Questions
- What do color coded zones denote?
- How do I deactivate or pause a campaign?
- How do I serve multiple ads in a single zone?
- How can I have statistics emailed to me automatically?
- How do I compare the performance of banners in rotation?
- How do I rotate banners with OpenX?
- How do I tell which version of the OpenX software I am currently running?
- Can I display and track Google AdSense ads with OpenX?
- How do I add a random number to an Image or iFrame invocation tag in place of insert_random_number_here?
- How do I prevent a banner, campaign, or advertiser from being displayed more than once on one page?
- Can I use a custom logo in the Administration area?
- Will OpenX deliver ads to Mobile (Cell) Phones?
- What is a 'banner'?
- What is a 'campaign'?
- What is an 'advertiser'?
- What is a 'zone'?
- What is a 'publisher'?
- Can I insert ads into emails?
- Can I view graphs of my statistics?
- What is the url for the client or publisher to login and see their ads statistics?
- How do I show different sized creatives in a zone?
- How do I enable Geotargeting options in OpenX?
Answers
What do color coded zones denote?
There are several zone icon colors. Every color indicates a zone specific state.
Zone state can be any of:
 |
Banners linked to the zone |
 |
No banners linked to this Zone |
 |
Active E-mail/Newsletter zone |
 |
Inactive E-mail/Newsletter zone |
 |
Active Interstitial or Floating DHTML zone |
 |
Active Text zone |
 |
Inactive Text zone |
 |
Active Pop-Up zone |
 |
Inactive Pop-Up zone |
 |
Campaigns linked to the zone |
How do I deactivate or pause a campaign?
In OpenX you can temporarily deactivate or pause a specific campaign.
For exclusive and low priority campaigns you need to set the weight of the campaign to '0' in the Distribution section.
For high priority campaigns you need to set the impressions of the campaign to '0' per day in the Distribution section.
You will get a notification popup which should be confirmed. Your campaign will then be deactivated.
How do I serve multiple ads in a single zone?
Using the concept of "wrapper" ads, you can create an HTML banner which itself serves multiple ads.
The trick here is to generate the tags for each of the individual ads you want to be shown in by this zone.
For example:
- Set up two zones both sized at 234x60.
- Link two (or more) ads to these zones.
- Create a new HTML banner (468x60) and paste into it the invocation tags for the two 234x60 zones you created.
This will result in one 468x60 banner (which you can link to your website's 468x60 zone), which in turn serves up two of the 234x60 half-banners.
If you want to ensure that the same half-banner isn't repeated, you can enable the "Don't show the same banner again on the same page" option when you generate the half-banner zone tags.
How can I have statistics emailed to me automatically?
On the main advertiser's properties screen you have the option to enable automatic campaign delivery report emails. You can specify how often the report should be sent.
You must specify who the report should be sent to.
First, on the main advertiser's properties you can define the main email of the advertiser, where reports and campaign expiration/activation emails will be sent.
Additionally, in you can go to the 'User Access' tab of an advertiser and assign users to the advertiser's account. Whoever is assigned to the advertiser will also have a report emailed to them. You can assign a user to as many different accounts as you need - so your admin or manager user can be assigned to any advertiser account it has access to.
Learn more about users and accounts in the documentation.
You can also set on the advertiser properties for an email to be sent out when a campaign is expired.
You can further customize this in My Account->Account Preferences->Campaign Email Reports Preferences.
How do I compare the performance of banners in rotation?
OpenX provides a many different ways of breaking down statistics through the Statistics and Reports tabs.
Comparing banners in a single zone is an objective way to compare performance, since the banner will have had the same opportunity to perform.
Here is one way to do this using the Statistics interface:
- From the Statistics tab, navigate to Websites & Zones.
- Set an appropriate time range, e.g. 'Last 7 days'.
- Click your website, then click the Zones tab.
- Click on the zone you wish to review. Or, if you wish to review performance of all zones, skip to the next step.
- Click on the Campaign Distribution tab.
- Click 'Expand all' so that all banners are shown.
- If you wish to view these stats broken down by time, click a campaign or banner. You can then switch between daily/weekly/monthly/hourly/day-of-week time breakdowns for that website or zone.
