas and begin looking for both large and small publishers.
Although advertisers are impressed by large traffic statistics, they are more interested in the conversion rates.
High traffic does not always translate to sales and conversion. There are examples of low-traffic websites churning out better conversion rates than some high-traffic websites. How do they do it, you might wonder?
Often it boils down to niche area and coverage. Imagine publishing an ad for male shoes on a blog that focuses on male shoes compared to publishing the same ad on a blog that focuses on fashion in general. Although the former may have less traffic, the possibility of having higher conversion rates is much higher.
Importantly, while looking out for high-traffic websites, do not disregard conversion rates.
Engage Publishers
To create an ad network, you’d have to acquire a share of a publisher’s inventory and sell it to advertisers. Without the publishers, it would be impossible to display ads and earn. However, while selecting publishers to work with, you have to be very careful and sensitive to your niche and the publisher’s niche and traffic stats. The quality of your publishers would determine if advertisers would engage your network.
Here is a brief checklist to help you when searching for publishers to work with:
• First, you have to ensure that your publishers have relevant content to your ad network platform, niche, and advertisers.
• You should know that most advertisers prefer traffic from the US, Canada, Australia, and EU countries.
• There is also a strong preference for English-speaking audiences.
• Avoid publishers with lewd or violent content.
• Ensure that your publisher has unique and updated content.
Attract Advertisers
Having a network of publishers without advertisers is useless. So as much as you need publishers, you must also attract advertisers to your network. You can do this by creating an expressive display to highlight all of your benefits to a prospective client. Highlight compelling statistics and friendly partnership conditions. Also, include honest metrics and statistics that would intrigue the advertisers.
You can also attract advertisers by:
• Reaching out to ad agencies.
• Offering competitive ad rates.
• Ensuring that your publishers have quality traffic that can convert for your advertisers. The success and profitability of your digital advertising network depends on your marketplace success and the average conversion rate. And the success of your advertisers depends on the quality and resourcefulness of our publisher.
• Ensuring that your ad server is efficient and stable at all times.
Establish a Price Strategy
For ad networks, you cannot arbitrarily set prices for advertisement without considering the needs of connected partners (DSPs and SSPs). When determining which is most advantageous for them, consider that different marketing campaigns may have different goals. As a result, most ad networks provide various pricing structures for online ads.
Below are examples of price structures ad networks offer:
CPV (cost per view) – This is based on the payment model where the advertiser pays for each ad view. It’s most commonly utilized for video campaigns.
CPA (cost per action) – A payment model in which advertisers are charged for specific actions performed by the users. What constitutes chargeable actions is defined by the advertiser. It may include clicks, sales, downloads, etc.
CPC (cost per click) – CPC implies that the advertiser will pay for every click an ad generates on the publisher’s platform.
CPM (cost per thousand impressions) – This pricing model is based on ad impressions per thousand. It is particularly useful for enhancing brand exposure and awareness.
Select Technology Solution
Your tech stack is what powers the operations within the network, and the efficiency of your network determines if more advertisers would want to collaborate with you. Your tech solution should offer flexibility and ease of use to every partner.
Your system should be able to manage media trading and collect information about the performance of your marketplace, partners, ad formats, and other important details. For those venturing into the ad network business, understanding how to connect banner supply with JS tags can significantly optimize ad delivery and enhance user experience. In summary, your solution must support all essential technologies that ensure efficient ad serving. The more ad serving will be happening in your marketplace, the more you will earn as an owner.
Build Your Ad Network From Scratch
What is ad network integration? Let us explain. If you have the luxury of time and money (much money), you may consider building from scratch. But first, you have to understand that having a robust and progressive ad network demands certain features that would require some complicated programming, features, and integrations. Let’s have a quick rundown of some of these features.
Targeting
If your platform will serve the needs of different demand partners across different niches, then you must have support for detailed targeting. Your targeting features should include enough targeting metrics. Here is an example of such:
• Targeting by location
• Targeting by interest
• Keyword targeting
• Demographic targeting
• Contextual targeting etc.
There are more targeting metrics; the best practice would be defining what your demand partners need and setting up targeting options for them.
Your ad tech should offer demand partners the flexibility of choosing ad delivery style and ad payment type. This is important as ad campaigns and ad content are not the same, and not every format works for every ad content type. For instance, video ads will normally require VAST and VPAID capabilities and support for different video ad formats (including interactive ones). Incorporating the VAST audio format into your ad network can offer advertisers a dynamic way to engage audiences through immersive sound experiences. There are other ad delivery types; you should do thorough research to implement the necessary delivery modules.
Performance Tracking
No advertising platform can function without adequate performance tracking; To have a realistic view of the performance of your ad exchange, you should integrate the necessary tracking tools. You should be curious about the efficiency of media trading in your marketplace. For example, you would want to keep track of which SSPs (supply partners) drive the most traffic, what types of traffic DSPs prefer, and which ad formats are most frequently purchased. Leveraging a DOOH campaign can provide advertisers with innovative ways to reach audiences in outdoor settings, enhancing brand visibility.
