Adserver

Advertising servers are the technologies that power the delivery, targeting and reporting of online advertising campaigns. They are managed by ad operations departments and are typically run by media owners, media agencies and advertising sales networks. Several adservers may be involved in the delivery of a single campaign. The first advertising servers such as DoubleClick and NetGravity were created in North America in the mid to late 1990s. Their massive adoption became an enabler for the growth of the online advertising industry as they simplified the complexity of scheduling artwork and click-through addresses, as well as enabling a type of accuracy in advertising reporting unparalleled in the advertising industry. Throughout the next decade the number of ad servers and their complexity increased. Consolidation then reduced the number of technologies, and accelerated innovation in the type of targeting, scheduling and reporting. The most widely used adserver is DoubleClick, now part of Google. See also: First party adserver, Third party adserver