Google has revamped its ad-serving platform for Web publishers with a redesigned interface, more statistics, improved ad-delivery algorithms and a new API for developers, the company said Monday.
The upgraded platform improves upon the existing DART for Publishers, which is for large online publishers and is now called DoubleClick for Publishers, and upon Google Ad Manager, designed for small publishers and rebaptized DFP Small Business.
DoubleClick for Publishers and DFP Small Business are intended to help Web publishers automate, optimize, monitor and manage the process of serving up display ads on their Web sites.
“We’ll be upgrading current DART for Publishers publishers to DoubleClick for Publishers over the next year as we continue to add features and modules, and we’ll be moving Google Ad Manager customers to DFP Small Business in the coming weeks,” wrote Neal Mohan, a Google vice president of product management, in an official blog.
Google acquired DoubleClick in March 2008 in order to boost the search company’s display ad business, an area where Google remains a minor player behind players like Yahoo and AOL.
Google makes most of its revenue from another type of online ad: text-based, pay-per-click ads served up along with its search engine results and on Web pages with contextually relevant content, both on Google and third-party partner publisher sites.
While Google dominates search advertising and has built its empire on its success in that segment of the online ad market, the company is trying to diversify its revenue stream into other ad formats and other markets altogether like enterprise software.
In January, during Google’s latest earnings conference call, CEO Eric Schmidt pledged that the company would make major strides in display advertising this year, saying that “the next huge business for us is display” and highlighting YouTube as a key element.