openx 2.4 guide

Openads 2.4 User Guide

Copyright © 2007 Openads Ltd. All Rights Reserved.


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0B1. Openads 2.4 Overview This guide describes Openads version 2.4 and is intended to help you understand the application and to get you managing your inventory as quickly as possible.

The content of this guide covers new installations, upgrades, the management of your banner inventory, the delivery of advertising to your website, Openads configuration settings and how to gather and display statistics. A HTUQuick Start chapterUTH aims to get you up and running rapidly, with links to relevant detailed information in the remainder of the guide.

You are strongly recommended to read this guide thoroughly before you start using Openads 2.4, as many questions you may have about using an adserver are answered in the following chapters. If, after reading this guide, you still have queries, you can join the Openads support forum via the Openads website to search for solutions and advice, as well as participate in discussions about Openads 2.4.

Copyright 2007 Openads Ltd. No part of this reference guide shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express permission of Openads. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of these materials, no responsibility is assumed for errors or omissions, neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.


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This guide includes:1. Openads 2.4 Overview ............................................................................................2

2. Openads Concepts .................................................................................................5

2.1 What is Openads 2.4? .......................................................................................5

2.2 Adserving concepts ...........................................................................................5

3. Quick Start Guide ....................................................................................................7

3.1 Installing Openads ............................................................................................8

3.2 Load banners ....................................................................................................9

3.3 Linking banners to zones ................................................................................11

3.4 Publish zones on your website ........................................................................12

3.5 Quick start worked example ............................................................................13

3.6 Monetizing your inventory ...............................................................................18

4. Installation guide ...................................................................................................19

4.1 Requirements ..................................................................................................22

4.2 Downloading Openads ....................................................................................24

4.3 Copying Openads to your server ....................................................................25

4.4 The Install wizard ............................................................................................26

4.5 Configuring Maintenance ................................................................................34

5. Upgrading ..............................................................................................................41

5.1 Requirements for upgrades .............................................................................43

5.2 Download Openads upgrade ..........................................................................45

5.3 Copying Openads upgrade .............................................................................46

5.4 The Upgrade Wizard .......................................................................................48

5.5 Configuring Maintenance upgrade ..................................................................54

6. Openads 2.4 Inventory ..........................................................................................61

6.1 Advertisers ......................................................................................................62

6.2 Campaigns .......................................................................................................68

6.3 Banners ...........................................................................................................78

6.4 Publishers .......................................................................................................98

6.5 Zones ............................................................................................................102

6.6 Channels .......................................................................................................122

6.7 Displaying banners using direct selection .....................................................124

7. Statistics ..............................................................................................................128

7.1 Overview ........................................................................................................128

7.2 Advertisers & Campaigns ..............................................................................129

7.3 Publishers & Zones .......................................................................................132

7.4 Global history ................................................................................................134


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8. Reports ................................................................................................................135

9. Settings ...............................................................................................................137

9.1 Overview ........................................................................................................137

9.2 Main settings .................................................................................................138

9.3 Maintenance management ............................................................................158

9.4 Product Updates ...........................................................................................160

9.5 User log .........................................................................................................161

9.6 Agency Management ....................................................................................163

9.7 Channel Management ...................................................................................166


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1B2. Openads Concepts This chapter gives you a brief description to Openads 2.4 and introduces you to some basic concepts that you'll need to know in order to make the most of the application.

9B2.1 What is Openads 2.4?

Openads 2.4 is an advanced ad server that allows you to place banners on your website and lets you manage, deliver and track your ad inventory. The user-friendly administrative interface gives you full control over the advertising published on your website.

With Openads you can run HTUGoogle AdsenseUTH, HTUValueclickUTH, HTUTribal FusionUTH, and other advertising programs. In addition, you can turn on or off ad campaigns with the click of a button, and even display your own in-house advertisements.

Openads is open-source which means you have access to the source code, licensed under the HTUGeneral Public LicenseUTH.

10B2.2 Adserving concepts

Openads is designed to help you maximise your website's advertising potential by offering an easy to understand, structured environment. This structure is based upon a number of straightforward concepts that will help you manage your inventory quickly and reliably:

45BPublishers (Websites) The vast majority of Openads users are website owners. HTUPublishersUTH represent website owners who use Openads to include advertising on their web pages. As a publisher you define areas on your website - called zones - that are reserved for displaying advertising.

46BZones HTUZones UTH 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.

47BAdvertisers HTUAdvertisers UTH 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.

48BCampaigns A HTUcampaign UTH 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.


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Campaigns are always owned by advertisers, so you must create an advertiser before defining a campaign.

49BBanners In Openads, a HTUbanner UTH is the ad (creative) that is displayed as advertising. Banners come in many formats, and Openads 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.


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2B3. Quick Start Guide This section of the Openads 2.4 online documentation gives you a step-by-step guide to downloading, installing and setting-up Openads. It will take you through the process of creating the various entities - such as Publishers, Zones, Advertisers and Campaigns - with the aim of delivering ads to your website as rapidly as possible.

Throughout this guide there are links to in-depth information and guidance about many aspects of adserving and banner delivery.

Finally, a working example brings all of this information together in a guide that you can follow as a real-world test of your setup.


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11B3.1 Installing Openads

Installing Openads 2.4 is a straightforward process. Follow these steps and use the links to refer to detailed information on each step where necessary:

a. TSystem PreparationT Before you install Openads, make sure your system is set up correctly. HTURead about system pre-requisites here.UTH

b. T Preparatory steps T Create a database specifically for Openads use and configure your web server. HTURead about essential preparatory steps here. UTH

c. TDownload OpenadsT Navigate to the HTUOpenads websiteUTH. Select the TDownloadsT menu, then click the TDownload Openads 2.4 Tlink in the Downloads page. Save the file to a convenient place on your local machine.

d. TUnpack and uploadT Extract your downloaded Openads file to your webserver, in the appropriate location within the server root hierarchy. HTURead more about uploading the Openads files to your webserver.UTH

e. TRun the installerT Open a web browser and point it to the directory to which the Openads files were copied, for instance:

http://www.example.com/Openads

This starts the install wizard automatically. If this does not start the installer automatically your web server probably is not configured to allow PHP files to be used as a directory index. If this is the case you could try to start the installer by running the index.php file in the admin directory manually by pointing the web browser to: http://www.example.com/Openads/admin/index.php. The wizard consists of eight tabs or pages. Follow each step of the wizard carefully to install Openads correctly. HTURead about the installation process in detail here.UTH On successful completion of the installation, you can log in to the Administrator interface straight away.

f. TSet up Maintenance T Openads 2.4 uses a special maintenance script to activate campaigns, recalculate priorities, clean up statistics and send out advertiser reports. The maintenance script needs to run every hour for the application to function correctly. A feature of Openads 2.4 is its built-in automatic maintenance. Alternatively you can manually configure maintenance, typically using a TcronjobT, to suit your own needs. HTURead about scheduling maintenance.UT

When you have completed the above steps successfully, you are ready to start loading ad banners to the system. HTUSee the Quick Start Guide to loading banners.UTH


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12B3.2 Load banners

Now that you have set up your system and successfully installed Openads 2.4, you can begin to load banners destined for display on your website. Remember that banners are owned by Campaigns and that Campaigns must be owned by an Advertiser.

a. Log in In your web browser navigate to the Authentication page of Openads 2.4, for example: HTUhttp://www.example.com/openads/www/admin/ UTH. Enter the Username and Password you defined during the installation process. Forgotten your password? HTURead how to reset your login password. UTH By default, the TAdvertisers & Campaigns T page is displayed.

b. Create an Advertiser Click the TAdd new advertiserT link.

c. Specify Advertiser properties The TAdd new advertiserT page is displayed. Here you can specify a number of properties associated with the new advertiser. HTURead about specifying advertiser properties.UTH You must at least complete the TName T, TContact Tand TE-mail T fields, which are mandatory.

When you have entered the desired information, click TNext T at the foot of the page. The TAdd new campaign T page is displayed.

d. Create a new Campaign and specify Campaign properties There are several properties you can specify related to the campaign. HTURead about specifying campaign properties. UTH There are no mandatory fields on this page, but you are advised to give the campaign a meaningful name for later


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reference. Click TSave Changes T at the foot of the page. The TLinked zones T page is displayed.

e. Add a Banner Now you are ready to add a creative to your inventory. Select the TBanner overview T tab, then click TAdd new bannerT.

f. Specify Banner properties The TBanner properties T page displays. You can choose a banner TtypeT from the drop-down list. For the purposes of this example, choose the TLocal banner (SQL) T option. HTUYou can read about banner types here. UTH

• Now upload the image you want to use with the TBrowseT button; • Enter the path to your website in the TDestination URL T field; • Enter a short description in the TDescription T field to identify your banner.

