Crenk

For the last few months or so I have been using Google Ad Manager to control the advertising on Crenk. Currently the service is in private beta and you have to be invited to join. Up until a few days ago I was using the service, but since have dropped it and I just thought I would write a short article and let every know why.

The user interface within this very simple to use ad server is great. It is very easy to use and even easier to understand. Google Ad Manager has some great targeting tools which you would expect from Google. That all being said the one thing that is completely useless with the service is when it comes to implementing the ad tags into your site. Currently, the only ad tags they offer are in html code, so you need to add the code straight into your websites code and cannot add to another third party ad server. Thus, making it completely useless for the majority of people to use. I know the majority of small sites are able embed code straight into their site, but once a site gets quite large, you normally have several third party networks running. Thus, needing to control these networks with a high end ad server like Doubleclick or Atlas. This option is just not there with Google Ad Manager. I would definitely recommend it to small websites, but if you are either a large website, ad network, network of sites and anything else but a small single publisher, then Ad Manager is not for you!