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How to Use Google Ad Manager

Cody Schneider••9 min read

Thinking about graduating from Google AdSense to a more powerful ad server? Google Ad Manager is your next step for taking full control of your ad revenue, but it can feel intimidating at first. This guide will walk you through exactly how to use Google Ad Manager, from initial setup to launching your first ad campaign, in clear, simple steps.

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What is Google Ad Manager (and How Is It Different from AdSense)?

First, let's clear up a common point of confusion. While both are Google products designed to help you monetize your website, AdSense and Ad Manager serve very different functions. Think of it this way:

  • Google AdSense is an ad network. You add a piece of code to your site, and AdSense fills your ad space with ads from its huge pool of advertisers. It’s simple, hands-off, and fantastic for beginners. You get a check, but you have little control over who advertises or what you earn for a specific ad spot.
  • Google Ad Manager (GAM) is an ad server. It’s a platform for managing your entire ad inventory. You can use it to run ads from AdSense, but you can also connect other ad networks (like through header bidding), sell ad space directly to advertisers, and serve your own "house" ads to promote your own products. It gives you granular control over pricing, targeting, and who gets priority in your ad slots.

In short, AdSense is a source of ads. Ad Manager is the tool you use to decide which ads from which sources show up where on your site, when, and to whom.

Who Should Use Google Ad Manager?

While anyone can sign up for a free Ad Manager account, it's not the right fit for everyone. You'll get the most value out of GAM if you:

  • Have growing traffic: While there isn't a strict minimum anymore, GAM makes sense when your traffic levels are significant enough to attract direct advertisers or justify the use of multiple ad networks.
  • Want to sell ad space directly: If brands are reaching out to you to sponsor content or buy banner ads, you need an ad server like GAM to manage those campaigns, track delivery, and provide reports.
  • Run multiple ad networks: GAM is the central hub for managing inventory competition between networks like AdSense, OpenX, Magnite, and others, ensuring the highest bidder always wins. This is a core part of yield optimization.
  • Need advanced targeting and reporting: Want to show an ad only to users in Canada on mobile devices? Or run a report on the performance of a specific T-shirt ad on your style blog? GAM gives you that level of control.

If you're just starting out, sticking with AdSense is perfectly fine. But if you recognize your business in the points above, it's time to make the switch.

Getting Started: Your Google Ad Manager Setup

Ready to get going? Let's walk through the initial setup process. It all starts with having an approved AdSense account.

1. Sign Up for Ad Manager

If you have an active AdSense account, setting up Ad Manager is simple.

  1. Visit the Google Ad Manager homepage.
  2. Click "Get Started." You'll be prompted to sign in with the Google Account associated with your AdSense.
  3. Confirm your network settings, including your country, time zone, and currency. Read and accept the terms of service.

That's it. Google will set up your network, which can take a short time to fully provision. Once you're in, you'll see the main dashboard.

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2. A Quick Tour of the Dashboard

The GAM interface has a lot going on, but you’ll spend most of your time in four key areas found in the left-hand navigation menu:

  • Delivery: This is where you set up and manage campaigns from direct advertisers. You’ll create “Orders,” “Line Items,” and “Creatives” here.
  • Inventory: This is where you define the ad space available on your website. You’ll create “Ad Units” and “Placements" here. We’ll cover this in detail next.
  • Reporting: This section lets you build custom reports to analyze how your ads are performing, who is seeing them, and how much revenue you're generating.
  • Admin: Here, you manage account-level settings, link your AdSense account, manage users, and configure other global options.

Step 1: Define Your Inventory with Ad Units

Before you can serve an ad, you need to tell Google Ad Manager what ad space you have for sale. This is called your inventory, and you define it by creating Ad Units.

An Ad Unit is a specific ad slot on your website. It's best to use a clear naming convention. Instead of "Ad 1," use something descriptive like MySite_Homepage_728x90_Header.

How to Create an Ad Unit:

  1. In the left navigation, go to Inventory > Ad Units.
  2. Click New Ad Unit.
  3. For "Code," enter your unique, descriptive name (e.g., WebApp_Article_300x250_Sidebar). Avoid spaces and special characters.
  4. Add an optional "Name" and "Description" for clarity.
  5. Under "Sizes," enter the ad dimensions you want this unit to accept, such as 300x250 (Medium Rectangle) and 728x90 (Leaderboard). You can add multiple sizes to one Ad Unit to create a more flexible ad slot.
  6. Leave Target window set to _top unless you have a specific reason to change it.
  7. Enable AdSense inventory settings if you want AdSense to compete for impressions in this unit (you almost always want this 'on').
  8. Click Save.

Repeat this process for every single ad location on your website. Afterward, you can group Ad Units together using "Placements" (under Inventory > Placements). For instance, you might create a placement called "Homepage Takeover" that includes all ad units on your homepage, making it easier to sell them as a package to a direct advertiser.

Step 2: Generate and Place Ad Tags on Your Site

Once you’ve defined your inventory, Ad Manager gives you snippets of code called "ad tags" to place on your website. These tags call the Ad Manager server and say, "Hey, someone is viewing this page. Which ad should I show here?"

How to Generate Ad Tags:

  1. Go to Inventory > Ad Units.
  2. Check the box next to the Ad Unit(s) you need tags for.
  3. Click the Generate tags button that appears at the top.
  4. On the next screen, keep the Tag "type" as Google Publisher Tag. This is the modern, flexible standard.
  5. Click Continue. You’ll see two boxes of code.

The code will have two parts:

  • The Header Tag: This piece goes in the <head> section of your website’s HTML. It only needs to be placed on the page once, even if you have multiple Ad Units on that page.
  • The Body Tags: These are the individual code snippets for each Ad Unit. Each one is placed exactly where you want that specific ad to appear in the <body> of your HTML.

Here’s what they look like:

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Example Head Tag (Goes in <head>):

<script async src="https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/tag/js/gpt.js"></script>
<script>
  window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []},
  googletag.cmd.push(function() {
    googletag.defineSlot('/12345678/WebApp_Article_300x250_Sidebar', [300, 250], 'div-gpt-ad-1670000000-0').addService(googletag.pubads()),
    googletag.pubads().enableSingleRequest(),
    googletag.enableServices(),
  }),
</script>

Example Body Tag (Goes where you want the ad):

<!-- /123456789/WebApp_Article_300x250_Sidebar -->
<div id='div-gpt-ad-1670000000-0' style='min-width: 300px, min-height: 250px,'></div>
<script>
  googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1670000000-0'), }),
</script>

If you're using a platform like WordPress, you can use a plugin like "Ad Inserter" to inject these tags into the correct locations without having to edit theme files directly. This is often the safest and easiest way.

Step 3: Create Your First Campaign

With tags on your site, you now need to create a campaign in GAM to actually deliver an ad. The hierarchy for this is: Advertiser > Order > Line Item > Creative.

1. Create an Advertiser

An “advertiser" is simply the company or brand whose campaign you’re running. Even if you're just running your own ("house") ads, you need to create a company for them first.

  1. Navigate to Delivery > Orders > new company > Advertiser.
  2. Enter a company name (e.g., "Home promotions") or the name of an external client for tracking purposes.
  3. Click Save.

2. Create an Order

An Order is the container for an entire ad-buy from an advertiser. It holds all the campaign’s line items.

  1. Go to Delivery > Orders.
  2. Click New Order.
  3. Give your order a descriptive name, like "Q4 Brand Awareness Campaign - My Advertiser."
  4. In the "Advertiser" field, start to type the name of your newly created company and select it.
  5. Under “Trafficker," add yourself or someone on your team you want to be associated with, this is mainly for organizational purposes.
  6. Click Add Line Item.

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3. Create a Line Item and Add Creative

A Line Item holds a Creative and contains all rules for its ad campaign, including type, flights, budget, and targeting. This is what defines where and to whom ads will run.

  1. Select the appropriate Line Item "Type" based on the priority you want it to have against all your other Line Items on a Google Ad Manager account. You might start simply by serving “Sponsorship (100% impressions)" as the highest-priority.
  2. Add Creatives. Creatives represent your actual ad material. This might mean adding a JPEG/GIF or even a third-party tag.
  3. Click Save. Once configured, make sure to hit “SAVE” for a full-proof setup.

After clicking save, approve your order. An approval notification will pop up – until the order has your formal "approval," it’s paused from serving the public. Press the “Confirm” button to start sending live ad serving requests. Your ad should go live shortly.

You will need some patience as it sometimes needs a few minutes or even hours to propagate through servers to start its service on live websites.

Run and Analyze Reporting in Ad Manager

To view the effectiveness of any served ad campaign on a given inventory slot, navigate in the left sidebar and click "Reporting" where pre-configured reports are ready or to create a report based on customized metrics. A custom report page is launched here, select any number or combination with metrics and dimensions relevant to your campaign objectives.

Final Thoughts

Gaining mastery with Google Ad Manager is a huge leap when taking full charge over online ad revenues. Its powerful customization makes GAM a tool that helps publishers of every scale in building successful businesses online. After setting up all of Ad Manager, the challenge will appear: tracking the performance of ad revenue and how this can be presented side-by-side against website traffic figures through other platforms. At Graphed, we provide solutions with an interactive dashboard that integrates diverse data sources, showing your online content to traffic generation and income conversion in a single space, eliminating painstaking manual data exports. This translates to a major time-saver across a whole marketing or publishing team.

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