Click TSave changes T Congratulations - you have loaded your first ad banner into Openads. Now you are ready to link your banner to a zone on your website.


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13B3.3 Linking banners to zones

Now that you have loaded a banner into Openads, your next step is to get the banner ad delivered to your website. You do this by linking the banner to a zone or zones. Remember that in order to create a suitable zone, you must first create a Publisher.

a. Click the Publishers & Zones tab Navigate to the Publishers & Zones page by clicking the Inventory tab, then selecting the Publishers & Zones tab.

b. Create a Publisher Click the TAdd new publisherT link.

c. Specify the Publisher's properties The TAdd new publisherT page is displayed. This is where you can specify a range of properties associated with the publisher. HTURead about publisher properties here. UTH Complete the TName T, TWebsite T, TContactT and TE-mail fieldsT. Note that the full address of the website should be included in TWebsiteT field. Click TNext T at the foot of the page. The TZone properties T page is displayed.

d. Create a zone The TZone properties T page is where you specify the attributes of your zone.

• Complete the TName T and TDescription Tfields; • Then select the TZone typeT from the available. Remember that the

type you choose must be compatible with the banner you want to display in it. As you have loaded an image banner, select the TBanner, Button or RectangleT option. HTURead more about Zone types here. UT

• From the TSize T drop-down list, select a suitable size. This size must be compatible with the size of your banner.

• ClickT Next

You have created your first zone. Now your task is to link your banner to this zone.

e. Link a banner to your zone Select the TLinked banners T tab. In this page you identify the banner you want to link to your zone.

• Select TLink banners by parent campaignT from the first drop-down list;

• Select the TAdvertiserT that owns the campaign from the second drop-down list;

• Select the TCampaign T from the adjacent drop-down; • Click the arrow button.

The banner that is compatible with your new zone is shown in the list at the bottom of the page and is now linked to your zone. Your next step is to publish the zone on your website.


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14B3.4 Publish zones on your website

Now you must publish your zone on the website. To do this you generate invocation code and copy the code to the space reserved for your zone on the web page.

a. Generate invocation code Select the TInvocation code T tab. This page lets you choose the type of banner invocation you need. HTURead about invocation code here. UTH For a typical banner ad, choose TJavascript Tag T from the drop-down list. The page refreshes to reveal the required bannercode.

b. Copy the Bannercode Click the TCopy to clipboard T link. Now past this code into your website's source code at the exact place where you would like the zone to be.

You can specify special parameters on this page that are included in the bannercode and influence the banner's behaviour. HTURead detailed information about bannercode parameters.UTH


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15B3.5 Quick start worked example

In this section you can put together everything you have learned in the Quick Start Guide to create a test banner ad delivered to your website.

First some preparation - download a HTU468x60 test banner ad UTH and save it on your computer. Now create a space on your webpage for the banner you'll deliver to it using Openads. Typically, you would create a table cell to accommodate the ad. Make sure that it's at least 468 x 80 pixels.

Now log in to the Administrator interface and create an advertiser:

Name this 'MyAdvertiser' and complete the mandatory fields.

Click TNext Now create a new campaign, owned by the Advertiser.

Name this 'MyAdvertiser - Openads example'


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Click TNext Select the TBanner overview T tab. Now you'll add the Openads banner you uploaded.

Click TAdd new banner

In the TBanner properties T page that appears, select TLocal banner (SQL) T from the drop-down list. TBrowseT for the Openads image you saved earlier. In the TDestination URL T field, HTUhttp://www.openads.orgUTH. In the TDescription Tfield, type 'Openads banner 468x80'.


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Click TSave Changes Now you've added the banner successfully, you must link it to a zone. First, create a new publisher. Select the Inventory tab, then the Publishers & Zones tab.

TName T this publisher 'MyWebsite'. Complete the mandatory fields.


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Click TNext The TZone properties Tpage appears. Name the new zone 'MyWebsite - Full banner 468x80'. make sure the TZone typeT is Banner, Button or Rectangle. Select the 'Width' and 'Height' TSizeT option. You'll see the drop-down list automatically selects 'Custom'. Enter '468' as width and '80' as height.

Click TNext Now your zone is created. Select the TLinked banners T tab. Now link your banner to the new zone:


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The banner is now linked to the zone. Your next step is to generate T Invocation code T. Click the TInvocation code T tab. In the page that appears, select TJavascript tag T from the drop-down list. Allow the page to refresh, then copy the bannercode.

Now copy this code to the table cell you created earlier on your webpage.

Upload the revised website pages in the normal way. Navigate to your website and view the delivery of your Openads banner!


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16B3.6 Monetizing your inventory

Now that you have Openads to manage revenue-earning advertising on your website, you must consider how to get revenue-generating ads in it. You can do this by your own marketing efforts or you can use established organisations called Tad networksT that can help you by providing online advertising appropriate to your site.

The Openads website has a section devoted to methods of earning revenue through online advertising. Visit HTUwww.openads.org/revenue/ UTH for information and advice.


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3B4. Installation guide This chapter covers a new installation in detail. It assumes that you have successfully installed PHP, the web server (Apache, IIS, etc.) and database server (MySQL). The following installation procedure is based on a set-up comprising an Apache web server with PHP as a concurrent module, and a MySQL database server.

50BPreparatory steps

1. You need a database which Openads will use to store data. You must either create a database for Openads to use or use a database account which has permissions to create a new databases. You can also choose to install Openads using an existing database, but make sure to use a valid table prefix in order to keep Openads' tables separate from tables that already exist in your database. It is recommended to create a database account specifically for Openads' use. Make sure the database user you specify has enough privileges to: alter, select, insert, update, delete, create table, create temporary table, drop temporary table*, create index, drop index and lock tables. When you install Openads, default tables are created and default data is written to them. T *MySQL does not have a specific privilege for 'drop temporary table', so 'drop table' will have to be assigned

2. Configure your web server to answer requests for your domain name, e.g. http://example.com/. Consult your web server documentation for guidance on doing this. In Apache, you can configure this and many other parameters in the httpd.conf file.

51BDeployment considerations

Openads 2.4 can be deployed in a number of ways according to your current resources and anticipated ad traffic. This chapter is intended to help you decide which way to deploy Openads is the best for your specific situation.

52BRunning your website and Openads on one web server This is the most straightforward deployment strategy and is a perfectly satisfactory arrangement unless you have very high visitor numbers. Openads can be installed in a subdirectory on the same virtual host as your website. For instance, if you are using Apache, Openads can be installed in the htdocs folder. If your website is built using PHP, you can use local mode invocation to deliver banners. See the Zones chapter for more information about invocation tags.

There are some factors to take into account if you do elect to use local mode invocation. Since Openads sets cookies for certain features, the domain name that Openads uses must be the same as domain name for your website. This is because only cookies set by a particular domain name can be read by scripts running under that domain name. You can use more than one domain name if desired, in which case Openads will set the cookie using the current one, provided that all the domain names being used are pointing to the same virtual host. Since there are limitations on the number of cookies you can set for a particular domain name, it is possible that older cookies will be replaced (deleted) by new ones once that limitation is passed. This could also affect cookies which are set by your own website. These potential issues can be resolved by running Openads on a different domain.

If you do want to run Openads on a different virtual host with a separate domain name you can't use local mode invocation without causing problems. Other types of


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remote invocation will work fine. This approach also has a couple of advantages: because there is a limitation to the number of cookies you can set for a specific domain older cookies will be deleted when new cookies are set. If you are running Openads on the same domain as your website it is possible Openads will delete the cookies which are set by your own website. Running on a different domain name will prevent this.

53BRunning Openads on a dedicated server If you want to install Openads on a dedicated server, you can't use local mode invocation, but all the other types of invocation will still work fine. Apart from the obvious speed improvements this has some other advantages. Because the ad server needs to run on a separate domain name the cookies set by Openads are kept separate from the cookies set by your website. This also means they don't share the same limitation in the number of cookies that can be set, so Openads won't delete cookies set by your website once the limit is reached.

