Adsense as a Platform and What it Means for Publishers

Google Adsense is not an ad network. It’s an advertising platform, and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is taking steps to open it up.

Google Adsense shows off its platform.

Google Adsense is not an ad network. It’s an advertising platform, and Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is taking steps to open it up.

Adsense is taking its next step to opening up the platform by allowing other display advertising companies to place ads on Adsense Publishers’ sites.

For example, Google may be able to offer you a $1 CPM on display ads on your site, while another ad network can offer $2. The other ad network’s ad would show on your site, resulting in more money in your pocket.

I foresee Google becoming an ad optimization system, similar to the parking systems that used automate which parking company to send your traffic to.

So isn’t this great news? It seems so on the surface. It should mean more money and convenience for publishers in the short term. Small publishers will win the most, as they don’t have the clout or time to shop around to different display advertising networks.

If you're unfamiliar with what ad networks are, they're companies
that partner with advertisers and publishers to buy and sell ads
on sites that they don't own themselves, similar to AdSense. Ads
from these networks will compete with Google ads to show on
publisher sites, and the ad generating the highest revenue for
publishers will be displayed.

To ensure the quality of the ads appearing on your sites, we're
certifying all participating ad networks for adherence to our
standards for user privacy, ad quality and speed. You'll also have
control over which networks can show ads on your pages - you can
choose to opt out of receiving ads from specific networks, or all
networks completely. This means you can continue to show ads from
only AdWords advertisers if you like.

In the long run, competing ad networks may become more reliant on Google. Google will provide easy ad inventory to them, which will result in ad networks taking their eye off the ball on acquiring more ad inventory. You may even see ad networks pop up that have no inventory and focus solely on getting high-paying advertisers.