What Is an Ad Network? Types, Benefits, and Examples

Ever feel like digital ads are following you around the internet? 

That’s no accident; it’s ad networks doing their thing. These behind-the-scenes matchmakers connect advertisers with the perfect spots to display their messages, from your favorite blog to that weather app you open daily.

But what exactly is an ad network platform, how does it work, and why should you care? Whether running your first campaign or scaling up your ad strategy, this guide will help you confidently navigate the ad network universe (and fewer buzzwords).

Ad networks sit between supply-side platforms (SSPs), which manage the publisher side, and demand-side platforms (DSPs), which handle bidding for advertisers. This middle-ground role allows for automated, targeted placement across various sites based on your campaign goals.

With recent privacy regulations and the death of third-party cookies, many ad networks are now pivoting to contextual targeting and first-party data. Your ad for hiking boots might appear on an outdoor gear blog not because of a user's past behavior but because the content fits. It's smarter, safer, and keeps you compliant.

How do ad networks work?

Think of an ad network as your media-buying wingman. Instead of reaching out to dozens of websites or apps individually, you partner with a platform that already has those relationships in place. An ad network connects advertisers with publishers with ad space to sell — all in one go.

Most ad networks collect unsold or remnant ad space from websites and apps, grouping them by theme or audience category. For instance, if you're targeting dog lovers, the network might bundle placements across pet blogs, mobile apps, and forums. Premium ad networks also offer high-visibility placements, though they often charge a higher rate.

Ever wonder how your ad ends on a niche blog or a random app? This is the backstage tour. Ad networks streamline the entire process, so you don’t have to pitch individual publishers.

Here's how they work:

• Publisher onboarding: Publishers, like blogs or app developers, join an ad network to monetize their digital real estate.
• Advertiser campaign setup: Advertisers input campaign preferences, including a budget, audience profile, geographic targeting, format types (like video or display), and desired outcomes.
• Matching & targeting: Algorithms match your campaign with relevant publisher inventory. Think of it as Tinder for ads, but with smarter filters.
• Creative rotation: Your banner, video, or native ad doesn’t have to be static. Networks can rotate different creatives in the same space to keep content fresh and test what resonates best.
• Real-time optimization: As your ad runs, the network gathers engagement data and adjusts, shifting placements, prioritizing high-performing sites, or tweaking bidding strategies.

Let’s say you’re launching a wellness app. You could use a format-specific ad network focused on mobile video to run a 15-second promo across fitness blogs and health apps. The network would find the best spaces for your creative and optimize delivery times and formats based on real-time user behavior.

Most modern ad networks include intuitive dashboards where you can monitor impressions, clicks, conversions, and return on investment (ROI). But transparency varies. Some platforms will show detailed placement reports, while others show aggregates. If you’re scaling up, choose networks with transparent analytics and flexible creative management tools.

Here’s an example of The New York Times renting out their ad space: 

Source: The New York Times (NYT)

Pricing models in ad networks

When signing an agreement, consider the ad network's pricing model. Publishers' models vary in pricing. 

Choose the pricing model cautiously, as it will directly impact your budgets and how you see added performance. Depending on how you have set the campaign, ad networks will optimize bid prices, targeting, placement, and other characteristics. 

Ad network technology makes use of different methods to serve relevant ads, including: 

• Contextual targeting: Analyzes a website where the ad will appear to show relevant advertisements. Targeting based on just “keywords” might create ambiguous placements when the keywords’ intent differs from the web page. 
• Creative optimizations: Studies a creative’s performance in a given ad space and explores more optimum creatives for the space with experiments.
• Behavioral targeting: Uses a user’s behavior to show them relevant ads during their visits. For example, if you were visiting the pet care section of a media site, you’d automatically get ads related to pet care products. 

Most ad networks let you choose between these three main models:

This is how an ad network shows relevant ads to the target audience, helping brands promote their campaigns. 

Ad networks vs. ad exchanges: What’s the difference?

If you’re dipping your toes into digital advertising, this distinction can feel a bit murky, but it’s important. While both ad networks and ad exchanges help advertisers buy ad space programmatically, they operate differently.

Ad networks work like curated bundles: they collect inventory from multiple publishers and sell it to advertisers in packages. You get a ready-made audience and streamlined setup but with limited control over where your ads appear. Pricing is often fixed or pre-negotiated; you typically rely on the network’s internal logic for placement.

Ad exchanges, by contrast, operate more like digital stock markets for ads. Instead of pre-packaged inventory, you bid in real-time for individual impressions. You can target specific users, adjust bids dynamically, and access granular data about where your ad appears. This makes exchanges ideal for data-driven advertisers with more advanced needs.

Where ad exchanges offer transparency in pay-per-ad impressions, ad networks charge a markup for impressions without disclosing the exact amount of these markups. 

Source: War Room

Let’s make the distinction clearer with examples.

