An Extensive in-depth Review of the services of “AdGlare Ad Server” after using it for three months. Please note that this is not an affiliate post. It is a post that we chose to write as thanks to the amazing service provided by “AdGlare Ad Server.” It is purely a user based review.
AdGlare: Review Of AdGlare Ad Server Software
The Ultimate AdGlare Review
Ours is almost a decade old social services website which has been online since 2009. We carry out free health awareness programs in remote and impoverished areas in our community. Over a period, we have seen a considerable increase in the number of viewers and page views at our site. In the same span of time, the cost of carrying out health awareness programs has also risen.
So, to generate some additional revenues to help our cause, we thought to run advertising campaigns on our website. We were very confident about the statistics of our site and assumed that our target companies would readily accept our proposal. We did not anticipate the demands of the advertising world. We just thought that once the deal is finalized, we will get the HTML Advertising codes, place it in our website header or sidebar and our advertising system is ready to go.
But we were wrong. The advertising scenario does not work so simple.
During the interactions with our target companies/advertisers we were asked to provide the following details:
- The total number of impressions generated for any period during the campaign. For example, providing statistics for one day or 1 week or 10 days, etc.
- The live statistics for any ad banner uploaded in the peak hours.
- Ad statistics based on geography, languages, devices, operating systems, and browsers.
- Geo-targeting of ads – which means the capacity to control the visibility of the ads based on a country or city.
- The traffic sources for the ad banners.
- Detailed generated reports for the ad campaigns.
- The loading time of ads.
- What are the various modes of ads? For example, the companies were not satisfied with plain banner ads. They wanted to check different locations to place the ads and choose the one that is performing well.
- They wanted to use our e-mail database. So we were also asked to provide an ad system for e-mail based advertising and tracking.
- Do you have the capacity to serve video ads?
These were just some of the questions. In short, we were supposed to provide a complete advertising system and an ad server.
To speak the truth we were very embarrassed. We had just assumed that it would be a cakewalk securing an advertising deal. However, now we had another task at our hand – to create an advertising system for our modest website.
One way was to create a native ad serving system. To achieve that we would have required hiring developers to develop software that can track all the statistics which were demanded by the advertisers. We would also need to purchase powerful servers to handle the advertisement views/impressions. This approach would have cost us much money. For modest websites, it is not feasible to invest such a massive amount in hosting resources and then spending regularly to maintain or upgrade the resources.
The second way was to use an ad server company. On searching, you will come across many online ad serving companies that will handle most of the things that are required to run your advertising campaigns. These companies will charge you based on time duration (per month) or the number of impressions. The benefit is you need not worry anymore about arranging the resources. All you need to do is upload your ad creatives, and the ad server company takes care of the rest.
But the downside is pricing and plans. Most of these ad servers charge a hefty amount per month, or you need to pay based on the number of impressions. Each company provides different plans/facilities for their packages. So, it gets very confusing to choose an ad server company and a plan which is suitable or financially feasible for your website.
Being a modest website, we were finding it hard to decide on an ad server. During our search, we came across one ad server company with good features and also a very gracious free/community version. We contacted them via support mail, writing in detail about our requirements and pricing constraints. We got a reply in 5 minutes, and within next one hour, we were ready with our very own ad serving system.
The ad serving system that we are using is AdGlare Ad Server.
In this post, we will discuss some of best features of AdGlare ad server and how it can benefit your website.
AdGlare ad server works with all types of CMS
AdGlare ad server system is compatible with every CMS out there including WordPress. They also provide a specific plugin for WordPress users. It is simple to install and easy to use.
AdGlare delivers powerful resources and makes your website faster
Displaying advertisements on your website demands resources like powerful server and high bandwidth. There are chances that the page load time of your website might increase when you are using advertising banners/videos. This increased load time will reduce the user experience and affect your Google rankings.
