Google's DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) ad server has wide adoption for a few reasons:
It's free for anyone with under 90 million monthly impressions. No other vendor offers such a deal
It provides instant access to their Adx ad exchange, potentially increasing the CPMs publishers make from programmatic ads
It's reliable - both from an infrastructure perspective and a business one (Google is not going under any time soon)
Where does DoubleClick fall short?
There are three main reasons:
It's not flexible
It's not server-side
It's Google
To dive in deeper:
Flexibility
There's a reason that Facebook, Pinterest, eBay, and many other brands with innovative ad platforms chose to build their own versus rely on Google's tools.
(Facebook's Promoted Posts were built in-house)
Namely - DFP, as an out-of-the-box solution, provides little customization ability and doesn't make it easy to:
Show native advertising units - Google's focus is on programmatic spend, which generally revolves around IAB-sized ads bought and sold through ad exchanges. Such tools work well for displaying banner ads, but less so for custom native ads that blend in seamlessly into the user experience.
If your desire is to integrate innovative ads with a unique look and feel, then DoubleClick can't provide such flexibility.
Build a self-serve advertising portal - Many brands see the value of building white-labeled portals for advertisers to log into, manage campaigns, and see reporting. Google's ad server makes it nearly impossible to do this without hacks that can cause bugs and slow the system.
It's not server-side
Client-side JavaScript ad tags, like those used by Google, are the industry standard for ad serving, but they come with many issues:
Slow sites and apps - Ad tags are notoriously slow - occasionally a couple of seconds - causing jumpy content, poor browsing experiences, and user attrition.
No revenue from ad block users - Whether you're worried about desktop ad blocking or mobile ad blocking, Google's on-page tags will get stopped by these blockers. This means that roughly 30% of your inventory can't be monetized if you're using DoubleClick (even for direct-sold ads).
Hidden cookies - Any third-party script could drop cookies unbeknownst to you - which could then harvest and sell user data.
Not GDPR/CCPA compliant - While ad tags themselves aren't inherently non-compliant, the issue is that the tag - not you - decides what data to send the vendor. This could result in inadvertent leakage of PII, leaving you prone to potential lawsuits.
The alternative to JavaScript solutions like DoubleClick are server-side ad servers, which allow you to integrate the ad serving tech into your backend web and mobile apps directly, without needing client-side code.
It's Google
Finally, DFP is owned by Google. Given they are a tech behemoth with many product lines, working with DoubleClick means that you may be enabling a competitor through data sharing/revenue.
Additionally, relying on Google to power your ad stack means your revenue is at their whims.
Indeed, Google’s announcement that their Chrome browser will be sunsetting third-party cookies rattled the industry, which is already feeling the impact of Apple’s Safari browser doing the same.
Ultimately, if you're making millions using Google's DoubleClick, you have to ask yourself, "Am I prepared to adapt if Google implements a breaking change or changes their privacy policy?"
Companies like Pinterest/Snapchat/etc (who built their own ad products), meanwhile, can exist and grow independent of any changes Google may make.
What are some DoubleClick alternatives?
The right DoubleClick for Publishers alternative will depend on what you're looking for. To that end we've created a quick chart:
Kevel is the market leader in server-side ad serving, enabled through APIs.
With Kevel, brands can launch custom, fully-bespoke ad servers in a fraction of the time and cost of trying to build it from scratch. Companies expecting to build an ad platform in months or a year can use Kevel to easily release the same one in just weeks.
Kevel's clients include Yelp, Bed Bath and Beyond, Ticketmaster, Edmunds, Mozilla, WeTransfer, and more.
When to consider Kevel:
You care about page/app load times and want server-side ad calls instead of JS-tags
You want customization around the look and feel of your ad unit
You want full flexibility around business rules
You want to build a self-serve ad platform
When to think twice:
You want something you can set up in hours
You don't have any engineering resources
2. Adform
Type: Hosted third-party ad server for programmatic ads
Adform is a DFP competitor who focuses on programmatic-focused publishers. Their platform comes with detailed revenue forecasting, analytics for identifying new monetization opportunities, and bidding tools to maximize CPMs.