Ad networks vs. ad exchanges: Picture this in action 

Google Ads is a good example of an ad network. When you create a campaign through Google Ads, you’re using its demand-side platform to buy inventory from a select number of websites that are a part of Google Adwords’ display network. The inventory here is being transacted through a Google supply-side platform, Adsense. 

When you’re buying from an ad network, there are some limitations in terms of scalability. This is when you want to go beyond the two million websites that Google has partnered with. 

Ad exchanges help you go beyond it. DoubleClick is a good example of an ad exchange. You can directly go into DoubleClick and buy spaces on different websites as an advertiser. 

When to choose: ad network or ad exchange? 

If you’re new to online marketing and don’t need a lot of scalability, it’s best to go with an ad network platform. Sure, you’ll be paying a markup, but either way, you’ll pay for the technology platform in an ad exchange. When buying inventory online, you’ll typically pay the technology partner close to 12% of your advertising spend.

If you’re starting in digital advertising, it’s best to start with ad networks. However, an ad exchange may be a better choice for advertisers scaling with digital investments in millions. 

What are the different types of ad networks?

Different types of ad networks serve different purposes for your site. Here are a few notable ones popular in digital advertising: 

• Premium ad networks offer inventory from popular publishers and create the demand needed to build competition for high-quality ads and their placement. They have higher standards for inventory, which can result in stronger engagement and conversion metrics. You'll often find that the more familiar names, such as Google, Yahoo, Gemini, and the Google Display Network, fall under this title.
• Vertical ad networks are dedicated to delivering advertising to a specific audience. They are topic-specific and represent publishers within a specific niche. Their volume is usually lower, but the quality of traffic tends to be higher due to the precise targeting of a particular audience.
• Affiliate ad networks connect publishers like influencers and blog owners with companies seeking to promote their products and services. These networks often use revenue share, cost per acquisition (CPA), and cost per click (CPC) pricing models.
• Format-specific ad networks specialize in specific ad types, such as video, native advertising, or in-app ads. This category includes video networks like Nexxen with dynamic out-stream video formats and Google’s AdMob with an in-app advertising network. 

Suppose, y`ou’re launching a new project management app targeting SaaS buyers. A B2B vertical ad network like StackAdapt will help you reach that niche directly, while a format-specific network could boost awareness via app-based banners or short videos.

The point is: don’t pick a network just because it’s big. Pick the one that fits your goals, audience, and creative format.

What are the benefits of ad networks?

If you’ve ever tried to launch a digital ad campaign from scratch, you know it can be overwhelming: finding publishers, negotiating deals, setting up tracking… it’s a lot. Ad networks simplify the chaos by giving you a one-stop shop for running, managing, and optimizing campaigns. They benefit advertisers in various ways by: 

• Spareing advertisers from doing tedious searches. Ad networks aggregate publishers in their inventory, making it easy for you to locate outlets to display ads. If you’re manually searching for third-party websites, it might take up a significant amount of time and effort.
• Pairing advertisers with the right publishers. Based on the preferences of your ad campaigns, an ad network can help you to target relevant websites. It automatically determines the best-fit publishers for you.
• Offering access to premium outlets. Although many ad networks focus on remnant or non-premium inventory, some focus on aggregating top-tier publishers for high-quality ad placements.
• Increasing ROI. Ad networks make use of precise matching, enabling advertisers to select profitable deals for them and boosting ROI. 

On the supply side, ad networks allow publishers to generate income fast by enrolling in one or more networks. It maximizes publishers’ reach and opens them to more advertisers for more impressions and clicks, which increases your potential to earn more. 

However enticing the benefits may be, it’s best to consider the cons when choosing the correct path for your business.

What are the challenges of working with ad networks?

Ad networks can be incredibly helpful but they’re not without pitfalls. If you’ve ever run a campaign and thought, “Where exactly did my ad just show up?” you’re not alone. While ad networks simplify buying, they can also blur the lines of control, visibility, and brand safety.

Here are some issues that advertisers deal with while renting placements through ad networks: 

• Ads positioning:  Ad networks may not disclose the impressions they received on each publisher’s website. Since you don’t know how your ad performs on those sites, it can be tricky to understand whether the network’s inventory is helping you achieve your goals. 

• Malicious advertisements: Some ad networks skip a thorough review process for ads shown to people. Due to this, malicious advertisers use an ad network strength to distribute malware. While this issue is largely addressed in most networks, it still remains in some. 

• Transparency in offerings: Some ad networks advertise that they aggregate premium publishers. However, they might only have a minute share of premium publishers in their inventory, where they invest the smallest budgets to run the campaigns. 

• Ad relevance: Often, ads are irrelevant to the web page content on which the network serves them. For example, as we mentioned earlier, the ad space rented out in the NYT does not correlate with its purpose.

How to protect your investment:

• Vet your network’s inventory quality and ask for site-level transparency.
• Use third-party verification tools to monitor ad placements.
• Choose networks with fraud detection systems and human review processes.

With these challenges, selecting the right ad network is crucial for maximizing the impact of your campaigns. Let’s see how.

