On June 23, 2014, Adzerk CEO James Avery, announced that free accounts and accounts who purchased apps from the Adzerk Marketplace will be terminated by August 2014. The termination date was later extended to September 5, when some users informed the management team that they were not aware of the announcement.
As at the time of publishing this, the free accounts have been terminated. All active ads I am serving with Adzerk on my blog and other partner blogs are no longer displaying. When I tried to sign in to my account this morning, I saw an alert that my account is no longer active.
Why Is This Happening ?
Below is an excerpt from the warning message:
Adzerk has moved away from being a general-purpose ad server and has become a technology company that provides “ad serving as an API”, enabling publishers to build innovative native ad units by automating campaign creation, delivery and reporting.Our new direction means that we’re not able to support the features used by customers outside of that focus, such as Network Tools. Overall, the users of our freemium product are no longer a good fit for Adzerk, and we had to make a very difficult decision about the future of our company.
What If I Want to Keep Using Adzerk?
If you would like to continue to use Adzerk as your ad server, you will need to contact the sales team to arrange for an enterprise contract. This starts at $1000/month . If this pricing is too much for you, you can try some alternatives.
So, What Are The Alternatives To Adzerk ?
Adzerk CEO James Avery was kind enough to recommend SaaS platforms for small publishers and networks such as DoubleClick for Publishers – Small Business , AdColt , and Smart AdServer . If you prefer to host your own ad server, check out Revive Adserver (the successor to OpenX Source).
He also recommended BuySellAds , which grants access to thousands of advertisers who can purchase their inventory directly.
I’ve downloaded my reports before my account was shut down and I have moved to a cheaper premium ad server.
What’s your take on this especially the pricing ? Do you know other alternatives to Adzerk?
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