Google AdX vs AdSense (2023) Which Is Best For Your Site?

Google AdX and Google AdSense are the two main digital advertising platforms from Google for publishers. Both platforms enable website owners to monetize their traffic, so what’s the difference and what’s why are so many publishers switching?

Knowing which platform to use will save you time, development resources, and late-night headaches. Best of all, it will also help you increase your ad revenue.

In this guide, we’ll examine the differences between Google AdX and Google AdSense and show you which platform is the best fit for your website.

What Is Google AdX?

Google AdX (previously called DoubleClick Ad Exchange) is a marketplace where digital advertising space is bought and sold. As a programmatic advertising exchange, Google AdX uses real-time bidding (RTB) to determine the price of advertising space. It works like a stock exchange, where advertising space is openly traded.

Is AdX owned by Google?

Google currently owns AdX. DoubleClick Ad Exchange was founded in 1995 and purchased by Google in 2008, when it was quickly rebranded as Google Ad Exchange (Google Ad Exchange or AdX for short). Microsoft and other companies raised concerns about the purchase as it was believed it would give Google too much control over online advertising.

What Is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense is an easy-to-use platform that enables website owners to monetize their content by serving ads. Website owners need only install a small piece of code on the site and select the spaces they want ads to appear.

Once AdSense is live, advertisers bid on the new ad space based on the website visitor’s profile. After an ad is served, AdSense bills the advertiser and pays the website owner per click or per impression. AdSense serves ads from advertisers who are using Google Ads, the Google Display Network, or other Google products.

Google AdX vs AdSense – which is better for your site?

While Google AdX delivers more ad revenue, it is time-consuming to set up, update and maintain the account. In addition, to get the most out of Ad Exchange, you’ll need an advertising operations expert to test which pricing rules work best for your site, manage your preferred deals, set floor prices, initiate Google Open Bidding, and improve your ad layout.

If you are a large corporation with access to these resources you could consider direct access to AdX and training your team to use the platform. However, most websites looking to access Google AdX go through a third-party ad tech company and Google MCM partner .

The ad tech company will simply pass across JavaScript tags for you to add to your site, and you will be ready to go. All administration and optimization tasks will be handled for you.