Google AdMob or Google Ad Manager or AdX? What’s Best?

Google AdMob & Google AdX are two of the biggest monetization platforms for publishers and developers. Google AdMob is a mobile ad network, while Google AdX is an ad exchange that supports both Web and mobile app & game inventories.

More than the revenue share, publishers need to focus on revenue efficiency by finding the one platform that can scale their app revenue. This article compares the two platforms in more detail to help you decide which one suits your monetization needs.

Google AdMob

Millions of apps are available, but only a fraction of them are able to reach their full earning potential. This is because they don’t get the right exposure or have the right targeting. Google AdMob levels the playing field and helps you reach those millions of users that can discover your app and enhance your revenue through AdMob by connecting with multiple mobile ad networks.

Google Ad Exchange (AdX)

Google Ad Exchange is a very popular ad exchange platform that allows large publishers to sell their ad inventory to advertisers and agencies. Through this technology-driven platform, publishers can receive the highest price possible for their ad spaces while also helping advertisers and agencies target consumers more efficiently. This helps publishers get more value out of their inventory, which allows them to find more opportunities for future projects. With a clean user interface, AdX brings transparency and efficiency to the exchange through a combination of auction-based technology and price floors.

Is Google Ad Manager and AdX the same?

Google Ad Manager (GAM) is a powerful ad management platform that allows publishers to harness the power of multiple ad networks through a single interface, including Google AdSense and Ad Exchange. GAM’s simplified workflow makes it easy for Google publishers to leverage advertising networks together in one place.

How to create a Google Ad Manager Account in 2024?

Here’s a breakdown of the process:

Sign in to your Adsense account and ensure it’s active.
Open a new tab and go to Ad Manager.
Click “Get Started” and select the category that best describes your business.
Specify the number of page views your site gets per month and any features you’re looking for.
Indicate whether you have an existing Adsense account and your industry and location.
Click on “Save and Continue”.
If you meet the requirements, you can sign up for Ad Manager. Click on “Sign up for Ad Manager.”
Set up your network settings, including how you want to be notified.
Read and accept the terms and conditions, then click on “Save”.
Go to “Admin” and then “Global Settings” to set up your display name and enable API access.
Click on “Confirm” and “Save”.

The video concludes by promoting a course offered by MonetizeMore on how to become more profitable as a publisher using AdSense, Google Ad Exchange, and Google Ad Manager.

Google AdMob vs Google AdX: Main Differences

The answer to this question depends on what you are looking for. Google AdMob is a mobile app monetization platform while Google AdX is an exchange network offering real-time bidding on ad inventory to ad networks along with AdSense, DSPs, etc.

Google AdMob:

It is a mobile app monetization platform that makes it easy for publishers to monetize their apps and games by displaying ads on them. It has a wide range of features such as app installs, in-app purchases, and targeted ads. Publishers using AdMob have VIP access to third-party networks & Google demand sources.

Admob leverages open bidding and waterfall mediation to maximize the publisher’s app revenue. The disadvantage that comes with waterfall mediation is lower eCPMs and poor fill rates. In AdMob, publishers can target their ad inventory based solely on geolocation which is quite restrictive.

Google AdX:

It is an exchange network offering real-time bidding on ad inventory to ad networks along with AdSense, DSPs, etc. Bids in AdX are placed based on factors like CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (cost per click), or CPV (cost per view). Google AdX publishers have more control as they can access a wider array of advertisers & DSPs using ad exchange.

They are not only restricted to apps for monetization but can also access more inventory-type options including rich media, video, gaming, website ad inventory, etc. The more the competition for ad inventory, the better the fill rate resulting in increased ad revenue for each ad unit.

Google Ad Exchange offers better visualization with real-time dashboards where publishers can monitor ad unit performance. AdX also comes with granular targeting so that you can dig deeper into metrics including inventory type, device type, impressions, pageviews, etc.

How to Sign-up for Google Ad Exchange?

Getting started with Google Ad Manager (GAM) isn’t always easy. GAM only provides access to AdX only to bigger publishers whose site gets around 5 billion pageviews per month while complying to brand safety measures.

Few publishers get invited by Google while most sign up through third-party AdX partners like MonetizeMore. Our AdOps experts can help you set up a Google Ad Manager account & get approved fast. Being a top Google AdX partner for publishers around the world, we give you access to premium advertisers who’ll pay top dollar for your ad inventory.

AdSense & AdX Optimization

Adsense and AdX Optimization is the mechanism where we let these two Google products compete with each other for inventories. Given that AdX is the premium version of AdSense, it has a larger network of advertisers and tends to provide higher CPMs compared to that of Adsense. Optimization of these two takes place inside Google Ad Manager. Split optimization is performed daily to ensure maximum performance.

Once you’re partnered with MonetizeMore, we will maximize the revenue from your Adsense and Ad Exchange accounts. We’ve done it successfully, so we’d like to share with you some ways how you can achieve this via this experiment: