Ad Serving Tutorial for OpenX OpenX Day, New York, 2 nd October 2008

Background before we start 0

Before we start, here’s an overview of the key business entities in t he OpenX ad server Confidential & Proprietary Demand-side Advertiser Campaign Banner Supply-side Publisher Website Zone

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

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 publisher 1

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

Let’s get started! First we want to setup our website in OpenX ready to take advertising Confidential & Proprietary Define our website Create our first zone Log in to the OpenX ad server Publisher Website Zone

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 Confidential & Proprietary Add it into our page Generate an invocation tag

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

Adding our first advertiser 2

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

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

To get this campaign running, we first need to create an advertiser (EA) and a campaign (Crysis), and create the banner Confidential & Proprietary D efine our Crysis campaign Create the banner Create EA as an advertiser Advertiser Campaign Banner

Launching our first campaign 3

To launch, all we need to link the banner to the correct zone – OpenX handes the rest Confidential & Proprietary Demand-side Supply-side Publisher Website Zone Link Note that you can only link banners and zones which have the same dimensions – this protects you from accidentally breaking your site’s layout Advertiser Campaign Banner

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

Advanced: setting up some delivery limitations 4

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

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

To accomplish this with OpenX, we set delivery limitations on the individual banners – but first we need to add the new banner Confidential & Proprietary Create the new IE banner Add a delivery limitation on the IE banner Add a delivery limitation to the standard banner Link the IE banner to our zone

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

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

Adding a house or remnant campaign 5

Next we’re going to put a sponsorship zone on the front page Confidential & Proprietary 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 advertising@myblog.com

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 advertising@myblog.com

There is less to do on the publisher side this time, as our publisher and website are already set up Confidential & Proprietary Create our new sponsorship zone Publisher Website ✔ ✔ Add it into our page Generate an invocation tag Zone

On the advertiser side, we will create a new advertiser, campaign and banner, and then link the zone Confidential & Proprietary D efine our remnant campaign Create the banner Create house advertiser Link to zone Zone Campaign Banner Advertiser

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

Booking campaigns into our sponsorship slot 6

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

To save some time in this demo, I’m going to create both campaigns under one advertiser, “Sponsorships” Confidential & Proprietary D efine our Mailchimp campaign Create Sponsorships as an advertiser Advertiser Campaign D efine 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.

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 Confidential & Proprietary Create the Mailchimp banner Link the Mailchimp banner to the sponsorship zone Create the Rackspace banner Banner Link the Rackspace banner to the sponsorship zone Banner Zone

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

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 7

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

Rackspace want their ad to be shown as the priority over the Mailchimp ad Confidential & Proprietary 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 campaign Check higher priority is working

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

Meanwhile Mailchimp have checked their conversion rates and ask that their sponsorship button be frequency capped to 5 Confidential & Proprietary 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 banner Confirm that visitor capping is working

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

Finally if we set frequency capping on our Rackspace ad too, then we should eventually be back to our house ad Confidential & Proprietary Add visitor capping to Rackspace banner Confirm that visitor capping is working

That’s it! Questions? 8