54BRunning Openads on more than one server It is possible to install more than one copy of Openads in order to distribute the load over more than one web server. This strategy has some administrative overheads that should be considered. Firstly there is no provision, currently, for automatic distribution of configuration settings, nor automatic distribution of uploaded banner images to multiple copies; secondly, you must use a single MySQL database server for all the installed copies of Openads, so while the load of delivery is distributed over multiple servers, the database load is not. Moreover, it is not possible to use shared memory or files for the delivery cache, since the delivery cache needs to be shared between all the servers and the database method is currently the only method that supports this. It is feasible to use MySQL replication to distribute the load over multiple MySQL database servers, but not without some modification to the Openads source code.

Within the limitations outlined above there are multiple ways to deploy Openads. Just like a single server you can install Openads on the same server as your website or on a dedicated server. For example if you are already using a simple load balancer and multiple servers to serve your website, you could install a copy of Openads on a subdirectory on all your web servers. In other cases you might want to use multiple dedicated servers running Openads and balance the load between them.

As briefly explained above, it is not possible to use shared memory or files for storing the delivery cache if you plan on using more than one server to deliver the banners. The reason for this is quite simple, the delivery cache needs to be shared between all the servers and the database method is currently the only method that supports this.

The distribution of uploaded banners is also something to consider. Openads allows you to upload banners to the MySQL database or to a web server. The first method is slow but also very user-friendly. The second method is much faster but may take some additional configuration. If you are using multiple servers and the second method you need have two options: upload the banners to a different server which serves the banner images for all the ad servers or upload the banners to a directory on one of the ad servers and create a way to synchronize the uploaded images with the other ad servers yourself. If you don't synchronize the uploaded images it is possible the images will be requested from the wrong server and the user will see a broken image instead of a banner.

Openads stores its configuration settings using two different ways. First of all, the settings which are important to the delivery engine are stored in a configuration file


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for optimization reasons. The name of that file reflects your host name. For instance, if the host name is www.example.com, then the file is named www.example.com.conf.php and is stored in the var directory. The rest of the settings which are mostly used for the administrator interface are stored inside the database. The settings which are stored in the database are automatically shared between multiple servers, but the settings which are stored in the www.example.com.conf.php file are not! So if you change a setting which is important to the delivery engine you will need to modify this file on all the servers you are running.

Also keep in mind that if you use a load balancer it is not clear on which server the settings will be changed in the first place, so it is wise to disable the administrator interface on all but one server. Then use a different domain name which only points to the server with the administrator interface to change the settings. For example: ad.Openads.com (192.168.1.0) points to the load balancer which forwards the requests to adserver1.Openads.com (192.168.1.1) and adserver2.Openads.com (192.168.1.2). The administrator interface is disabled on ad2.Openads.com, so you have to use adserver1.Openads.com to manage the inventory or change configuration settings.

Making your installation secure Most installations of Openads are installed on the regular webserver and usually are accessed through the regular insecure http protocol. If you want to increase the security of the administrator interface there are also some 'hidden' options which allow you to use SSL for encryption. The only requirements for this are that the webserver you installed Openads on is capable of serving SSL encrypted pages and you have a valid certificate. Of course you can also use a seperate server just for the administrator interface.

If you want to use one server for both the delivery and a secure administrator interface you can enable the 'hidden' ui_forcessl configuration setting which can be changed in the www.example.com.conf.php file. If this option is enabled Openads will always automatically redirect the browser to the secure pages. For example if you try to access http://www.example.com/Openads, it will redirect to https://www.example.com/Openads. In order for this to work correctly you must also set the url_prefix setting to the secure URL where Openads is running, for example: https://www.example.com/Openads.

If you want to use a seperate secure server for the administrator interface you have some extra 'hidden' options which you need to configure. On the secure server you can force Openads to use SSL by enabling the ui_forcessl configuration setting. Please also ensure you have set the url_prefix setting to the secure location where Openads is running. On the non-secure server where the delivery engine is running you need to disable the administrator interface. To do this you need to disable the ui_enabled configuration setting in the www.example.com.conf.php file.


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17B4.1 Requirements

Before you can start the installation you need to make sure your server meets the requirements described below.

55BWeb server Openads 2.4 should be able to run on any web server which is supported by PHP.

Openads 2.4 has been tested with Apache running on Linux; other servers might also work as long as PHP is supported, but they are currently untested and unsupported by Openads 2.4.

56BPHP Openads 2.4 is written in PHP and requires that PHP is installed on your server. For security reasons the use of PHP 4.4.2 or higher is highly recommended, but Openads 2.4 supports PHP 4.3.10 or higher. Openads 2.4 is also compatible with PHP 5. You will need at least 16Mb of memory for PHP4 installations and 24Mb for PHP5.2 and higher. For more information about PHP, see the HTUPHP website UTH.

As Openads performs many operations based on time (eg. logging and presenting banner delivery statistics), it is important that your server's timezone be correctly configured in PHP. HTURead about setting the timezone in PHP. UT

When using Apache it is not recommended to run PHP as a CGI binary. Use the Apache module instead. The Apache module is not only much faster, it imposes less load on the server, which improves the number of impressions the server can handle.

If you are are using Microsoft IIS 5.1 or 6, please try to use Fast-CGI, because the ISAPI module is not yet declared stable. If you are using Microsoft IIS 5.0 or earlier please upgrade to the latest version. If you can't upgrade to IIS 5.1 or 6, please use the less stable ISAPI module. IIS 5.0 or earlier are affected by a serious bug which interferes with the correct operation of CGI applications.

Openads 2.4 is fully compatible with PHP 4.3.10 and higher, including when the register_globals setting is turned off.

TIP

Openads 2.4 requires the following PHP configuration settings:

• magic_quotes_runtime must be off • safe_mode must be off


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• register_argc_argv must be on if you want to run maintenance via command line

• file_uploads need to be turned on to allow HTTP file uploads • register_long_arrays needs to be turned on when using PHP5

Because Openads 2.4 uses a MySQL database, the MySQL extension needs to be included, but in most installations this is enabled by default. Please see HTUPHP's documentation UTH.

The ZLib extension is required if you want to convert hard-coded links inside compressed Flash files which are generated by Flash MX. Without the ZLib extension Openads 2.4 is not able to decompress the Flash file and won't detect any hard-coded links. Please see HTUPHP's documentation UT

The FTP extension is used to store local banners on the webserver. If the FTP extension is not present it will try to simulate the FTP extension, but this might not be as stable as using the actual extension. Please see the HTUPHP documentation UT

57BMySQL Openads 2.4 requires a MySQL database to store the banner inventory and statistics. If you need more information about MySQL take a look at the HTUMySQL website UTH.

There are no special requirements for the MySQL database server, but it is recommended that you use MySQL 5.0.41. MySQL 4.0.18 is the minimum supported version. Openads 2.4 is compatible with all table types, but it is recommended to use MyISAM tables for quicker access. However, if you are using the conversion tracking feature you should use InnoDB tables, which support row locking.

58BDatabase permissions You must either create a database for Openads to use or use a database account which has permissions to create a new database. You can also choose to install Openads using an existing database, but make sure to use a valid table prefix in order to keep Openads' tables separate from tables that already exist in your database. It is recommended to create a database account specifically for Openads' use. Ensure that the database user you specify assigns at least the following privileges:

• SELECT • INSERT • UPDATE • DELETE • CREATE TABLE • CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE • DROP TEMPORARY TABLE • CREATE INDEX • DROP INDEX • LOCK TABLES

Note that MySQL does not have a specific privilege for DROP TEMPORARY TABLE, so DROP TABLE will have to be assigned.


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18B4.2 Downloading Openads

Once you have ensured that your system meets the requirements for Openads to function properly, you can download the Openads package, which is available in .zip, .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 compression formats. If you are unsure which format to use, contact your system administrator or the person responsible for setting up and maintaining your web server for advice.

Go to the HTUOpenads download pageUTH and click the appropriate TDownload Openads v2.4 T link. The download of the most recent development of Openads 2.4 will begin.

Don't forget to sign up to the Openads Community Newsletter to get up-to-date product, security and service information while waiting for the download to proceed.

Save the packaged file to a convenient location on your local machine. Your next step is to unpack and copy the files to your web server. HTUSee Copying Openads to your server. UTH


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19B4.3 Copying Openads to your server

In order to install Openads, you must upload the Openads files to your web server.

Unpack your downloaded Openads .zip, tar.gz or tar.bz2 file to the appropriate location within the web server root hierarchy. Thus, if your web server’s structure is /var/www/html/, for example, you can place your extracted folders and files in /var/www/html/Openads.

If you are using a remote, hosted webserver, then you can unpack the downloaded file to a local disk and upload the files using same method you would normally employ to transfer files to the web server, such as FTP or SCP. If you are in any doubt about how to upload the files, consult your system administrator or the person responsible for setting up or maintaining your web server for advice.

