Compare Ad Manager and AdSense

Ad Manager and AdSense are powerful tools to help you sell your ad inventory.

Which is right for you?

While both provide access to millions of buyers, Ad Manager is built for publishers that require granular controls to avoid undermining their direct sales efforts.

If you don't have a significant direct sales business or if channel conflict is not a major concern for you, AdSense might be a better solution.

Summary of

Differences between features of Ad Manager and AdSense include the following.

Feature	Ad Manager	AdSense
Preferred Deals	Deals interface allows you to set up Preferred Deals for fixed CPMs with buyers or Private Auctions with floor prices with multiple buyers.	No possibility to set up Preferred Deals.
Filtering and blocking	Account-level filtering: Google-certified vendors blocking URL blocking General category blocking (if available in your language) Sensitive category blocking Ad review center: review and approve/disapprove ads from various advertisers Advertiser blocking Ad technologies blocking Cookie & data usage blocking Blocking rule filtering: Google-certified vendor blocking URL blocking General category blocking (if available in your language) Sensitive category blocking Advertiser blocking Cookies and data usage (non-Google demand) blocking User-based data (Google Demand sources) blocking Opt in to the following: Sensitive categories Ad technologies Learn more about protections.	Account level filtering: Google-certified vendor blocking URL blocking General category blocking (if available in your language) Sensitive category blocking Ad review center: review and approve/disapprove ads from various advertisers
Reporting	Flexible reporting with the ability to create reports based on publisher-defined criteria or use a template as a starting point.	Standard reporting capabilities such as "Sites", "Ad Units", "Ad Sizes", and so on.
Buyers/Advertisers	Access to the same buyers and advertisers: Google Ads advertisers Ad Manager buyers (Google-certified vendors). If a buyer is using a non-certified vendor (not encouraged), only Ad Manager publishers have access to this inventory.	Access to the same buyers and advertisers: Google Ads advertisers
Technology vendor permissions	Ad Manager allows all vendors; publishers can block any vendor.	Most vendors are allowed; publishers do not have the option to block a vendor.
Dynamic allocation	Dynamic allocation in Google Ad Manager.	Dynamic allocation in Google Ad Manager.
Revenue payments	Payment comes from Google. When your current balance reaches the payment threshold, we send you a payment at the end of the following month.	Payment comes from Google. If your current balance reaches the payment threshold by the end of the month, a 21-day payment processing period begins. After the processing period ends, we'll issue you a payment.