How to choose the right ad network 

Choosing the right ad network isn’t just about ticking boxes. It’s more like hiring a new teammate. You want someone who understands your goals, fits your workflow, and helps you perform better with less hand-holding. A great ad network will meet technical requirements and align with your campaign strategy and long-term growth.

When you’re considering different ad networks for your marketing campaigns, ask the following questions: 

• How extensive is the ad network? 
• Is the ad network global or niche-specific? 
• Does the ad network have the reach you need? 
• Does it offer different ad formats? 
• Does the ad network offer video or rich ad format? 
• Can the ad network compete with real-time bidding or programmatic advertising? 

These questions will help you select the most suitable ad network for your marketing campaigns. 

Network extensiveness and reach matter as they allow you to sell impressions at a higher price when many advertisers bid for it. Check if the network offers contextual targeting. This will help you show ads relevant to other content on the publisher’s web page. 

When the ad network is extensive, it will have representation from many geographical locations, reducing the chances of unsold inventory when campaigns are set with unique targeting parameters. This benefits both suppliers and publishers. 

If you’re unsure about the ad format you’ll need, go with networks that allow different ways to display ads. Other ad formats optimize monetizing potential for the creative and publisher. 

Consider the pros and cons of real-time bidding or programmatic advertising before committing. Understanding what technology an ad network offers is better than other options. 

Although programmatic advertising offers enhanced targeting options and real-time insights, it comes with concerns, such as higher complexity and potential transparency issues.

Source: Marketing Charts

Pro tip: Before committing to a large budget, start with a test campaign. Measure how well the network hits your KPIs (cost per lead, conversion rates, engagement), and use those results to scale up confidently.

How are ad networks evolving with privacy regulations?

As digital privacy laws evolve and the phase-out of third-party cookies accelerates, ad networks are being forced to rethink how they target and track users. Gone are the days of following users around the web with cookie-based retargeting alone. Advertisers and networks must lean toward new solutions that respect user privacy while delivering performance.

One major shift is toward contextual targeting, where ads are placed based on the content of the webpage rather than the user’s historical behavior. For instance, if someone reads a blog post about hiking gear, the ad network may serve an ad for trail shoes, not because the user searched for them last week, but because the page’s content aligns with the product.

Ad networks also embrace first-party data strategies, encouraging publishers and brands to collect and leverage their user data with consent. This approach gives advertisers more control and accuracy, especially when combined with tools like clean rooms or privacy-focused identity solutions like Unified ID 2.0.

Moreover, networks operating in the EU or California must comply with GDPR and CCPA, which means obtaining explicit consent before collecting user data. Many now provide built-in consent management platforms (CMPs) to ensure campaigns remain compliant.

This evolution is more than a compliance checkbox; it represents a new era of more innovative, privacy-safe advertising. Advertisers who adapt quickly will protect their reputations and maintain campaign performance in a shifting ecosystem.

Frequently asked questions

What is the role of an ad network? 

An ad network acts as a broker between advertisers and publishers by aggregating ad space from websites and matching it with advertisers' campaigns. It helps optimize ad placement, manage targeting, and handle payments. Ad networks simplify the ad buying process and increase reach across multiple platforms.

How is an ad network different from an ad exchange? 

The main difference between an ad network and an ad exchange is how they match ads with inventory. An ad network aggregates and sells ad space in bulk, while an ad exchange uses real-time bidding (RTB) to let advertisers bid on individual impressions. Ad exchanges offer more transparency and targeting precision.

Are ad networks still relevant without third-party cookies? 

Ad networks remain relevant without third-party cookies by shifting to first-party data, contextual targeting, and identity solutions like universal IDs. These methods allow ad networks to deliver targeted ads while respecting user privacy. The loss of cookies changes how data is collected but does not eliminate the need for ad networks.

What pricing models do ad networks use? 

Ad networks use pricing models such as CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (cost per click), and CPA (cost per action). CPM charges for ad views, CPC for user clicks, and CPA for conversions like purchases. These models allow advertisers to choose based on budget and performance goals.

How do I choose the best ad network for my business? 

Choose the best ad network by evaluating your target audience, budget, ad formats, and campaign goals. Look for networks with strong reach in your niche, transparent reporting, and support for your preferred pricing model. Prioritize networks that align with your performance metrics and offer reliable customer service.

Reach your audience with confidence 

If you’re overwhelmed by all the moving parts in digital advertising, ad networks can help simplify your workflow. They’re like the backstage crew of your marketing strategy: quietly coordinating placements, targeting, and optimization while you focus on messaging and results.

When selected thoughtfully, ad networks become more than just a distribution channel. They help you reach the right people on the right platforms at the right time without reinventing your media strategy every time you launch a campaign.

Just remember, not all ad networks are created equal. The right one will match your growth stage, offer transparency, and provide the data you need to make smarter decisions.

Looking to take your strategy even further? Consider adding cross-channel advertising tools to expand beyond display into video, search, social, and more.