Ad Servers OIO Publisher vs Google DFP Small Business

September 29, 2010 - Last Modified: December 7, 2010 by Khalid Hosein 4,878

If you’re a blogger or webmaster who isn’t doing it just for the kudos, then you’re probably running ads on your site. But if you’ve had to deal with more than one advertiser and/or more than one website in less than a few days or weeks, you know it can quickly cut into your limited time.

For that reason, you should have or use an ad server. Beyond the initial setup time, adding, deleting and modifying ads will take much less time with added time-saving features such as automatic expirations, ad rotation, tracking and even automated selling of ad space.

We recently decided to replace OpenX with another ad serving platform, and quickly narrowed down our choices to OIO Publisher and Google’s DFP Small Business. We captured our research and thoughts on the matter.

Out with OpenX

There are a number of options out there, and until recently we used OpenX (formerly OpenAds). OpenX is very powerful and the self-hosted version is free and open-source. But with power comes complexity. And that complexity demanded time.

As we were trying to cut down on the time we spent managing functions such as these, we went hunting for an alternative. Additionally, we found that serving up ads from OpenX slowed down our sites, and we didn’t have the time or inclination to search for a solution to that major problem.

Potential Replacements

As we run WordPress predominantly, we went searching for plugins that could serve up ads. However, most had one glaring missing feature – the ability to serve up ads on non-Wordpress websites, and we didn’t want to be caught without that capability in the future.

So we did some ‘show HTML source’ type investigations into WordPress sites that we liked that also ran ads and found OIO Publisher used quite frequently. OIO not only came in as a WordPress plugin, but in a standalone ad-serving version. So it immediately went to the top of the list.

Our 2^nd option was from a vendor that was on the flip side of OIO in terms of size – Google. The big “G” had just finished polishing up their integration of DoubleClick’s ad platform into their own set of products and re-released their ad serving platform as Google DFP (DoubleClick for Publishers) Small Business. [Incidentally, you would probably have your own army of advertising folks if you qualified for the larger offering, so don’t worry about it!]

Google was an obvious choice. They were very successful and reliable when it came to hosting services in the cloud and certainly knew advertising. Their product was also free, unlike OIO Publisher.

The Pros and Cons

So now we were faced with the big decision – OIO or DFP? Free or Paid? Cloud-Hosted or Self-Hosted? The best thing to do was create a pros-and-cons list.

DFP Pros:

Google run – reliable and backed by a huge company that isn’t going away anytime soon.
Fast serving.
Ability for advertisers to see stats on their ads.
Can sell all types of ads (CPM, CPC, CPD).
Inventory forecasting.

DFP Cons:

Complicated as hell to learn and use, unless you’ve been an advertiser/in advertising for a while.
It approaches OpenX’s complexity, but with a better interface.
Does not do order fulfillment (Google does not accept payment for you). OIO would save you a lot of time on this point.

OIO Pros:

Well-established software run by many big-name bloggers.
Sell ads directly with payment via multiple vectors (Paypal, Google Checkout, 2Checkout, etc.).
Manages and sells text ads (even with choice of ‘nofollow’ tags).
Can even sell products using OIO.
Can be run either as a WordPress plugin or standalone.
Can serve up ads on any # of blogs/sites that you have.
Much simpler to learn and set up (and that was one of the main reasons for migrating away from OpenX).
They have an associated marketplace where you can list your sites to potential advertisers.

OIO Cons:

OIO currently costs $47. Look around and you can probably get a $10 discount.
While advertisers can see stats, they’re not as slick and sophisticated compared to what Google offers.
Would need to run it on one of your servers (so you just need to make sure that the server is fast enough).
Can currently only sell CPD ads (cost per time), but roadmap for v3 has CPM ads in mind.
Ad backfill capability isn’t as sophisticated as DFP, but much simpler.
No forecasting like DFP, but I think that’s really for the ‘bigger’ boys.

The Final Decision

In the end, we went with OIO. The ability to sell inventory directly was very compelling and DFP’s complexity was a turn-off. Despite OIO’s small operation, we’ve noticed that the main developer is very active and very responsive to his customers and even has a roadmap for where he would like to take OIO, so they certainly appear to have a bright future.

About Khalid Hosein

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Khalid J Hosein is a blogger, systems administrator, Internet Marketer, and all-around knowledge-junkie with a ridiculously wide range of interests. He is the co-founder of popular gadget blog, Gizmos for Geeks.

{ 26 Responses }

Edille Rosario says:

Hi, This day I just try to learn how to use Google DFP, however like others say, it is very complicated >.< so I may try to choose Buysellads.
E Ismail says:

Hi Khalid Thanks for this excellent article. I have been using only Adsense and need to learn about the various ad servers out there. Since I have been with Adsense, Google keeps sending info on DFP and like you and others have noted, it is way too complicated. The interface and jargon just stopped me in my tracks. I need to beef up my knowledge on how to sell ads and serve them etc as a small business - any tips suggestions on blogs or sites I should check out? Thanks
- Khalid Hosein says:
  
  Thanks @E! Good question. I guess I've learned about advertising passively, soaking up whatever I read/saw over the years. I never really read a 'how to', but that's what our friend Google is there for, et voila! http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+sell+advertising+on+your+blog OpenX also has a nice glossary of advertising terms: http://www.openx.org/docs/glossary/online-advertising-terms Hope this helps. Good luck!
  - E Ismail says:
    
    Thanks Khalid I followed the link to the Google search and read some of articles. Some of the info there was helpful. I also checked the OIO demo.
Justin Germino says:

I actually just installed DFP on my blog to test it for the first time last week, I heard that DFP can be used and still serve AdSense when no ads are sold which allows you to replace all your AdSense blocks with DFP and still ensure higher CPC/CPA ads get served from AdSense than an AdSense block directly. I am still testing this out to see if its true. Does OIO Publisher have an advertiser/buyer listing site where advertisers can find lists of sites using OIO? This is something I find advantageous for BSA or AdvertiseSpace which I didn't know if OIO has.
- Hesham says:
  
  Justin, OIO has an advertising network, I just bought the plugin 3 weeks back and submitted FamousBloggers.net to OIO network!
  - Justin Germino says:
    
    Thats right, I forgot. As an advertiser I find the marketplace to be pretty lacking, there are no # of impressions for ads collected, no way to filter sites based on ad prices, impressions...etc. I do however like that you can set custom pricing, direct sales and can set multi month ad sales which you can't do with AdvertiseSpace and BSA which are month by month only.
Jarret says:

I'm actually interested in trying out OIO Publisher. Do you know if they've updated the software to allow selling CPM ad space instead of CPD? Also, can you set minimum amounts of purchases?
- Khalid Hosein says:
  
  @Jarret - no, unfortunately OIO doesn't support CPM. It may, but the developer realizes that this would require a pretty major architectural redesign, so they're not rushing into it. See this forum post for more info: http://forum.oiopublisher.com/discussion/1364/change-from-monthly-sell-to-cpm-sell/ If by "min amounts of purchases", you mean a minimum dollar amount that an advertiser must buy, then I'm fairly sure the answer is no. However, one manual workaround is you could put a disclaimer into the message that a purchaser sees before they buy and then you could reject buys that don't meet the minimum. Cheers!
  - Jarret says:
    
    Hey Khalid, thanks for the prompt reply! Most advertisers that have contacted me have pretty specific requirements. I.e. they want to target only U.S. visitors, pay a specific CPM, and have a specific frequency cap on the ads. For this reason, I recently got around to setting up Google DFP. It wasn't a fun process since there's so much jargon to learn that's involved in getting DFP setup. However, once the tedious work is completed, the end result was well worth it. Previously, I had setup ad chains using various CPM ad networks with Adsense as a default at the end of the chain. This setup works great for optimizing CPM rates, but the problem is that there ends up being so many redirects to different ad servers that it dramatically slowed my page load times. Now that I'm using Google DFP, the ads serve much faster and my page load speed is about 2x faster. One curious thing that I noticed is that I'm getting far better Adsense rates on the DFP default Adsense that competes with my other CPM ad networks.
    - Khalid Hosein says:
      
      Hey Jarrett - Yup, I hear ya. I may be forced to (re-)upgrade to DFP or a similarly powerful platform as well when I have that critical mass of picky advertisers, but I'd much rather be in a position where I have my own advertising manager when that happens! Of course I'm really hopeful that OIO continues to expand its feature set as quickly as it already has, so that I don't need to make that switch. But I agree with you - there are some compelling pros to DFP over OIO. Interesting observation about your Adsense rates. That's good intel to have - thanks! By the way, have you figured out an efficient way to handle invoicing and payments?
Scott Lovingood says:

I like the breakdown. Complexity has always been what stops most people from getting online and making money. Once you start making things simple, people don't mind spending money. That's why Adwords took off. They made it simple to buy ads. Adsense is the same way. The next step is to be able to manage your own ads. Definitely going to check both these out as my blogs are growing and I need new ways to manage them.
Richard says:

Thanks for this great comparison article. I've heard about OIO Publisher, but have been looking for a thorough run down of it's features. This comparison with google with it's pros and cons was really informative.
Paul says:

I have been using OIO for a few years. I found it very easy to use, and the fact that it handles all the payments, makes it that much better. The developer of OIO seems keen on extending its capabilities, so we'll have to see what happens next.
Lennart Heleander says:

Hi Khalid, You have me a clear picture with pros and cons, but Google is Google and when they get competition do they always try hard to be better and the best one.
- Khalid Hosein says:
  
  Hi Lennart - I think that most companies try to better their competition, Google just happens to be good at it. However, in this case, DFP vs OIO isn't a case of straight-up head-to-head competition. Also keep in mind that Google got DFP when they acquired DoubleClick, so they didn't build it themselves. The 2nd thing is that OIO is really more geared for the 1-man shop and up, whereas I feel even DFP Small Business is still pretty involved for a very small/start-up website. Cheers.
  - Lennart Heleander says:
    
    Hi Khalid, Yes, you have a good point there which I have totally missed: Google got DFP when they acquired DoubleClick, so they didn’t build it themselves.
Khalid J Hosein says:

@Pritam and @Devesh - thank you! Glad that you found the article helpful. Cheers!
Pritam says:

Great Article Khalid. I have never heard about OIO before, I have just visited their site and checked the details. You have given a clear picture about OIO as well as DFP with pros and cons. Its very easy to differentiate between the two.
Devesh says:

Hey Khalid, Great post. I'm using OIO publisher on some sites and it works awesome. Hearing first time about DFP Google Publisher. Will Going to check it out. Thanks for sharing this great post.
TJ McDowell says:

So just to make sure I understand exactly what these products do, we're talking about ads on your site that you set the pricing for, correct? So you're not just serving up Adsense content.
- Khalid Hosein says:
  
  Hi TJ - exactly. This way, *you* can actually sell your ad space directly to advertisers, and not whatever Google's Adsense pricing and matching algorithms determine. Cheers!
Dennis Edell says:

I've always planned to go with OIO, if ads are in my future. I never heard of the other before now though, so I appreciate the head up on it. :)
Mani Viswanathan says:

OIO is new to me. I'm happy with DFP. Maybe in the future many would consider shifting focus onto OIO.

Ad Servers OIO Publisher vs Google DFP Small Business

Out with OpenX

Potential Replacements