Compliance
In recent times, there have been regulatory demands that aim to protect the privacy of end-users, and all online advertising networks must adhere to these regulations. As an ad network owner, you should be able to provide your partners with a system that is compliant with relevant regulations.
Hidden Costs
Considering the demand for the features highlighted above, one can only imagine what it would cost to create a digital ad network from scratch. The truth is that you may not be able to determine the real cost until the end of the project because there would be a lot of unseen and hidden costs that would rear up while in the middle of development.
Hidden costs refer to other expenses that were not envisaged during budgeting. Most times, it’s not about how diligent you are; you don’t just see these costs until you get started. So while you make a budget, you should also include “hidden cost” in the budget.
What Can Unseen or Hidden Costs Include?
Ad server maintenance and upgrade
You don’t have to think about how to build an ad server. You will have to routinely upgrade the system and run maintenance to ensure that the ad server is efficient, fast, and available at all times. Running maintenance costs money that may not be easily ascertained. Sometimes you may need to pay for repairs that you did not expect. If an ad server with 1 million monthly impressions tries to scale up to 100 million without a team dedicated to cost optimization and mitigating ad serving difficulties, it will collapse.
Certifications and audits
Furthermore, creating an ad solution necessitates the acquisition of additional software tools, certifications, and audits. These expenses are easy to ignore or underestimate during budgeting. Nevertheless, they are essential services that come at a cost. Besides wages, you can spend more than $100,000 each year for certifications.
Cost of keeping full-time engineers
If you choose to create from scratch, you must be willing to employ the services of in-house ad network software engineers and QA test who would maintain and operate the system. They have to ensure maximum uptime and system efficiency. At least five employees would be required to manage an ad serving system that manages 500 million monthly requests; this would cost over $600,000 in salaries at the average engineering salary of $125k.
On the positive side, ad exchanges with in-house teams are more likely to achieve more yields and better efficiency.
According to experts, developing from scratch would take several months to possibly a few years to have a sophisticated and efficient product. Of course, you can build a very simple ad system without any of these features in less time and much less money. But doing so would only limit you, and the business would most likely fail for lack of patronage. Rather than attempt to start your ad network from scratch, which can be problematic and expensive, you can adopt white-label solutions.
Although it may be difficult and misleading to estimate the true cost of creating your own ad network from scratch, it will cost around $800 thousand per year to maintain your own ad exchange or ad network.
What Does the Cost Breakdown Include?
• Wages for developers, engineers, and other experts;
• Cost of tools and audits.
Don’t get discouraged yet; you can still own your ad network by taking advantage of white-label ad servers. Your white-label ad network can be more efficient if you approach the right vendor. This is because you will have a team of dedicated experts who handle the backend operations while you focus on your business.
Conclusion
In this article, we revealed how an ad network works, how to build your own ad network, ad network examples, and many other moments that will be helpful to you if you are interested in building an ad network platform.
As you can see, the ad network technology is having a boost worldwide because it streamlines the process of purchasing and selling advertisements, freeing publishers and advertisers from such routine tasks as individually sourcing appropriate media channels for each ad, negotiating CPA and PPC rates, and manually deploying ad banners or content placements.
If you decide to develop your own online ad network solution, we strongly advise you to thoroughly assess your skills, as this is very demanding. Or, if you’re searching for a much simpler and faster way to enter the ad network realm, you can use white-label solutions. With Attekmi, you can get a fully customized platform that meets all of your company’s requirements and that can be fully serviced by our team so that you can easily grow your revenue. Additionally, we offer AdEx Basic and AdEx Plus ad exchange solutions that will allow you to join the programmatic environment much faster.
Explore the case studies of Attekmi with a detailed description of our partners` programmatic business journey and impressive results on their ad exchange platforms.
Does Attekmi seem to be the right choice? Let’s get in touch!
FAQ
What is an ad network, and why would I want to create my own?
An ad network is a platform that connects advertisers with publishers to display ads on various websites or applications. Creating your own ad network can provide control over ad placements, target specific audiences, and generate revenue from advertisers. It offers customization, increased monetization opportunities, and the ability to optimize ad performance based on your specific goals.
What kind of technical skills do I need to build an ad network?
To build an ad network, you need a solid understanding of web development, including front-end and back-end technologies. Proficiency in programming languages such as JavaScript, HTML, and CSS is crucial. Additionally, knowledge of database management, server-side scripting, and APIs is essential. Strong analytical skills and familiarity with ad serving platforms and online advertising concepts are also beneficial.
How much money do I need to invest to create an ad network from scratch?
The amount of money required to build an ad network from scratch can vary significantly based on various factors such as the scale, features, and advertising technology stack involved. It can range from a few thousand dollars for a basic setup to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for a more robust and scalable platform with advanced features and infrastructure.
What are some common mistakes or pitfalls to avoid when building an ad network?
When building an ad network, some common mistakes to avoid include inadequate planning and research, underestimating technical requirements, neglecting ad quality control, overlooking legal and compliance issues, and failing to establish strong partnerships with advertisers and publishers. It’s important to prioritize transparency, scalability, and a user-friendly interface while ensuring strict measures against ad fraud and optimizing ad targeting capabilities.