Note that when you extract the file, the root folder’s name will be something like Openads-vX.X.XX-cc. You can rename this directory to Openads if you want.

When you are satisfied that the files have been properly copied to the correct location, you are ready to start the installation wizard.


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20B4.4 The Install wizard

Openads has simplified the installation procedure by providing an install wizard that takes you, step-by-step, through each stage of the process.

To start the installer, open a web browser and point it to the directory in which Openads is copied. For example, http://www.example.com/Openads. If this doesn't start the installer automatically, it may be that your web server isn't configured to allow PHP files to be used as a directory index. If this is the case you could try to start the installer by running the index.php file in the admin directory manually by pointing the web browser to:

http://www.example.com/Openads/admin/index.php. If you have local access to the server then the path would be:

http://www.example.com/Openads/www/admin/index.php. The Openads Installation wizard starts. The wizard consists of several tabbed pages representing each step in the procedure and is designed to help you install Openads 2.4 with the minimum of manual intervention. You can’t click a tab to reveal a page; use the control buttons at the foot of the page to move from step to step. This ensures that the installation is properly carried out. A progress bar at the top of the page shows how much of the procedure you have completed in percentage terms.

1. TWelcome : TThe first page welcomes you to the application and offers important advice about referring to the online documentation before continuing. When you are ready to carry on, click TContinue T.

2. TTerms : TThis page gives essential license information about Openads. Before you can continue with the installation, you are advised to read and agree to the terms and conditions of the GPL license. Click the TI Agree T button to proceed.


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3. TPolicy :T This page explains Openads' Privacy and Data Usage Policy. Please

review this information to learn about the data that Openads collects and how it might be used. You must agree with this policy before continuing with the upgrade. Note the Synchronisation settings section - select the the TCheck for Updates T checkbox if you want your copy of Openads to alert you to software updates. Click the TI Agree T button to proceed.

4. TSystem check : TIn this step, Openads checks your system to ensure that

your PHP installation is properly set up, that the File Permissions for the application are properly set and whether a previous installation of Openads is detected. If no errors are detected, you can carry on with the installation by clicking TContinue T.


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5. TDatabase setup : TThis step deals with the database you intend to use for

Openads. Some of these settings will appear by default, since you defined them when configuring your database server when you created it. In the Advanced settings section, the Table type default selection depends on your current database setting. Of the choices available, the MyISAM table engine is recommended for Openads. If you are unsure of any of these settings, please contact your System Administrator. When you are satisfied with the information you have entered, Click TContinue T. Openads will then attempt to configure your database.


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6. TDatabase setup confirmation : TWhen the new Openads database is

completed, the page refreshes to inform of the successful operation. Click TContinue T to proceed to the next step.

7. TConfiguration setup : TIn this page, you specify basic configuration settings,

such as language selection for the application, time zone and paths to core directories, for which defaults are already entered. Check them carefully before proceeding. Click T ContinueT when you are happy with the settings.


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8. TAdmin setup : TEnter username, password and contact email address for the

administrator in this page. This sets up the admin user who will have full control over your Openads installation. Ensure that the username and password are memorable and, if necessary, keep a secure record of them. Click TContinue T when you are finished.

9. TData setup : TYou are nearly finished installing Openads! This page lets you

specify if you want to add a demo inventory to your database. It’s a useful way of learning the relationship between Advertisers, Campaigns and Banners and how Zones are set up. Select TYes T if you would like the demo data added, otherwise select TNo T. Click TContinue T to pass to the final step.


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10. TFinished! : TThe final page of the install procedure appears. This serves to confirm your successful installation and reminds you of a couple of important next steps; firstly that a maintenance file should be run every hour and secondly that the Thostname T.conf.php (e.g. Twww.example.com.conf.php T) file is locked to prevent inadvertent or unauthorised changes to it. You can find your configuration file in /var directory of your Openads installation. This advice appears in the language that you selected in the TConfiguration setupT stage of the installation wizard. Click TContinue T.

You are automatically logged-in to the Administrator interface. The TAdvertisers & Campaigns T page is displayed. You can now start to manage your inventory.

There are a range of parameters and options you can specify related to the management of your inventory. For comprehensive guidance on specifying settings, HTUread the Settings chapter of this guide. UT


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TPassword Recovery

If you have forgotten or lost your login password, Openads provides a password recovery feature. Follow this simple procedure:

1. At the login screen, enter your username; 2. Click the "Forgot your password?" link;

The TPassword RecoveryT page displays.

3. Type the e-mail address you specified when you completed the Admin settings during installation and click the TProceed T button:

On a refresh of the screen, the "Recovery e-mail sent" advice is shown. An e-mail is sent to the address that you entered in the password recovery e-mail field;

4. The email you receive includes a password reset link to an Openads page - click the link (or alternatively copy and paste the link into your browser address field and press Enter);

5. In the page that displays, type a new password in the TPassword T field and confirm the new password by repeating it in the TRepeat Password T field below, then click TProceed; T


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6. On a refresh of the screen, a confirmation that your new password is saved is shown:

7. Now you can log in as usual with the existing Username and the new Password.


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21B4.5 Configuring Maintenance

Openads requires a maintenance script be run each hour in order to function correctly. The script summarises the previous hour's raw data into statistics, activates and deactivates campaigns, recalculates banner delivery priorities and send out email-based reports.

There are several ways to schedule the maintenance script to be run, the most common being the built-in automatic maintenance and scheduling a hourly task to trigger the maintenance script.

Openads will continue to serve ads even if the maintenance is not executed, but running without maintenance for long periods will have undesirable consequences. When maintenance is finally run all outstanding raw data will be processed.

Without maintenance Openads is unable to recalculate the priorities, which means high priority campaigns and campaigns that have either an expiration date or a fixed number of impressions will be delivered more often than is wanted. If you are having problems with the delivery of these types of campaigns always check if the maintenance script is running first.

59BBuilt-in Automatic Maintenance Openads built-in automatic maintenance uses banner delivery to trigger outstanding maintenance tasks. It is enabled by default on new installations and means that you don't have to create a scheduled task on your server for maintenance.

Automatic maintenance waits 5 minutes after the scheduled maintenance task should have been run to ensure that any manually scheduled maintenance has time to complete.

You might choose to leave automatic maintenance running even if you have set up a scheduled maintenance task (below). In this case automatic maintenance will notice when the scheduled maintenance task is not run as scheduled and will trigger the task.

You can enable and disable automatic maintenance in the TSettings>Maintenance T page.

You can view the current maintenance status by checking the TSettings>Maintenance T page, then choosing the Maintenance option from the drop-down list.

You can view the log of maintenance runs in TSettings>User Log T, where automatic maintenance runs are identified by a separate icon.

Although Openads built-in automatic maintenance is a useful feature, you may find that scheduling maintenance as a task is a more flexible method and better suited to your needs. The following section discusses the various alternatives for setting up scheduled maintenance tasks.

60BScheduled Maintenance The maintenance script can be triggered by executing a locally run script or by calling the script URL on the webserver. Where possible we recommend running the script locally.

The most common techniques for scheduling the maintenance tasks on both Linux/UNIX and Windows servers are described below. For people unable to execute


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scheduled tasks on their server we have also included a section on using external cron service.

61BScheduling tasks on Linux and UNIX based servers If you are using a Unix-based server such as Linux, BSD, Solaris or MacOS X, you can use the cron daemon to automatically run maintenance. You can edit your scheduled tasks using the crontab utility.

In most cases you will need shell access to your server to add a new scheduled task. After using telnet or ssh to login to your server use the following command to export your existing scheduled tasks to a text file: crontab -l > cron.txt

If you don't have permission to use crontab, please contact your service provider or server administrator.

After exporting your existing tasks to a text file you can use any text editor you want to add tasks. The preferred way to trigger the maintenance script is by executing it as a local script using the php command. The alternative is to use a tool like curl or wget to request the scripts URL on the webserver.