The above is just one example - make sure to explore and discover all of the ways you can breakdown & compare statistics between all of your inventory.
One of the simplest ways to compare banner performance is to see which has the highest click through rate (CTR - the number of clicks per impression). (You can edit which Statistic columns are displayed by going to My Account->Account Preferences->User Interface Preferences.)
Note: you will need to allow enough time to pass until you have collected some statistics before you are able to evaluate the performance of your banners.
How do I rotate banners with OpenX?
Using the OpenX ad server you can start rotating banners on your website. By rotating banners you can have many ads sharing the same space on your web page and compare their performance objectively.
Rotating ads using OpenX is as simple as linking many banners to a zone.
Note: In order to link the banners to a zone they need to have the correct dimensions and the zone will need to support the banner types.
How do I tell which version of the OpenX software I am currently running?
If you log in as an admin you can go to the Settings (2.0 and 2.4) or My Account tab and then to the Product Updates sub-tab. This page will tell you what version you are currently using.
Remember that OpenX and Openads are the same product - just a new name!
Can I display and track Google AdSense ads with OpenX?
Yes! In fact, this is by far the most popular ad network used by OpenX publishers.
To display Google AdSense ads use a ‘HTML banner’ and paste in the ad tag given to you by Google.
There is an extra step required to track clicks. When setting up your banner enable 'Alter HTML to enable tracking of Clicks' and select 'Rich Media - Google AdSense' from the list.
We've created a tutorial to help you set up your Google AdSense ad campaign in OpenX.
Also, if you’re new to OpenX you might like to follow our how-to guide on serving your first ad campaign to follow through the process of setting up your first advertiser (Google), ad campaign (AdSense campaign) and banner (the Google AdSense ad itself).
Note: AdSense doesn't officially support click tracking. OpenX will always be able to track impressions and does have a way to track clicks using Javascript (see above). However, if AdSense serves a flash banner or serves a banner which is designated to open in a new window, OpenX will not be able to track these clicks. Since AdSense does not officially support click tracking, it is not something we can change.
How do I add a random number to an Image or iFrame invocation tag in place of insert_random_number_here?
Image and iFrame invocation tags have a placeholder for a random number which is used to prevent users from caching a URL's content in their browser, preventing new banners from being freshly loaded.
Other invocation tag types automatically provide a random number.
Without a random number attached to the invocation tag, it may prevent the banners from being rotated properly and a valid impression might not be recorded.
You can add a random number to these tags' client-side by using JavaScript, or their server-side by using a programming language like PHP or ASP.
An example in PHP would be:
<a href="http://www.example.com/ck.php?n=3798N2&cb=<?php echo rand()?>" _fcksavedurl="http://www.example.com/ck.php?n=3798N2&cb=<?php echo rand()?>" _fcksavedurl="http://www.example.com/ck.php?n=3798N2&cb=<?php echo rand()?>" <img src="http://www.example.com/avw.php?zoneid=10&n=3798N2&cb=<?php echo rand(); ?>"></a>
An example in Javascript would be:
<script type='text/javascript'>
var randomnumber=Math.floor(Math.random()*99999999999);
document.write("<a href='http://www.example.com/ck.php?n=3798N2&cb="+randomnumber);
document.write("'><img src='http://www.example.com/avw.php?zoneid=10&n=3798N2&
cb="+randomnumber);
document.write("'></a>");
</script>
You will want to first generate the valid Image invocation tag from within OpenX to make sure that the domain and path to OpenX are valid, and that the <img alt=""> tag has the correct zoneid.
Keywords: INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE
How do I prevent a banner, campaign, or advertiser from being displayed more than once on one page?
When you are generating an invocation tag, you have various options below the main tag which can be used to customize what the tag does.
Two of these options are:
- Don't show the banner again on the same page.
- Don't show a banner from the same campaign again on the same page
Set one of these options to Yes and press the Submit button at the bottom of the form. Copy the new invocation tag and place it on your website.
To limit by advertiser: In 2.6+ there is an option on the advertiser's main properties to "Display only one banner from this advertiser on a web page".
