on their brand name or the fact that it’s an advertising product that’s easy to set up and requires minimal work, but AdSense is much more popular than AdX/DoubleClick in Google Search.
However, its popularity doesn’t necessarily make AdSense the better product. AdX is an ad exchange network, whereas AdSense is an ad network. The two products serve a fundamentally different use for different kinds of clients.
So what exactly are the key differences? And which platform is more suitable for you?
Google AdX vs Google AdSense: What Are the Key Differences?
Google AdX (previously known as DoubleClick Ad Exchange) is an ad exchange network. This means it is a programmatic advertising platform, offering real-time bidding (RTB) on ad spaces to ad networks, including AdSense, agencies and demand-side platforms.
Publishers working with Google AdX have access to a larger inventory and can access buyers from Google Ads and other marketplaces using this exchange.
It also provides much more control to publishers over their ad space and allows them to sell their ad inventory directly. There’s also higher competition for ad inventory, which results in increased revenue per ad unit sold.
Google AdSense is an advertising network. It allows publishers to monetize their content on desktop and mobile. Setting it up is very easy. You just create ad placements and insert a tag on your site’s code.
From then on, AdSense will take care of everything, from serving ads to targeting, to payment to the publisher. Google AdSense will fill those placements with cookie targeted ads from the Google Ads program. The filling rate is between 95-99%, so most of the time your ad units will be utilized.
It’s not a very lucrative way to monetize content, as the platform is geared towards providing low-cost impressions to advertisers. Publishers can’t set a floor price on their ad units, and they can’t also sell those ad units on their own. In short, they’re stuck with what Google offers them.
Still, there are plenty of stories of bloggers and small-scale operations that are able to generate a living wage out of AdSense.