OpenX Ad Serving Tutorial (Slides from OpenX New York 2008)

Ad Serving Tutorial for OpenX

OpenX Day, New York, 2nd October 2008

Background before we start00

Before we start, here’s an overview of the key business entities in the OpenX ad server

Confidential & Proprietary 3

Demand-side

AdvertiserAdvertiser

CampaignCampaign

BannerBanner

Supply-side

PublisherPublisher

WebsiteWebsite

ZoneZone

Another thing to bear in mind is the “update interval”: ad servers don’t push delivery-related changes live immediately


• The hosted version of the OpenX ad server pushes updates made in the administration interface to the ad delivery boxes once every fifteen minutes

• This means we need to be patient during the demo as not all of the changes we make will be immediately testable by hitting refresh!

• This icon is used to indicate that we’ll need to wait a little

Getting started as a publisher11

For this tutorial we’re going to be the publisher of a one-page website called www.myblog.com


Let’s get started! First we want to setup our website in OpenX ready to take advertising


Define our websiteDefine our website

Create our first zoneCreate our first zone

Log in to the OpenX ad serverLog in to the OpenX ad serverPublisherPublisher

WebsiteWebsite

ZoneZone

Once we have done this, we need to wire OpenX into our site by creating an ad tag and adding it to our site’s HTML


Add it into our pageAdd it into our pageGenerate an invocation tagGenerate an invocation tag

Given that we haven’t got any advertising in our ad server, this will serve blanks initially


Adding our first advertiser22

Now to fill that zone! Let’s imagine we’ve just signed our first direct advertiser, Electronic Arts (EA)


• EA like our site’s demographic (!) and want an exclusive deal on the header ad slot on the home page for their video game Crysis:

• The campaign should run exclusively in the top slot on www.myblog.com till the end of October

• The banner is 728x90, same size as our ad zone

• The above banner should link to http://www.ea.com/crysis

http://www.myblog.com/

http://www.ea.com/crysis

To get this campaign running, we first need to create an advertiser (EA) and a campaign (Crysis), and create the banner


Define our Crysis campaignDefine our Crysis campaign

Create the bannerCreate the banner

Create EA as an advertiserCreate EA as an advertiserAdvertiserAdvertiser

CampaignCampaign

BannerBanner

Launching our first campaign33

To launch, all we need to link the banner to the correct zone – OpenX handes the rest


Demand-side Supply-side

PublisherPublisher

WebsiteWebsite

ZoneZoneLinkLink

Note that you can only link banners and zones which have the same dimensions – this protects you from accidentally breaking your site’s layout


CampaignCampaign

BannerBanner

And that’s it! We should have the ad displaying in the page header now; all further configuration can be done from OpenX


Advanced: setting up some delivery limitations44

EA is happy with the campaign but would like to show a different creative to Internet Explorer users


• For Internet Explorer EA would like to show this image:

• This banner goes to http://www.electronicarts.co.uk/games/8456,pccd/

• For all other users (Firefox, Opera etc), EA is happy to stick with:

• This banner goes to http://www.ea.com, as before

• The EA advertisement should

http://www.electronicarts.co.uk/games/8456,pccd/

http://www.ea.com/

To accomplish this with OpenX, we set delivery limitations on the individual banners – but first we need to add the new banner


Create the new IE bannerCreate the new IE banner

Add a delivery limitation on the IE bannerAdd a delivery limitation on the IE banner

Add a delivery limitation to the standard bannerAdd a delivery limitation to the standard banner

Link the IE banner to our zoneLink the IE banner to our zone

Now we load up Internet Explorer alongside Firefox to test the new delivery, and we should be ready



We can set up other kinds of delivery limitation too – here are some ideas

Adding a house or remnant campaign55

Next we’re going to put a sponsorship zone on the front page


• When we have a sponsorship deal, the 125x125 zone will display a button image from the sponsor

• When we don’t have a live sponsorship deal, then the zone should show a “Your ad here” type button:

• This “Your ad here” type button is essentially a “house” or “remnant” campaign – in OpenX these are given low priority so that a paying campaign can be shown instead if one is available

• Our “Your ad here” button will be a mailto: link to [email protected]

There is less to do on the publisher side this time, as our publisher and website are already set up


Create our new sponsorship zoneCreate our new sponsorship zone

PublisherPublisher

WebsiteWebsite

✔

✔

Add it into our pageAdd it into our page

Generate an invocation tagGenerate an invocation tag

ZoneZone

On the advertiser side, we will create a new advertiser, campaign and banner, and then link the zone


Define our remnant campaignDefine our remnant campaign

Create the bannerCreate the banner

Create house advertiserCreate house advertiser

Link to zoneLink to zone

ZoneZone

CampaignCampaign

BannerBanner


We’ll test it now and check everything looks good – then we wait for the sponsorship deals


Booking campaigns into our sponsorship slot66

Within a week we have managed to sell a couple of campaigns for our sponsorship slot (!)


To save some time in this demo, I’m going to create both campaigns under one advertiser, “Sponsorships”


Define our Mailchimp campaignDefine our Mailchimp campaign

Create Sponsorships as an advertiserCreate Sponsorships as an advertiserAdvertiserAdvertiser

CampaignCampaign Define our Rackspace campaignDefine our Rackspace campaign

• Normally we would create separate advertisers for each advertiser, but one advertiser, “Sponsorships” will do for our purposes today

• When we set up the campaigns, this time we’re going to add in the trafficking information (impressions booked, end date)

• The other thing we can set is priority – this is something that traffickers use to speed up and slow down the delivery of campaigns relative to other campaigns in the system. We will set to 5 each.

Under each campaign we’ll add the relevant banner and then link them both to the sponsorship zone


Create the Mailchimp bannerCreate the Mailchimp banner

Link the Mailchimp banner to the sponsorship zoneLink the Mailchimp banner to the sponsorship zone

Create the Rackspace bannerCreate the Rackspace banner

BannerBanner

Link the Rackspace banner to the sponsorship zoneLink the Rackspace banner to the sponsorship zone

BannerBanner

ZoneZone

With this complete, it’s now time to test that the new ads are both rotating within the sponsorship slot


• Note that we don’t expect to see the “Your ad here” ad any more – this is because there are now paying campaigns which take precedence

• The two ads should be shown in roughly the same proportions – this is because we set the priorities of these ads to be the same (5)

• If we have any problems with this, then we can check the Zone probability screen

Final tweaks: statistics, expired campaigns and delivery capping 77

We’ll have to wait a little to get the latest statistics from our tutorial session


Rackspace want their ad to be shown as the priority over the Mailchimp ad


• To show Rackspace more often that Mailchimp, we adjust the priority of Rackspace to be 10

• Campaign prioritisation algorithms are very complex, but in the simplest case (ignoring delivery dates etc), Rackspace will now display twice as often as Mailchimp

Increase priority of campaignIncrease priority of campaign

Check higher priority is workingCheck higher priority is working

Meanwhile Mailchimp have checked their conversion rates and ask that their sponsorship button be frequency capped to 5


• This means that Mailchimp only want their ad to be displayed five to each individual user

• They likely want this because the ad is much less effective after the first five views

• We set this cap at the banner level – once this is working, then for our user after the first five visits they will only see Rackspace ads

Add visitor capping to Mailchimp bannerAdd visitor capping to Mailchimp banner

Confirm that visitor capping is workingConfirm that visitor capping is working

Finally if we set frequency capping on our Rackspace ad too, then we should eventually be back to our house ad


Add visitor capping to Rackspace bannerAdd visitor capping to Rackspace banner

Confirm that visitor capping is workingConfirm that visitor capping is working

That’s it! Questions?88

Date post:	29-Oct-2014
Category:	Technology
Upload:	openx
View:	26 times
Download:	5 times

OpenX Ad Serving Tutorial (Slides from OpenX New York 2008)

Technology