Now when you have invocation tags on one page, a banner, campaign and/or advertiser will be used only once, depending on which settings you have used.
Can I use a custom logo in the Administration area?
Yes. You have some flexibility to change the Administration area so your advertisers can see your logo when they login to view their stats. Go to Settings and then Main Settings. From the drop down list just below that pick "User interface settings" to see how you can customize the interface.
Will OpenX deliver ads to Mobile (Cell) Phones?
Yes, however it depends exactly what kind of banners you want to deliver and what technology the mobile devices you are targeting will support.
The simple solution is to treat a mobile device like an email -- assume that it won't support your javascript code or advanced html.
In this sense, create a zone as an Email zone. Assign 1 active Image banner to it. Generate the cookieless image tag, and this will display on your mobile device.
What is a 'banner'?
In OpenX, a banner is the ad (creative) that is displayed as advertising. Banners come in many formats, and OpenX supports a wide range: .gif, .jpg, .png, .swf (Flash), javascript, text, and HTML. You link banners to zones in order to publish them on your website.
What is a 'campaign'?
A campaign is a set of banners with the same delivery settings. Delivery settings include the frequency and duration of ad delivery, priority settings for ads and limitations on the display of ads according to a variety of parameters.
Campaigns are always owned by advertisers, so you must create an advertiser before defining a campaign.
What is an 'advertiser'?
Advertisers represent the owners of advertising campaigns. Advertisers run ad campaigns and supply the banners which belong to each campaign. Before you can add banners to your ad server you must first create an advertiser and at least one campaign.
What is a 'zone'?
Zones are defined spaces on your website used for displaying advertisements. A zone can be a single space on a specific page, or a space which is used on multiple pages, but showing the same collection of banners.
Zones are owned by publishers and cannot be created without a publisher first being defined.
What is a 'publisher'?
The vast majority of OpenX users are website owners. Publishers represent website owners who use OpenX to include advertising on their web pages. As a publisher you define areas on your website - called zones - that are reserved for displaying advertising.
Can I insert ads into emails?
Yes - when creating a zone you should use the Zone Type 'email' - which requires that only 1 active banner is linked to that zone.
Can I view graphs of my statistics?
Yes, in OpenX 2.4 or above. However, your server needs to have the GD extension for PHP loaded first.
If you do not have GD (which is used for creating images) then you won't be able to view the graphs. Please talk with your hosting company about having GD enabled for PHP (it is usually standard).
What is the url for the client or publisher to login and see their ads statistics?
It is the same as the Administrator URL, example: 'http://www.example.com/openX_Directory/admin/index.php'
When the client or publisher logs in using their own credentials, then they will see just their own statistics.
How do I show different sized creatives in a zone?
Zones can be setup with variable dimensions.
For example, if the space on your page can be filled with 120x600 or 160x600 ads, then set the zone size to "* x 600". If any size ads is acceptable for the zone, set the zone size to "* x *". The asterisk (*) acts as a wildcard.
When using wildcard zone sizes, the tag type you use will affect the display:
- Using image/JavaScript/XML-RPC/Local-mode tags - Only as much space as the selected ad requires will be taken up. If you give an image tag a specific size, a linked image of a different size can appear distorted.
- With iframe tags, the space taken up on the page is fixed. The content will be cropped if it exceeds the given size.
How do I enable Geotargeting options in OpenX?
In order to use Geotargeting features you need to enable a GeoIP database plugin.
A free country database is provided in OpenX from MaxMind. If you need a more accurate database, or want a database with more information, you can buy one from MaxMind.
The free database which is included with OpenX is not enabled by default. To enable this database, or an advanced database which you have downloaded, you must view your Geotargeting Settings page at Settings -> Main Settings -> Geotargeting Settings.
To enable the free version, simply change "Geotargeting Module Type" from "None" to "MaxMind GeoIP". Make sure to save your changes. You do not need to insert any path information when using the free version.
If you have downloaded a paid database, insert the path information into the correct field.
Once you have the GeoIP database enabled, you can start using Geographic Limitations on your banners (the exact options available depend on what GeoIP database you are using).
More information here.
