Ad Network

An ad network is an intermediary or broker that connects multiple publishers with multiple advertisers, aggregating publishers’ unsold ad inventory and offering it to advertisers at scale via a single buying opportunity. This pool of unsold ad impressions, also known as non-premium or remnant inventory, is made available at a lower CPM than when sold via the publisher directly.

Offering similar features to ad exchanges, ad networks group inventory into content categories, or audience or behavioural segments, and often provide services such as targeting and optimisation. Ad networks do not typically have a programmatic tech stack in place.