Glossary A–ZLetter A
Ad server
An ad server is a system that manages which ad is delivered when and where, and counts the deliveries.
It holds campaigns, flight dates, targets and rules. After each delivery it records what has run.
On the web, the ad server decides afresh with every page view. In screen networks, this task is often handled by the management system itself, which schedules advertising into the loop. Larger networks also use a separate ad server that combines campaigns from several sales houses and passes the slots to the management system. An example: the ad server specifies that a creative should run ten times an hour on all screens in a city until Sunday.
An ad server only counts what it has delivered. Whether the screen actually showed the creative is only confirmed by the player's report. Operators should make sure that the plan in the ad server and actual playback are reconciled, for instance when a device was offline. Differences between the two figures are normal and should be explainable.