Ad-servers - Part II

In this article we’ll take a close look at how ad-servers actually serve the ads that the user sees.

The first step, our imaginary company Weightloss (WL) has to place its ads into its ad-server. The ad-sever then creates tags. The tags give the following details –

Ad size

Where the ad can be located on the web page

The tags are sent to the publisher alongwith information on WL’s campaign like –

Number of times a day it has to appear also called frequency cap. An ad can be 1/24 frequency capped, meaning it appears once in 24 hours on a particular PC, or 2/24 meaning it appears twice in 24 hours etc

Demographics of the targeting i.e. should the ad be targeted to men/women of a certain age group, who have specific interests ( interested in golf, gardening..)

Geography to which it is targeted – Campaigns could be targeted to the UK, US, Germany….

Specific time during the day when the ad should appear

All of WL’s campaign instructions are now loaded onto our imaginary newspaper the England Journal ‘s(EJ) ad-server. The ads themselves reside on WL’s ad-servers. The EJ similarly receives tags from other advertisers as well.

What happens next?

Suppose a user enters the website URL of The England Journal onto their PC, the EJ website is displayed on his/her PC. What is loaded on the user’s PC is content… A logical question that arises is – How does an ad get loaded onto a user’s browser? The user’s browser follows instructions it receives from The EJ, which in turn directs to get an ad from the EJ ad-server.

The EJ server in turn instructs the WL ad-server to serve an ad. The WL ad-server then has to figure out which ad to show. A cookie helps the WL ad-server in this process. When the EJ ad-server sent the user’s PC content, it also sent it a cookie. A cookie is a small piece of software that travels between the EJ ad-server and the WL ad-server. A cookie identifies a browser. A cookie controls the number of times the user sees an ad, has user information like age, sex , preferences etc.

The EJ ad-server selects the ad and serves it on the user’s PC. The ad selected is based on user information provided by the cookie. When WL’s ad-server sends an ad to the User’s PC, it also sends it a cookie which allows it to identify the user’s browser. This allows WL’s ad-server to track number of times an ad is shown on the user’s PC.

The process of serving an ad, though happens in a few seconds, is a fairly involved process. This process is completely managed by the different ad-servers in the network without any human intervention whatsoever. Amazing isn’t it?

Ad-serving Part 2

As a continuation of my earlier article on basics of ad-serving, I will be dwelling a bit in depth on ad-serving and how it works.

As a first step let’s look at how ad-servers target ads that the user sees on his PC. In a typical online ad display, there necessarily are two ad-servers ( if not more)- the publisher ad-server and the advertiser ad-server.

The publisher ad-sever decides which advertiser’s ad to show. The advertiser ad-server decide which ad to show from among it’s stock of ads.

Going back to our imaginary newspaper of yesterday, the England Journal (EJ). How does the EJ’s ad-server decide which ads a user Roger is going to see? The ads Roger’s browser has show and the ads he has clicked on play a role in which ads Roger sees. Roger’s demographic information – age, sex etc – will also play a role in what he sees. To understand how this can happen, let’s assume that Roger has registered himself on another website with him name, age, sex, kind of work he does etc… Many a publisher shares this demographic information with other ad-servers so that they can demographically target ads.

For example, therefore, a website (publisher) might tell an ad-server that Roger is a male between 35 and 40. And that fact that Roger often visits home and decor websites identifies him as a person who is interested in garden, furnishing etc. Roger might therefore, find that a number of home decor ads start to appear on his website. Roger’s computer IP ( Internet Protocol ) is used by ad-servers as well. An IP address helps identify around what area a PC is located.

Is ad-serving an intrusion into one’s privacy? Do they have your personal details like name sex, email id etc? Not quite. Ad-severs target primarily to an IP address – they do not have any personal details like name, phone number emai lid etc. They primarily target people’s interests, demographics and where people are located.