AdGlare provides very powerful dedicated servers to run your ad campaigns. You do not need to upload any ad banners to your website. You just need to upload the ad creatives (photos, videos, HD Videos, etc.) to the AdGlare servers. They will take care of all the hosting and bandwidth, without putting any strain on your website, thus making your website faster even with advertising banners. So, now you can have the benefit of a fast loading website along with all the advertising creatives.
The data centers of AdGlare are spread all over the world. So, they take care of any latency issues. For example, if your website is based in Asia, AdGlare will set you a data center based in Singapore. So, whenever a visitor visits your website pages, the ads will be loaded from the data center nearest to you, i.e., Singapore. It reduces the loading time of advertising banners/creatives.
From our experience, we can say that the ads on our website, being served by AgGlare are lightning fast. Here is a Pingdom report of the header ad we are displaying which is hosted at AdGlare. The high-resolution gif loads only in 49 ms!
It is effortless to implement Ads with AdGlare ad server
For using AdGlare, you do not need to install anything on your existing server. Even if you are on shared hosting for your website, AdGlare will work just fine. Using AdGlare, a site of any size (from big to small) can provide an enterprise level advertising system.
AdGlare works on a SAAS (software as a service) model. Everything related to advertising management takes place on the mighty dedicated servers of AdGlare, putting no strain on your website. The engineers at AdGlare will make sure that the systems are updated and working. You can just sit back and relax.
With AdGlare, it is effortless to load ads on your website. It is a matter of 5 steps:
- You can use the AdGlare WordPress plugin if you are on WordPress. You can also use direct implementation if you are on any other CMS or do not want to use the plugin.
- Log in to your AgGlare dashboard.
- Upload your ad creatives like pictures, banners, videos (HD supported), animations, etc.
- Generate the HTML code and put them on your websites. If you have been managing your website for some time, you will quickly put the codes in the header or footer. In case you are on WordPress, you can use the WordPress plugin to make it easier for you. In the case of any doubt, you can always ask the AdGlare support team.
- Your ads are now live!
“With AdGlare you can be ready with your enterprise level advertising system in 5 minutes.”
Asynchronous Ads Loading and Lazy Loading
These are two features that separate AdGlare ad server from rest of the lot. As mentioned in the previous point, to display ads you will insert HTML codes of the advertisements on your website. In regular cases, these additional codes tend to slow down your website. However, AdGlare uses asynchronous loading & lazy loading that makes your site faster, improving the user experience.
Asynchronous loading of Ads: This technique is used by the global powerhouses like Google, Yahoo, etc. With AdGlare you also can use this feature in serving ads on your website.
To explain in simple words: When you are displaying ad banners at your site, you have two different sets being displayed. One is the advertisement. Second is your website content. With the help of AdGlare asynchronous loading, the advertisement creatives and your website content load independent of each other.
“AdGlare makes sure that your website content is loaded first and then the advertisement.”
This feature makes your website very fast even with advertisements.
Lazy Loading of Ads: This feature also helps in reducing the page load time, making your website faster.
Lazy loading makes sure that the advertisements are loaded only when the user scrolls to the area where the ad is visible.
“The advertisements are displayed only when the user scrolls to the area where the ad is placed.”
These two features of asynchronous ad loading and lazy loading are given by many other ad serving companies as a premium service only. However, AdGlare provides these two elements in all the plans, including the free ones.
AdGlare is compatible with Devices of all sizes
It is now a known fact that maximum visitors to any website comes from mobile phones followed by desktops and tablets. There are so many devices of different screen sizes from where a user can access your website.
So to maintain the user experience, any advertisement that you put on your website must be responsive and adapt to the screen size being used.
“All the advertisements that are served by AdGlare ad server automatically adjust to the various screen sizes.”
All the advertisements that are served by AdGlare ad server automatically adjust to various screen sizes.
You also get the option to assign particular ad banner sizes exclusively for the people visiting your site via a mobile phone.
This feature is made available by many competing companies only as a premium feature. However, AdGlare provides this functionality in all the plans including the free plans.
