AdManager - A good thing?

Is this the right place to post?

[Broadway]

I'm looking for a means by which to serve privately arranged ads. Some years ago I was did so via some php type something or other. Evidently I didn't understand the security issues associated with installing and operating it and my site got hacked. As a result, I'm looking for an ad serving service of some sort. I see AdManager mentioned.

I've looked at their website and it seems quite a bit to learn and get familiar with. I was hoping to get some reinforcement that it is worth the effort.

Are people here using this? Is it a good thing? Anybody start using this (as in serve their Adsense through it) and have some major catastrophe? A general thumbs up or down is type of answer I'm looking for. Thanks.

[zuses]

I think that AdManager is good as idea & I do hope it's safe enough. But at the same time it's too complicated & from time to time I have to read something like "our engineers are working to solve the problem". However if you want to use swf banners there is no alternative.

[netmeg]

I just took it off.

I has some things I liked, and some I didn't. All I can tell you is try it maybe on a page or two first to see how it works for you.

On the pro side - it doesn't use up your channels, (it uses placements); it allows you set a minimum eCPM below which you don't show ads, it allows you to bulk upload your ad slots from an Excel CSV file (it's an awkward implementation, but once you figure it out, it saves a TON of time over creating ads in the AdSense interface); it allows you to open ads up in a new window, instead of making it so that ad-clickers have to leave your site; you can manage non-AdSense with it.

On the con side; it's *not* at all easy or intuitive to learn; the AdSense implementation feels like it was an afterthought; it doesn't work for AdSense link units; as far as I can tell, you can't assign multiple channels to a placement so you can track multiple things, my impressions were for some reason unnaturally inflated, causing my CTR and eCPM to tank - not positive I can blame that on Ad Manager, but it went away as soon as I took it off; there's no ad rotator for testing ads; and support is spotty.

I've put more of my thoughts here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

My particular direct advertising needs are such that I'm going to write my own ad delivery system as soon as my peak system is over. But for now, I went back to the traditional AdSense platform.

[johnnie]

I'm using ad manager to serve CPM campaigns only. If I want adsense to show, I'll do it outside ad manager. Adsense in ad manager is too flaky.

[rajivatre]

I tried admanager with lots of efforts. Still learning it. One of the problems I faced with AdManager is non predictability of which line items will run and why. I had created 5-6 line items with same start and end date and same number of impressions but different cpm. Also they were suppose to run in the same ad slot. I found out to my surprise that line items with less cpm was not served at all (status showing "Ready") and ads with higher cpm were served all the time (In that also Only 2 ads from 4 ads which were having the same cpm.Status "Delivering") I am not using adsense with admanager only some CPA type flash banners. Can anybody throw some light as how to make sure that all line items are delivered atleast in more and less quantities depending on cpm and other conditions?
Help is certainly appreciated.
I tried all sorts of help from admanager interface but still not able to figure out.
In simple words what I want is say I have 6 line items competing with each other for same spot with different parameters such as cpm, start date,end date etc I feel there should be some delivery for each line item. It should not be same line items are delivering all the time where as other line items are not delivered at all.

[coachm]

Broadway, I think your question could be a bit more specific.

ie.
Is Admanager a good thing for [fill in the function you want it to do and your goal]?

Is Admanager a good thing compared to [insert other options you might consider, ie. commercial products, openx)?

For example, if you have one website, use templates or SSI, and rely mostly on adsense for income, then admanager is not worth the investment.

If you want to sell advertising across a range of websites, and have advertisers have access to their information, then it might be a good choice.