It is not easy for a brand to stand out in the sea of online ads. Although the appearance of an ad is very important, there is also a technical side to it that is rarely talked about, and this is what AdCumulus is all about. With that in mind, AdCumulus has developed Ad Server – a result of broad marketing and technical expertise. Today, Ad Server handles more than 11TB of data each day and receives millions of ad requests.

But what is it that makes Ad Server so special?

An ad’s journey – behind the scenes

The life span of an ad seems simple – if someone likes it, they click on it; if they don’t, they ignore it. But there is nothing simple about what goes around behind the scenes.

Imagine that you have a stunning ad and you want everyone to see it. For that to succeed, you need a good ad placement and the right audience. Let’s see how Ad Server takes care of that.

Putting your ad in the right spot – automatically

There are two main types of campaigns – premium and performance. Premium campaigns are distributed to previously selected websites and applications only, while the performance type functions on the “blind“ principle, meaning that ads can be displayed anywhere in the entire network. Thankfully, Ad Server is built to find the best place for each ad.

Once, buying and selling ad space was a lengthy work involving a lot of time, energy and human contact. Today, it’s done automatically while a webpage is loading (read: in milliseconds!) and this process is called real-time bidding (RTB).

In other words, this means that Ad Server finds optimal pairs of buyers and sellers in real time and makes purchases for you, which leads to better and faster results.

Less work and more optimization at the same time? Exactly.

Finding people who care about your ad

Trying to market your product to everyone is, mildly said, a bad marketing strategy. Each product has its own potential buyers. Let’s say that you only want to reach mobile users in Croatia who own an iPhone with the latest iOS version. Ad Server’s precise targeting can easily make that happen.

However, many users don’t convert right away – they get distracted or give up along the purchase funnel for various reasons. A digital marketing concept called retargeting can help turn those users into customers by reminding them of the previously seen ad offer, for example, a new laptop they were checking out on your tech website earlier. It is possible to retarget users that have already visited the advertiser’s page, seen one or more previous campaigns, or even clicked on a banner from a specific campaign.

Moreover, premium campaigns have advanced options to place a limit on at the level of impressions or clicks in a specific period. This concept, also known as capping, is applicable to campaigns, ad groups or ads, a user’s session or site/application only. This way, a user is not constantly haunted by a specific ad, which results in a better user experience as well.

Fraud prevention

A major problem when it comes to online advertising is fraud. Nobody wants to pay for fake clicks, so AdCumulus has been studying fraudsters’ behavior over the years. As a result, Ad Server has an advanced built-in algorithm for fraud detection, which distinguishes real users from bots based on their behavioral partners. This way, you can be sure that each penny invested in marketing will be spent on your ad campaign.

Learning from data

What use is data if you can’t transform it into meaningful and actionable business information? Ad Server’s interactive dashboards allow data grouping, filtering, sorting and exporting of information. Campaign reports are flexible and each user can select the dimensions and parameters they need. Once created, a filter can be saved and re-used again later.

Ad Server’s campaign reports give you a better insight into current trends and ad performance based on various criteria such as CTR, page views, unique visitors, and more. Therefore, it is easy to see what performs well and what doesn’t and improve your marketing strategy accordingly. Learning from experience leads to a better, more successful business.

The ad future is bright

Marketing is an extremely dynamic industry, so it’s important to keep up. Our clients are well aware of new trends and changes and it’s our mission to offer them the best at any time. We know that a successful ad owes a lot to the technology behind it, so we are constantly in search of new ways to make our software even better.

Programmatic advertising is the next big thing in the world of online advertising and we are already taking steps to make it a part of our own strategy. However, there are many other exciting things cooking in AdCumulus’ kitchen, so stay tuned because we can’t wait to show you more!