313Blog - Compare Ad Manager, AdSense, and AdMob

Compare Ad Manager, AdSense, and AdMob

Posted on 25th Apr 2024

Compare Ad Manager, AdSense, and AdMob

Source: Google Learning

Google Ad Manager, AdSense, and AdMob are powerful products that help you sell ads on your site or app. Each provides different features suited to different kinds of publishers. This article helps you choose the product that's the right fit for your advertising needs. 

 

AdSense 

AdSense acts as an ad network, providing you access to demand from advertisers and helping you set up your ad inventory. AdSense is best for publishers who want more automation for their ad solutions, and have a small dedicated ad management team.

AdSense is for you if you need:

AdMob 

AdMob is a mobile ad network and monetization platform for mobile developers who want to earn money from ads, gain actionable insights, and grow their app business. As a network, AdMob allows you to monetize your mobile apps by helping you serve ads globally. As a monetization platform, for developers who work with multiple ad networks, AdMob helps you maximize ad revenue across all your third-party network partners.

AdMob is for you if you need:

Ad Manager 

Google Ad Manager is an ad management platform for large publishers who have significant direct sales. Ad Manager provides granular controls and supports multiple ad exchanges and networks, including AdSense, Ad Exchange, third-party networks, and third-party exchanges.

Ad Manager is for you if you need:

  • A central place to monetize all of your inventory types (websites, mobile apps, videos, or games)
  • To manage a significant amount of ad revenue that comes through direct deals from buyers
  • To use third-party networks to compete for ad inventory
  • More complex reports to gain granular insights

Common misconceptions

"Ad Manager serves higher quality ads" Not true

AdSense, AdMob, and Ad Manager publishers have access to the same premium Authorized Buyers. You can serve high-quality ads from all three platforms.

"Ad Manager is a premium version of AdSense" Not true

Ad Manager is a different product to AdSense and AdMob. Ad Manager is a unified platform with granular inventory controls and other features that allow you to manage direct sales, third-party networks, and programmatic demand across desktop, mobile web and apps.

Differences between products 

 

Google Ad Manager
(ad platform)

Google AdSense
(ad network)

Google AdMob
(ad platform)

Google AdMob
(ad network) 

Inventory types available

Web + App 

Web

App

App

Use other ad networks or negotiate directly-sold ads

Yes

No

Yes

No

Just tag pages to see ads

Yes, if you allow AdSense to show through Ad Manager

Yes

N/A

N/A

Make AdSense network compete with other ad networks to maximize revenue

Yes

No

Yes

 

AdMob Network = Google demand + third-party bidding sources

No 

Consistent reporting across all ad serving activities

Yes

N/A

Yes

Yes

Google manages payments to you and billing your advertisers or collecting payable amounts from ad networks

Yes, for Authorized Buyers, bidding, and transactions through Programmatic Direct

Yes

No, payments to you come directly from your advertisers or ad networks and you manage billing and collection

Yes

No, for traditionally negotiated line items, payments to you come directly from your advertisers or ad networks and you manage billing and collection

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