DoubleClick for Publishers Becomes Google Ad Manager

What was announced

On Wednesday, alongside the news that AdWords becomes Google Ads, Google announced that DoubleClick for Publishers and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange will be combined into one product called Google Ad Manager.

The DoubleClick name, part of online advertising since the 1990s, is being retired across Google's advertising tools.

The new name takes effect from July 24, and Google says the change will roll out over the coming weeks rather than all at once.

For a small publisher, a site that carries ads alongside its own content, almost all of this is a change of name. A few places on your side need updating, and none of them is urgent.

What these tools do

DoubleClick for Publishers is an ad server: the system that decides which ad fills each space on your pages, each time a page loads.

That might be a banner a local sponsor bought directly, a campaign from an ad network, or an ad from AdSense filling space nobody else wanted.

The ad exchange is where buyers bid for space as the page loads. Larger publishers connect it to their ad server directly; many small ones use the free small business edition of DFP with AdSense behind it.

Combining the two puts directly sold space and auctioned space in one product under one name.

What carries on unchanged

• The network itself, its code and the logins that use it.
• Ad units and placements as you set them up.
• Orders, line items and creatives for every running campaign.
• The tags on your pages, which keep loading as before.
• Reports and history, with nothing to export or migrate.
• AdSense, which keeps its own name.

The fourth is the one publishers ask about first. Nothing in the announcement asks anybody to change code, and some of the addresses the tags load from still contain the old name, which is harmless.

The ads.txt file is untouched too. Google's lines in it already name google.com rather than DoubleClick, so the rename gives you nothing to edit there.

What you will notice

The new name and logo in the interface, in the emails Google sends and in the help pages, as the change works through.

Some vocabulary moves as well. The buyers who bid through the exchange are getting a new name of their own, which you may start to see in reports and settings.

Payment documents may carry the new name in time. If a partner or a bookkeeper reconciles them, a short note now avoids a question later.

Why combine them

The announcement presents Ad Manager as one platform for selling space both ways: directly to advertisers, and through the auction.

The new name also drops the tie to web pages. Ads are served into apps, video and other places now, and Ad Manager says that more plainly than DoubleClick for Publishers did.

Neither reason changes much for a site with a handful of ad spaces. The tools you used last week are the tools you will use in August.

A worked example

A couple run a guide to marinas and anchorages along the coast. They sell banner space to marine businesses and fill the rest with AdSense, all served through the free edition of DFP.

They read the announcement and checked what it meant for them. The tags needed nothing, the advertisers' campaigns carried on, and the reports looked as they always had.

The work was on their side. The rate card sent to new advertisers said ads were served and reported through DoubleClick, and the privacy page named the DoubleClick cookie.

Both were reworded to name Google Ad Manager, and the monthly report sent to each advertiser got a one-line note so the new name would not look like a new supplier.

The whole job took under an hour, and the tags on the live site were never touched.

Where the old name lives on your side

Search your own documents for DoubleClick and DFP. The usual places are few.

The privacy page, where cookies and ad technology are described. The consent wording shown to European visitors, if it lists the companies involved in serving ads.

The media kit or rate card, contracts with sponsors that mention how delivery is reported, and the notes that tell whoever schedules the ads how to do it.

None of these is wrong on July 24. They simply age, and updating them in one sitting is easier than finding them one at a time.

Access and the emails that follow

A rename is a good moment to look at who can log in to the network.

Former staff, a previous web company or an agency that ran one campaign years ago may still have access. Remove anybody who no longer needs it, and check that two or more people in the business can still get in.

Expect emails claiming the network must be migrated or verified before a deadline. Nothing in the change depends on a link in an email; reach the interface through your own bookmark and check there.

What the rename does not change

The rules publishers work under stay where they were.

Google's publisher policies, Chrome's filtering of sites that fail the Better Ads Standards, the requirements for showing ads to European visitors, and the weight ad code adds to a page are all exactly as they were last week.

A site with an ad layout Chrome objects to, or a page made slow by too many ad slots, will not be helped by the new name. Those are the questions worth time this summer.

The counter-case

For a publisher with a few ad spaces and no direct sponsors, even the paperwork may be minimal.

A site running AdSense alone does not use DFP at all, and this change passes it by, apart from the general news.

Larger publishers who work with the exchange directly have more vocabulary to learn and more settings to recheck, and those deserve attention from whoever manages them.

Update the documents that name DoubleClick, check who has access, and leave the tags alone.

Before the name changes

1. Confirm your tags need no changes.
2. Search your documents for DoubleClick and DFP.
3. Update the privacy page wording.
4. Revise the rate card and sponsor reports.
5. Remove old users from the network.
6. Tell anybody who reconciles payments.
7. Ignore emails demanding urgent migration.

Step three is the one with a reader outside the business. A privacy page naming a product that no longer exists tells visitors nobody is keeping it current, which is the opposite of what the page is for.

Showing ads to visitors from Europe, under either name, is covered in showing ads to European visitors after Friday.

Frequently asked questions

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