The Industry's Most Innovative Ad Serving Platform

Looking for an ad server or to purchase new ad inventory? Basis by Centro is a programmatic ad buying platform that offers cutting edge technology to optimize your ad placements.

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What is an Ad Server and How Does It Work?

Ad Serving Defined
An ad server is a technological system responsible for hosting, optimizing, and distributing advertising content across various websites, social media platforms, and mobile apps. Every time a user visits a web page or app, a specific ad creative is fetched and served in the advertising slot based on specific targeting parameters, frequency, ad priority, placement, format, etc.
Ad Server Classification
Servers can be classified according to different criteria. Publishers and advertisers fall into the purpose category, but those purposes differ. Self and managed service fall into the category of maintenance - self is maintained by the operator, while managed is maintained by a vendor or third party. The last category is location which is determined by whether the server is local or remote.
First Party vs. Third Party
First party (publishers) receive the request to show content and delivers a campaign based on the visitor's cookies. First party servers ensure optimization, control, and delivery. Third party (advertiser) servers accept a markup from the publisher to count the impression and send back the markup to the publisher's source where the impression is served. Third party ensures storage, organization, targeting, tracking, and reporting.

Every Ad Serving Feature in One Place

Ad servers are just one piece of the programmatic landscape, but when deciding on ad serving technology, you want to ensure that all of the most important features are accounted for. This means support for various creatives, ad campaigns automation (scheduling, optimization, speedy delivery), strong cross-channel and cross-device targeting, retargeting functionality, creative allocation, frequency capping, tracking of creatives, and performance reporting. That's a long list! Find it all included - and more - inside of Basis by Centro.

2000+
Private Marketplaces and Vendors
#1 DSP
Rated on G2
$1B+
in digital media activated in the last three years

Ensure optimization, control, and delivery.

Watch this short video to get a glimpse inside of Basis, where all of the critical considerations in your media buying strategy are housed in one place.