Google revamped its ad server technology to help itself and small publishers monetize ads on their sites.
The upgrades include more detailed forecasting data to explain which ads are valuable and where revenue comes from to publishers. Google also released a new application programming interface allowing publishers to build their own apps to handle sales and workflow. Publishers can also open up ad space to bids from multiple networks.
Google bought DoubleClick for $3.1 billion two years ago to refine the way it shows relevant ads to users and to help advertisers optimize their spending across the web. The search giant has been pushing more aggressively into both display and mobile advertising, buying display advertising startup Teracent and agreeing to buy AdMob last fall.
This announcement also comes on the heels of a major change to the way Google targets ads on partner sites. Typically, when Google displays an ad on a partner site, it takes data from the search engine referral to help target the ad. So, for instance, if a user gets to a golf web site by searching for âgolf shop Atlanta,â those keywords will be used to pick an ad. Google now factors in a few hours of search history to target ads, instead of a single query.
AdSense helped generate $2.04 billion, or 31 percent of Googleâs total revenues, during the last quarter of 2009. That was up 21 percent from the same time a year before.