AdGlare delivers a fantastic dashboard for keeping track of Ad Campaigns
AdGlare provides you with a beautifully designed dashboard to keep track of all your advertising statistics. Just log in to your panel and, all the stats that you want are displayed clearly.
The AdGlare dashboard gives you the following information:
- The number of impressions (based on time).
- The real-time statistical data of your advertising banners & videos.
- The geographical location from where the impressions and visitors are coming.
- The best performing ad campaigns.
Real-time statistics:
The dashboard of AdGlare also provides you the live real-time stats for your advertising campaigns with just 1-minute delay. It is a handy tool to showcase the power of your website to the advertisers.
“The statistics provide by AdGlare ad server are sufficient to fulfill any statistical demands of your advertisers”
Separate sections of the dashboard with different matrices
AdGlare Geo-Targeting of Ads
AdGlare provides you the capacity to geo-target your advertisements. You just need to select the country you want to target and click save. That is all you need to do. Your ads will be seen only by the visitors from the country of your choosing.
You can even target a particular city in a country using AdGlare ad server systems. So, if any your client wants their ad to be visible only to the residents of a specific city (e.g., Amsterdam), AdGlare gives you the power to do that.
AdGlare gives you the power to customize the ads behavior
AdGlare also provides you the ability to customize the action of the advertisements. You can customize ads based on:
Language: (The ads will be shown only to the visitors based on your language choice)
Browsers: You can also control the display of advertisements based on the browsers being used.
Devices: You can also select which devices will be able to show the advertisements. For example, you can choose the ads to appear only on mobile phones.
With AdGlare you get to use different types of ad formats and placements
Gone are those days, when advertisement just meant placing a banner somewhere on the website. Nowadays, any company looking to market their products/brand at your site will ask for various types of ad formats and placements. They want the best value for the money being paid to your website. AdGlare
AdGlare gives you the option to use various formats of ad creatives and placements.
You just need to create your ad zones, upload your ad creatives and choose the placement.
“AdGlare gives you the option to use multiple ad formats and different placements on your website.”
If you want to check the live demos of the various formats: Check this Demo Page
Generating advertising reports for your campaigns
With the use of AdGlare, you can generate a complete statement of the statistics for your advertising campaigns.
You can generate reports for a single day or 1 week or the entire duration of the campaign.
It is beneficial in explaining the results of the campaign to the advertisers. The generated report will have all the statistics that we have discussed earlier in the review. Such detailed descriptions increase the faith that the advertisers have on your website brand.
Amazing Customer Support
For any software company to be efficient, they must have interactive and empathetic customer support. In this regard, AdGlare ad server scores a home run. AdGlare is managed by a talented group of engineers who respond promptly to all the queries. I am saying this from my own experience. I had emailed to the support team regarding AdGlare services and also about the limited resources of our website. Within one hour, they replied to my mail. Within next two hours, we were ready with our advertising system.
The whole system at AdGlare is so easy to use that you will hardly have any problem in getting the things done. Even if you do, then the support is quick and efficient.
A quick recap of all the features of AdGlare Ad Server
Pricing of AdGlare ad server
The pricing of AdGlare is very reasonable and competitive compared to other ad servers. AdGlare also provides a free community edition with 1 million ad requests per month. That is perhaps the maximum number of ad impressions offered for free compared to any other ad server system.
Concluding points:
We have been using Ad Glare ad server for last three months, and we have seen almost 80 % increase in our advertising revenue. We are a very modest website with limited resources on shared hosting. However, with the help of Ad Glare ad server, we can provide an enterprise level advertising solution to our advertisers. The response of the advertisers has been very positive. They appreciate the detailed analytics and various types of ad formats/placements that we are now able to provide. Due to the increased advertising revenue, we are now able to offer more free health awareness programs in our community.
The engineers at AdGlare make sure that the systems are updated and working. You will not need to worry about any system or server updates. Just upload the advertising creatives and relax.
Of course, be ready to wow your advertisers.
So, if you want a robust advertising system for your website, then AdGlare can be an excellent choice. They have designed a demo members page where you can log in to the dashboard and test all the features.
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