Based on which tool your server supports add one of the following lines to the cron.txt file: # if your server supports php (include the domain name which hosts Openads as a parameter): 0 * * * * php /path-to-openads/scripts/maintenance/maintenance.php www.example.com # if your server supports curl: 0 * * * * curl -s -o /dev/null http://www.example.com/Openads/maintenance/maintenance.php # if your server supports wget: 0 * * * * wget -q -O /dev/null http://www.example.com/Openads/maintenance/maintenance.php # if your server supports fetch: 0 * * * * fetch -o /dev/null http://www.example.com/Openads/maintenance/maintenance.php # if your server supports lynx: 0 * * * * lynx > /dev/null -dump http://www.example.com/Openads/maintenance/maintenance.php

After you changed the cron.txt file and added the line for the tool you want to use, you need to import the file back again into the cron daemon. To do this type the following command on the command-line: crontab cron.txt

62BUsing cPanel to schedule maintenance tasks on Linux and UNIX based servers TAn alternative method of creating a cron job on Linux/UNIX servers is by using cPanel. The general procedure is as follows:T

1. In cPanel, click Cron jobs in the main display of the interface; 2. Click TAdvanced (Unix style) Tto access the Cron Manager;


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3. Enter an email address to which reports can be sent (effectively the output of the command run by the cron job) in the field provided;

4. Select the frequency of the job in the boxes provided; for example: o Minute :1 o Hour : * o Day : * o Month : * o Weekday : *

In this example, 1 minute past the hour is chosen simply to avoid the typically 'busy' time for the server on the hour.

Now enter the command you wish the cron job to run; for example:

curl -s -o /dev/null http://the_proper_domain/maintenance/maintenance.php

(where the_proper_domain indicates your full Openads url)

Don't forget to save your changes to set up your cron job. Note that this procedure does not apply precisely to all versions of cPanel and there may be some variations in your particular version.

63BScheduling tasks on Windows 2000 and XP servers If you are using a Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP server you can use the Scheduled Tasks to automatically run the maintenance file. However there is no standard tool available to actually run the maintenance file.

124BDownloading wget The first thing to do is to download wget, which is a command line utility to get the contents of a file stored on a web server. Wget is available for all kinds of operating systems, including Windows. After you have downloaded the zip file you need to copy the wget.exe file to the directory where Windows is installed. Wget is not part of Openads and needs to be downloaded separately. Up-to-date download locations are listed on the wget homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/wget.html

125BCreating a batch file The next step is creating a small batch file which will call the wget utility with the correct parameters. This file can be executed as a Scheduled Task later on. You can use Notepad to create a new file and add the information below, then save the file as phpads.bat. You can save the file anywhere you like, but it is wise to keep it in a location that isn't going to change, and isn't accessible by the web server. Also make sure to specify the correct URL inside the batch file, the URL below is just an example.


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TCreating the scheduled task The next step would be to actually add a new Scheduled Task. You can find all Scheduled Tasks inside a directory inside the Control Panel.

Now click on Add Scheduled Task. The wizard will begin and after you click on Next it will ask you for the program to run. Just click on Browse... and select the batch file you just created. Now you need to give this Scheduled Task a name and select to perform this task daily.

Click on Next and set the Start time to 0:01 and choose to perform this task every day.

If you click Next the wizard will ask you for your username and password.


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After you supplied your username and password click on Next. Make sure to select Open advanced properties..., because you will need to make some modification to this task. Now click on Finish.

To make sure this task runs hourly you will need to go to the Schedule tab and select the Advanced... button. Now check Repeat task and make sure the task is repeated every hour. Also select the radio button Time and set the value to 00:01. Now click OK to close this dialogbox and click Apply to save all settings.


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126BUsing an external cron server If your server doesn't support Scheduled Tasks or cron jobs, it is still possible to run the maintenance file every hour automatically, by using an external cron server.

127BCronservices.com For a fee, cronservice.com allows you to add as many scheduled tasks as you want by using a simple web based interface. After logging in at cronservices.com, you need to specify which task you want to run by clicking the Add new job button.

If you want to run a job hourly you need to select all hours. Don't select a date, day of week or month. Then enter the full URL of the maintenance file in the Script URL field. For example: if you installed Openads on http://www.example.com/Openads, the full URL would be http://www.example.com/Openads/scripts/maintenance/maintenance.php. After entering a job name you can click on the Insert button.


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128BChecking if the maintenance task is running The maintenance task is very important for the functionality of Openads. Without running the maintenance task every hour many different problems can occur. Because of this it is important to check whether the maintenance task is running properly.

If you log in to Openads and the maintenance task has not run in the past twenty-four hours the following warning is displayed. If you see this warning dialog you should look into why the maintenance task isn't running properly.

Apart from the warning dialog displayed above, there is another way to see if the maintenance task is running properly. If you have enabled the option Log hourly priority calculations on the Administrator settings page a log of the priority calculations will be stored in the User log. If this option is enabled, but there are no logs visible in the User log, then the maintenance task is probably not running correctly.


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4B5. Upgrading This chapter shows you how to upgrade your existing Openads, Max Media Manager or phpAdsNew installation.

• Read the HTURequirements sectionUTH to check that your system can run the upgraded version of Openads properly.

• The HTUCopying Openads to your server sectionUTH contains important advice about backing-up your existing files and shows you how to re-use your current configuration files to configure the upgrade.

• The HTUUpgrade Wizard sectionUTH takes you through the step-by-step procedure for a successful upgrade installation.

The upgrade process consists, essentially, of the following steps which allow the current installation of Openads to be run while the upgrade is carried out:

1. Create a new directory with the same directory name as your previous installation, but add '_newfiles' to the end of the directory name, (e.g. Tdirectoryname_newfiles T);

2. Unpack the new version of Openads into this new directory; 3. Copy your config file from the current working location to the var/ directory of

the newly unpacked installation - HTUread about config files in previous versions of Openads, MMM or PhpAdsNew UTH;

4. Rename your existing working installation directory by adding '_backup' to the end of the directory name, (e.g. Tdirectoryname_backupT);

5. Rename 'directoryname_newfiles' by removing the '_newfiles' from the directory name;

6. Use a web browser to visit your Openads site and follow the instructions in the upgrade wizard to complete the upgrade.

64BUpgrade considerations Before you carry out the upgrade, there are some factors that could have an impact on the success of your upgrade installation, depending on your current setup.

65BCompatibility with MySQL 3.x Openads version 2.4 does not work with MySQL 3.x. If you are currently using MySQL 3.x, you must upgrade your MySQL installation before upgrading Openads. MySQL 4.0.18 is the minimum supported version.

66BTable prefix format It is not possible to install or upgrade to Openads 2.4 using a database table prefix that includes capital letters. You must revise the database table prefix to be all lowercase.

67BLarge databases timing out In the course of the upgrade, Openads makes a copy of each table that is affected by the process, effectively locking the table while it is backed-up. For large databases this can be very time-consuming. You can avoid this process by adding a file named "NOBACKUPS" to the var/ directory. During upgrade, when this filename is detected, no tables are copied, speeding up the process noticeably. If you intend to use this


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feature you should ensure that your database is properly backed-up before embarking on the upgrade process.

68BUpgrading from Openads 2.0 - invocation codes Note that invocation codes in use on Openads 2.0 will remain functional when upgrading.


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22B5.1 Requirements for upgrades

Before you can start the upgrade you must make sure your server meets the requirements described below.

69BWeb server Openads 2.4 should be able to run on any web server which is supported by PHP.

Openads 2.4 has been tested with Apache running on Linux; other servers might also work as long as PHP is supported, but they are currently untested and unsupported by Openads 2.4.

70BPHP Openads 2.4 is written in PHP and requires that PHP is installed on your server. For security reasons the use of PHP 4.4.2 or higher is highly recommended, but Openads 2.4 supports PHP 4.3.10 or higher. Openads 2.4 is also compatible with PHP 5. You will need at least 16Mb of memory for PHP4 installations and 24Mb for PHP5.2 and higher. For more information about PHP, see the HTUPHP website UTH for more information about PHP.

As Openads performs many operations based on time (eg. logging and presenting banner delivery statistics), it is important that your server's timezone be correctly configured in PHP. HTURead about setting the timezone in PHP. UT

When using Apache it is not recommended to run PHP as a CGI binary. Use the Apache module instead. The Apache module is not only much faster, it imposes less load on the server, which improves the number of impressions the server can handle.

If you are are using Microsoft IIS 5.1 or 6, please try to use Fast-CGI, because the ISAPI module is not yet declared stable. If you are using Microsoft IIS 5.0 or earlier please upgrade to the latest version. If you can't upgrade to IIS 5.1 or 6, please use the less stable ISAPI module. IIS 5.0 or earlier are affected by a serious bug which interferes with the correct operation of CGI applications.

Openads 2.4 is fully compatible with PHP 4.3.10 and higher, including when the register_globals setting is turned off.