When to consider them:
You want to launch quickly without needing engineers
Your focus is on programmatic demand
You want tools for understanding and optimizing all your programmatic partners
When to think twice:
You need more customization than what an off-the-shelf ad server can provide
You want flexibility around the look/feel of the ads, targeting options, and more
You don't want to slow down your page/app by using JS-tags/SDKs
Revive is a self-hosted ad platform (via an open source script) you can download for free. After downloading, there is additional work needed to host and run the code.
When to consider them:
You don’t want to pay a monthly fee to a vendor and like the idea of an open source solution
You don't want to build an ad product yourself
You have the engineering resources to download, host, monitor, and update the code
When to think twice:
You need customer support. They have a community website, but you won't have a support team for troubleshooting
You need scale. Revive is a large (and often buggy) script that requires a lot of server costs
You don’t have any engineering resources
4. EPOM
Type: Hosted 3rd-party solution for ad networks
EPOM is a DFP alternative that caters to ad networks; their key value is around white-labeling and turnkey RTB integrations. They are also open to custom development.
When to consider them:
You are starting an ad network and want to white-label existing tech instead of building it yourself
You are having trouble scaling your ad network
When to think twice:
You are not an ad network
If you are price sensitive. For instance, for someone with 50MM monthly display impressions, it would be $2,500/month on EPOM, versus free on GAM (though GAM may not provide the features you want)
5. Broadstreet
Type: Hosted third-party vendor for digital magazines
Broadstreet provides a niche adserver to digital magazines and online news sites whose focus is on direct-sold ads.
When to consider them:
You are a digital magazine / news site with a focus on direct-sales, not programmatic ads
You want an intuitive, simple ad platform. Their pitch is they are DFP without the complexity
When to think twice:
You are not a digital magazine/news site
You want instant revenue via programmatic ads
6. LiveIntent
Type: Hosted third-party ad server for emails
LiveIntent is an ad vendor specifically for companies looking to show ads in their emails, a functionality that Doubleclick for Publishers does not offer.
When to consider them:
You are looking for showing ads in emails
You want programmatic email ads
When to think twice:
You want to fill the ad slots with direct-sold ads or internal promos only. LiveIntent requires you to use their programmatic demand, which can be frustrating to many brands who want to sell ads directly
You want an ad product that can show ads across desktop and mobile too
7. Ad Inserter
Type: WordPress plug-in ad product
If you have a low-traffic WordPress site and DFP seems too complicated, the Ad Inserter WP Plug-in is a good option. It has the most active installations of any WP ad server solutions and provides an easy way to manage direct deals and Google AdSense ads.
When to consider them:
You built your site on WordPress
You don’t have much volume and expect to use Google AdSense entirely
When to think twice:
You want access to more demand than just AdSense
You have more volume than 50K impressions/month
The long-tail third-party options
In addition to the options above, below are other third-party alternatives to Doubleclick, with most being smaller brands with fewer than 15 employees.
The benefits of a smaller company is that support tends to be better, but they usually come with fewer features and run the risk of going under, forcing you to migrate your ad infrastructure.
Should I just build an ad server instead of using DFP?
As mentioned earlier, many brands have built their own ad system rather than relying on a third-party, tag-based vendor.
This path can be quite lucrative, but does require vision, engineers, and time. The in-house ad platforms of Facebook and Amazon, for instance, took years and many, many engineers to build.
Fortunately, you can now build a custom ad server in just weeks
A new industry trend - ad serving APIs - is emerging to help brands build bespoke platforms in a fraction of the time and cost as doing it entirely from scratch. For instance, companies like Ticketmaster and Edmunds have jumped on this new tech to build their own DFP alternatives for displaying their native ads.
The leader in ad APIs is Kevel.
Brands like Yelp, WeTransfer, and many more have used our tools to build custom ad servers, in just weeks. These are fast, server-side, native ad products that they have full control of.
