In order to use an ad server with DP, you must use the 'adBreak' object in your JSON feed file to indicate where you would like and ad break to appear. Having said that, however, there's no guarantee that an ad will appear. It's dependent upon whether there are any ads available in the pool. If the ad server does not have a sufficient supply of ads, you may not see an ad. This is somewhat of an over simplification, but, you should understand that just because you request an ad, does not mean that one will be served. Additionally, you should never have to pay for an ad server. More on that later.
Now for the brutally honest assessment of monetization, in my experience/opinion. The one thing that will be instrumental in determining if you receive any money from serving ads is your content. Most ad servers only payout after serving thousands of ads. And at that, they typically pay pennies per thousands of ads served. You must make sure that your content is viewed thousands and thousands of times in order to receive any payout. There are two potential ways to do that. Make sure your content is desirable and cannot be viewed elsewhere, and, market your channel to drive traffic to it. Failure to do both will result in slow or non existent payment from the ad server companies. If you're a small independent channel developer, the odds are stacked against you if your content cannot drive interest in your channel. That's the case for many channel developers on this forum.
If you browse this forum, you'll notice plenty of complaints from other channel developers regarding monetization payment, or, lack thereof. You'll also see some ad server companies trolling these forums promising better and more consistent payout. Most will not charge you because the more channels they have under their umbrella, the more likely they are to receive their payment from advertisers. Think of them as the “middle man” between you and any ads shown on your channel. They get paid by selling advertising, but, you only get paid if enough people view the ads. It all still boils down to whether your content is viewed enough times for the ad server companies to justify paying you.
Sorry for the long winded explanation/rant...Hope it helped.