TIP

Openads 2.4 requires the following PHP configuration settings:

• magic_quotes_runtime must be off • safe_mode must be off • register_argc_argv must be on if you want to run maintenance via command

line • file_uploads need to be turned on to allow HTTP file uploads • register_long_arrays needs to be turned on when using PHP5


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Because Openads 2.4 uses a MySQL database, the MySQL extension needs to be included, but in most installations this is enabled by default. Please see HTUPHP's documentation. UT

The ZLib extension is required if you want to convert hard-coded links inside compressed Flash files which are generated by Flash MX. Without the ZLib extension Openads 2.4 is not able to decompress the Flash file and won't detect any hard-coded links. Please see HTUPHP's documentation.UT

The FTP extension is used to store local banners on the webserver. If the FTP extension is not present it will try to simulate the FTP extension, but this might not be as stable as using the actual extension. Please see HTUPHP's documentation.UT

71BMySQL Openads 2.4 requires a MySQL database to store the banner inventory and statistics. If you need more information about MySQL take a look at HTUMySQL website UTH.

There are no special requirements for the MySQL database server, but it is recommended that you use MySQL 5.0.41. MySQL 4.0.18 is the minimum supported version. Openads 2.4 is compatible with all table types, but it is recommended to use MyISAM tables for quicker access. However, if you are using the conversion tracking feature you should use InnoDB tables, which support row locking.

72BDatabase permissions You must either create a database for Openads to use or use a database account which has permissions to create a new database. You can also choose to install Openads using an existing database, but make sure to use a valid table prefix in order to keep Openads' tables separate from tables that already exist in your database. It is recommended to create a database account specifically for Openads' use. Ensure that the database user you specify assigns at least the following privileges:

• ALTER • SELECT • INSERT • UPDATE • DELETE • CREATE TABLE • CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE • DROP TEMPORARY TABLE* • CREATE INDEX • DROP INDEX • LOCK TABLES

T*Note that MySQL does not have a specific privilege for DROP TEMPORARY TABLE, so DROP TABLE will have to be assigned.


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T23B5.2 Download Openads upgrade

Once you have ensured that your system meets the requirements for Openads to function properly, you can download the Openads package, which is available in .zip, .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 compression formats. If you are unsure which format to use, contact your system administrator or the person responsible for setting up and maintaining your web server for advice.

Go to the HTUOpenads downloads pageUTH and click the appropriate TDownload Openads 2.4 Tlink. The download of the most recent development of Openads 2.4 will begin.

Don't forget to sign up to the Openads Community Newsletter to get up-to-date product, security and service information while waiting for the download to proceed.

Save the packaged file to a convenient location on your local machine. Your next step is to prepare your existing files for the upgrade and unpack and copy the files to your web server. HTUSee Copying Openads to your server. UTH


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24B5.3 Copying Openads upgrade

73BUpgrade preparation Now that you have downloaded the new version of Openads, you can prepare for the upgrade. During installation, Openads checks to see whether a new installation or an upgrade is called for, by checking for the existence of configuration files. If a configuration file is found, the Upgrade Wizard is invoked. You must copy your existing configuration file to the upgraded installation so that essential configuration and database settings are retained, allowing you to continue to manage your existing inventory. Follow these steps to prepare your upgrade properly:

1. Back up your files. It is good practice to make a back-up of your existing installation by copying it to a suitable archive. In the event of a serious problem, you have the opportunity of restoring your existing set-up. For the same reason, you are advised to back up the current database you use for Openads.

2. Next, remove your existing installation directory, in readiness for the new version.

3. Unpack your downloaded Openads .zip, tar.gz or tar.bz2 file to same location within the web server root hierarchy as your previous installation.Thus, if your web server’s structure is /var/www/html/, for example, you can place your extracted folders and files in /var/www/html/Openads. If you are using a remote, hosted webserver, then you can unpack the downloaded file to a local disk and upload the files using same method you would normally employ to transfer files to the web server, such as FTP or SCP. If you are in any doubt about how to upload the files, consult your system administrator or the person responsible for setting up or maintaining your web server for advice. Note that when you extract the file, the root folder’s name will be something like Openads-vX.X.XX-cc. You can rename this directory to Openads if you want.

74BCopying the existing configuration files Your next step is to copy the existing configuration file to the new installation. The name of the configuration file and its location vary according to the version of Openads, Max Media Manager or phpAdsNew you have currently installed. The table

below shows where you can find the configuration file:

Version Config Filename Config File location

Openads 2.3+ www.example.com.conf.php /var

Openads 2.0 config.inc.php root

MMM 0.3 www.example.com.conf.ini /var

MMM 0.1 config.inc.php /var

phpAdsNew config.inc.php root


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When you have found the file, copy it to the /var directory of your new Openads installation.

75BPlugin Configuration files If you are upgrading from MMM 0.3 or an earlier version of Openads 2.4, you must also copy any existing plugin configuration files. You can find these in /var/plugins/config, within specific directories for each plugin, such as /var/plugins/config/geotargeting. You may find it easier to copy over all of the directories within /config, replacing those in the new installation file structure.

In addition copy the contents of /www/images/. HTURead about storing your banners in a local directory. UTH

Once you are satisfied that the configuration files are copied to the correct locations, you are ready to start the upgrade process. HTURead about The Upgrade Wizard. UTH


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25B5.4 The Upgrade Wizard

This section describes the upgrade process using the Upgrade wizard. Before you start the upgrade, ensure that you have followed the advice and instructions contained in the preceding sections of this chapter and read the Release Notes for latest information. You can find the release notes document in the root directory of your new installation. Make sure that you have:

1. Created backed up copies of your existing installation files and the database you use for Openads;

2. Copied all of the new files and folders to their correct location. If you use FTP then please ensure that there were no errors during transfer;

3. Copied your previous configuration file(s) to the new "var" folder and ensured that both the folder and the files are writeable by the webserver.

To start the upgrade, open a web browser and point it to the directory in which Openads is copied. For example, http://www.example.com/Openads. If this doesn't start the installer automatically, it may be that your web server isn't configured to allow PHP files to be used as a directory index. If this is the case you could try to start the installer by running the index.php file in the admin directory manually by pointing the web browser to: http://www.example.com/Openads/admin/index.php. If you have local access to the server (i.e. it is not a virtual host), then the path would be: http://www.example.com/Openads/www/admin/index.php.

The Openads Upgrade wizard starts. The wizard consists of several tabbed pages representing each step in the procedure and is designed to help you upgrade to the most recent version of Openads 2.4 with the minimum of manual intervention. You can’t click a tab to reveal a page; use the control buttons at the foot of the page to move from step to step. This ensures that the upgrade is properly carried out in the right order. A progress bar at the top of the page shows how much of the procedure you have completed in percentage terms.

1. TWelcome : TThe first page welcomes you to the application and offers important advice about referring to the online documentation before continuing. When you are ready to carry on, click TContinue T


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2. TTerms : TThis page gives essential license information about Openads. Before you can continue with the installation, you must agree to the terms and conditions of the GPL license. Click the TI Agree T button to proceed.

3. TPolicy : TThis page explains Openads' Privacy and Data Usage Policy. Please review this information to learn about the data that Openads collects and how it might be used. You must agree with this policy before continuing with the upgrade. Note the TSynchronisationT Tsettings T section - select the the CTheck for Updates Tcheckbox if you want your copy of Openads to alert you to software updates. Click the TI Agree T button to proceed. The wizard checks for previous installations for a few moments before revealing the next page.


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4. TSystem check : TIn this step, Openads checks your system to ensure that

your PHP installation is properly set up, that the File Permissions for the application are properly set and whether a previous installation of Openads is detected.

If a previous version is detected, the upgrader carries out a database schema integrity check to ensure that the schema has all the correct tables, columns and indexes for that version. If it detects any of these elements missing it will report the problems in general terms in the TApplication check section of the page T. For more detailed information you can look in the install.log, where you will find the names of the missing elements. If no problems are reported and the version can be upgraded, click TContinue T.


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5. TLogin : TType the Administration interface username and password of your existing installation in the appropriate fields. Click TContinue T.

6. TDatabase setup : TThis page displays detected database settings from your existing installation. Check the settings to ensure they are correct. If they are not correct, you can amend the settings in your HTUconfiguration fileUTH, then go back to the start of the upgrade wizard. When you are satisfied the settings are in order, click TContinue T.


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After ensuring that your database details are correct, clicking continue begins the process of altering your database. This may take some time as it will create backups of any tables that will be altered and also make backups of your configuration file. The screen refreshes to report that your database has been upgraded successfully. Click TContinue T.

TIP

After an upgrade you can use the Settings page -> Product Updates tab -> Manage Past Updates and Backups option to view information about your

upgrade history including details of backup tables that exist. From here you can delete backup tables and leftover logfiles and configuration backups.

7. TConfiguration setup : TThe penultimate step in the upgrade process shows important configuration settings. Ensure the settings are correct. You can revise them if they are not as expected. Remember that Openads relies on the accuracy of information in these fields if it is to function properly. Click TContinue T.


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8. TFinished! :T You have completed the upgrade successfully. This page contains valuable advice about Maintenance and Security which you are encouraged to read. They reminds you of a couple of important next steps; firstly that a maintenance file should be run every hour and secondly that the Thostname T.conf.php (e.g. Twww.example.com.conf.php T) file is locked to prevent inadvertent or unauthorised changes to it. You can find your configuration file in the /var directory of your Openads installation. Click TContinue T.

Your Openads upgrade opens in the TInventory>Advertisers & Campaigns T page by default. You can now continue working with your new version of Openads.

HTURead the Maintenance topicUTH in this chapter to satisfy yourself that you have set up a maintenance schedule correctly.


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26B5.5 Configuring Maintenance upgrade

Openads requires a maintenance script be run each hour in order to function correctly. The script summarises the previous hour's raw data into statistics, activates and deactivates campaigns, recalculates banner delivery priorities and send out email-based reports.

There are several ways to schedule the maintenance script to be run, the most common being the built-in automatic maintenance and scheduling a hourly task to trigger the maintenance script.

Openads will continue to serve ads even if the maintenance is not executed, but running without maintenance for long periods will have undesirable consequences. When maintenance is finally run all outstanding raw data will be processed.

Without maintenance Openads is unable to recalculate the priorities, which means high priority campaigns and campaigns that have either an expiration date or a fixed number of impressions will be delivered more often than is wanted. If you are having problems with the delivery of these types of campaigns always check if the maintenance script is running first.

76BBuilt-in Automatic Maintenance Openads built-in automatic maintenance uses banner delivery to trigger outstanding maintenance tasks. It is enabled by default on new installations and means that you don't have to create a scheduled task on your server for maintenance.

Automatic maintenance waits 5 minutes after the scheduled maintenance task should have been run to ensure that any manually scheduled maintenance has time to complete.

You might choose to leave automatic maintenance running even if you have set up a scheduled maintenance task (below). In this case automatic maintenance will notice when the scheduled maintenance task is not run as scheduled and will trigger the task.

You can enable and disable automatic maintenance in the TSettings>Maintenance T page.

You can view the current maintenance status by checking the TSettings>Maintenance T page, then choosing the Maintenance option from the drop-down list.

You can view the log of maintenance runs in TSettings>User Log T, where automatic maintenance runs are identified by a separate icon.

Although Openads built-in automatic maintenance is a useful feature, you may find that scheduling maintenance as a task is a more flexible method and better suited to your needs. The following section discusses the various alternatives for setting up scheduled maintenance tasks.

77BScheduled Maintenance The maintenance script can be triggered by executing a locally run script or by calling the script URL on the webserver. Where possible we recommend running the script locally.

The most common techniques for scheduling the maintenance tasks on both Linux/UNIX and Windows servers are described below. For people unable to execute


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scheduled tasks on their server we have also included a section on using external cron service.

78BScheduling tasks on Linux and UNIX based servers If you are using a Unix-based server such as Linux, BSD, Solaris or MacOS X, you can use the cron daemon to automatically run the maintenance.php file. You can edit your scheduled tasks using the crontab utility. If you don't have permission to use crontab, please contact your service provider or server administrator.

In most cases you will need shell access to your server to add a new scheduled task. After using telnet or ssh to login to your server use the following command to export your existing scheduled tasks to a text file: crontab -l > cron.txt

After exporting your existing tasks to a text file you can use any text editor you want to add tasks. Because every server or service provider is different it is not easy to provide a way to schedule tasks that will work on every server. Depending on the configuration of your server you can use one of the following tools to actually run the maintenance file: curl, fetch, lynx or wget. To find out which is supported by your server simply type the name of the tool on the command-line. If you get a message 'command not found' the tool isn't supported on your server.

Based on which tool your server supports add one of the following lines to the cron.txt file:

# if your server supports curl: 0 * * * * curl -s -o /dev/null http://www.example.com/Openads/maintenance/maintenance.php

# if your server supports fetch: 0 * * * * fetch -o /dev/null http://www.example.com/Openads/maintenance/maintenance.php

# if your server supports lynx: 0 * * * * lynx > /dev/null -dump

http://www.example.com/Openads/maintenance/maintenance.php

# if your server supports wget: 0 * * * * wget -q -O /dev/null http://www.example.com/Openads/maintenance/maintenance.php

After you changed the cron.txt file and added the line for the tool you want to use, you need to import the file back again into the cron daemon. To do this type the following command on the command-line: crontab cron.txt

79BUsing cPanel to schedule maintenance tasks on Linux and UNIX based servers TAn alternative method of creating a cron job on Linux/UNIX servers is by using cPanel. The general procedure is as follows:T

1. In cPanel, click Cron jobs in the main display of the interface; 2. Click TAdvanced (Unix style) Tto access the Cron Manager; 3. Enter an email address to which reports can be sent (effectively the output of

the command run by the cron job) in the field provided;


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4. Select the frequency of the job in the boxes provided; for example: o Minute :1 o Hour : * o Day : * o Month : * o Weekday : *

In this example, 1 minute past the hour is chosen simply to avoid the typically 'busy' time for the server on the hour.

Now enter the command you wish the cron job to run; for example: curl -s -o /dev/null http://the_proper_domain/maintenance/maintenance.php

(where the_proper_domain indicates your full Openads url)

Don't forget to save your changes to set up your cron job. Note that this procedure does not apply precisely to all versions of cPanel and there may be some variations in your particular version.

80BScheduling tasks on Windows 2000 and XP servers If you are using a Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP server you can use the Scheduled Tasks to automatically run the maintenance file. However there is no standard tool available to actually run the maintenance file.

129BDownloading wget The first thing to do is to download wget, which is a command line utility to get the contents of a file stored on a web server. Wget is available for all kinds of operating systems, including Windows. After you have downloaded the zip file you need to copy the wget.exe file to the directory where Windows is installed. Wget is not part of Openads and needs to be downloaded separately. Up-to-date download locations are listed on the wget homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/wget.html

130BCreating a batch file The next step is creating a small batch file which will call the wget utility with the correct parameters. This file can be executed as a Scheduled Task later on. You can use Notepad to create a new file and add the information below, then save the file as phpads.bat. You can save the file anywhere you like, but it is wise to keep it in a location that isn't going to change, and isn't accessible by the web server. Also make sure to specify the correct URL inside the batch file, the URL below is just an example.


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TCreating the scheduled task

The next step would be to actually add a new Scheduled Task. You can find all Scheduled Tasks inside a directory inside the Control Panel.

Now click on Add Scheduled Task. The wizard will begin and after you click on Next it will ask you for the program to run. Just click on Browse... and select the batch file you just created. Now you need to give this Scheduled Task a name and select to perform this task daily.

Click on Next and set the Start time to 0:01 and choose to perform this task every day.

If you click Next the wizard will ask you for your username and password.


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After you supplied your username and password click on Next. Make sure to select Open advanced properties..., because you will need to make some modification to this task. Now click on Finish.

To make sure this task runs hourly you will need to go to the Schedule tab and select the Advanced... button. Now check Repeat task and make sure the task is repeated every hour. Also select the radio button Time and set the value to 00:01. Now click OK to close this dialogbox and click Apply to save all settings.


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TUsing an external cron server If your server doesn't support Scheduled Tasks or cron jobs, it is still possible to run the maintenance file every hour automatically, by using an external cron server.

81BCronservices.com For a fee, cronservice.com allows you to add as many scheduled tasks as you want by using a simple web based interface. After logging in at cronservices.com, you need to specify which task you want to run by clicking the Add new job button.

If you want to run a job hourly you need to select all hours. Don't select a date, day of week or month. Then enter the full URL of the maintenance file in the Script URL field. For example: if you installed Openads on http://www.example.com/Openads, the full URL would be


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http://www.example.com/Openads/maintenance/maintenance.php. After entering a job name you can click on the Insert button.

131BChecking if the maintenance task is running The maintenance task is very important for the functionality of Openads. Without running the maintenance task every hour many different problems can occur. Because of this it is important to check whether the maintenance task is running properly.

If you log in to Openads and the maintenance task has not run in the past twenty-four hours the following warning is displayed. If you see this warning dialog you should look into why the maintenance task isn't running properly.

Apart from the warning dialog displayed above, there is another way to see if the maintenance task is running properly. If you have enabled the option Log hourly priority calculations on the Administrator settings page a log of the priority calculations will be stored in the User log. If this option is enabled, but there are no logs visible in the User log, then the maintenance task is probably not running correctly.


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5B6. Openads 2.4 Inventory This chapter deals with all of the operations necessary for delivering advertising to your website efficiently and reliably.

You can read about:

• HTUManaging advertisers UT • HTUManaging campaigns UT • HTULinking campaigns to zones UT • HTUBanners, how to add and manage banners UT • HTULinking banners to zones UT • HTUSpecifying limitations to the delivery of banners UT • HTUManaging publishersUT • HTUManaging zones UT • HTUSpecifying zone types UT • HTUChaining zones UT • HTUGenerating ad tags for zones UT • HTUChannels and how to use themUT • HTUDisplaying banners using direct selectionUTH


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27B6.1 Advertisers

Advertisers run ad campaigns and supply the banners that belong to each ad campaign. Before you can add banners to your ad server you must first create an advertiser and at least one campaign.

You can view a list of existing advertisers in the TInventory>Advertisers & Campaigns T page. Use the sort control (resembling a small chevron) to sort your list of advertisers in either ascending or descending order. A small blue triangle adjacent to a table row shows that it can be expanded or collapsed. A rightward-facing triangle indicates that the entry can be expanded. Click the triangle to expand the entry. A downward-facing triangle shows that the entry has been expanded. Click the triangle to collapse the entry. When you expand an advertiser in the list, you reveal its campaign or campaigns. When you expand a campaign, you reveal the banner or banners it contains. At the foot of the page, a summary of the quantity of advertisers, campaigns and banners is reported, including how many of the campaigns and banners are currently active. HTURead Managing advertisersUTH to learn how to create advertisers and specify their properties.


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82BManaging advertisers You can add new advertisers on the Advertiser & Campaigns page by clicking on the Add new advertiser button.

An advertiser has a number of properties that need to be set before it can be added to your system. The TName T, TContact T, and TE-mail T fields are mandatory. The advertiser will not be added to your system if they are not completed.

Each advertiser has a unique name that is used in the administrator interface to differentiate between the different advertisers. You can't create two advertisers with the same name, even though they have differing id numbers. Type the name in the TName T field. Type the name of the contact for this advertiser in the Contact field. When reports are e-mailed automatically to an advertiser, this name is used in the e-mail message.

The e-mail address of the contact for this advertiser must be supplied in the E-mail field. The Language field is used to specify the native language of the contact for this advertiser. The language you specify here is used for reports sent by e-mail and for the user interface of the advertiser interface.

You can send advertisers an advisory e-mail after a campaign is activated or deactivated. The e-mail message explains the change in campaign status. If you want this message to be sent, select the TE-mail when a campaign is automatically activated/deactivated Tcheckbox. A campaign report includes the statistics of all the banners in campaigns owned by this advertiser. These reports are sent by e-mail to the address you specified in the basic information E-mail field. The number of days between reports can also be specified. If you want to send a regular campaign report, select the checkbox called TE-mail campaign delivery reportsT. Enter the period between reports required in the TNumber of days between campaign delivery reports T field.


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If you want advertisers to view statistics for their campaigns and banners, you can specify a login username and password for them. It is also possible to give advertisers special permissions, which allow them to make changes to their settings and banners.

If the checkbox TAllow this user to modify his own settings T is set the user is able to change his own advertiser properties, including:

• Advertiser contact name; • Contact e-mail address; • Campaign delivery repoprt settings; • Language setting; • Login password.

If the checkboxes TAllow this user to deactivate/activate his own banners T are selected the advertiser is allowed to deactivate or activate his banners. By deactivating a banner an advertiser can temporarily remove it from consideration for delivery. Deactivating and activating are split into two separate permissions, because in certain circumstances you might not want to give an advertiser the ability to activate a banner that you deactivated yourself. If you do not want to provide access to the Advertiser interface, you can leave the username and password fields blank.

Click the TNext T button to save your new advertiser information and move on to creating a campaign owned by the advertiser. HTUSee Managing Campaigns. UTH


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83BConversion tracking Many people are interested in more than just tracking how many people arrive on their web site by clicking an ad. The other half of the equation is to track what people do on the web site, and if they make a purchase or sign up for an account. For example, if you offer a credit account and you want to track how many applications get filled out as a result of your ads, you may want to put a tracker on the application confirmation (or 'thank you') page, so you can see how many 'conversions' happened as a result of people clicking on your media.

Basically, a small image beacon or Javascript script can be placed on each page that you want to track. Every time that a viewer arrives at the page, a 'tracker impression' is made. Openads then links these tracker impressions to the most recent click or view that was made within a defined timescale 'window'. A window is the amount of time allocated in which to search for a valid click or view. For example, if a tracker impression is made at noon on January 20, and the 'click window' is defined as 1 day, Openads will search through all of the clicks from January 19 at noon until January 20 at noon, and match the most recent click to the tracker impression.

In addition to tracking conversions, you can also track variables which are a part of the conversion. For example, on an e-commerce site, the amount spent on a sale (e.g. basket value) can also be tracked. On a registration site, the registered email address can also be tracked.

84BTrackers To set a tracker, select the advertiser to which you wish to associate a tracker from the TAdvertisers & Campaigns T page. The TAdvertiser properties T page is displayed. Select the Tracker overview tab related to this advertiser. Here you can create a new tracker by clicking TAdd new tracker T.

The TAdd new trackerT page is displayed. Here you can specify the Name, Description and Conversion type of the new tracker in the Basic information section of the form. There are three conversion types available from the drop-down list; Sale, Lead and Signup.

The Default conversion rules section lets you specify the Click window and View window parameters, and their status.

Note the check box that permits you to link newly created campaigns by default to the tracker. This can save you time manually linking new campaigns to the tracker.


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Note that a conversion rule is the period of time after a click or a view during which a conversion is counted. For instance, selecting "10 days" in the Click window parameter means Openads 2.4 will search through all of the clicks from the period beginning 10 days from the creation of the tracker and match the most recent click to the tracker impression. Thus if a visitor clicks on an ad, the fills out an application form with 10 days, this is counted as a conversion. Add a tracker for each page that you want to track. Remember to click Save Changes to commit your settings to the database.

The TLinked campaigns T page is displayed on saving the new tracker. Here, you can select the campaigns owned by the advertiser that you wish to link to the tracker you have just created.

Simply select the checkbox to the campaign(s) you wish to link. You can update the default status of the chosen campaign from the drop-down provided, if required :


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Click TSave Changes T to confirm your selection(s).

The TTracker Variables T page is displayed. This is where you can add variables (such as basket value). Click the Add variable link to display the page for creating a new variable.

Once you have saved the variable (if any), the TAppend tracker codeT page displays; here you can specify code to be appended to each Javascript tracker impression, if required. On clicking TSave Changes T, the TInvocation code T page displays. This is where the code for your tracker is generated:

You have two options for generating tracker code, namely Image Tag and Javascript Tag. Note that if you are using Javascript tracker variables, you Tmust Tchoose the Javascript Tag option. The Trackercode includes advice about how to handle the Image Beacon Code. This is the code you copy and paste to the appropriate location on your website.

Note that View tracking (the View window setting) requires significantly more resources than Click tracking (e.g. there are usually 1000 times more views than clicks). Setting view tracking to 30 days, for instance, would be very resource intensive.

132BLinked Trackers In the TLinked Trackers T tab of the TCampaign Properties T page, you can review any trackers that are linked to this campaign. Click the name of a tracker in the list to view its properties and attributes. If there are no trackers available to link to this campaign and you wish to add one, click the TAdvertiser Properties T link in the left-hand panel, then, in the TAdvertiser Properties T page, select the TTracker Overview T tab. Here you can add a new tracker. HTURead about adding a trackerUTH.


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28B6.2 Campaigns

A campaign is a useful entity that lets you group together any number of banner ads, of any size, that share common advertising campaign requirements. Grouping banners within a campaign means that you do not have to define the delivery settings for each ad separately. A campaign must belong to an Advertiser and can only be created if there are advertisers available.

In this section you can read about:

• HTUManaging campaigns UT • HTULinking campaigns to zones UT • HTUSetting a cap on the delivery of campaignsUTH


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85BManaging campaigns

133BAdding a new campaign On creating a TnewT advertiser, (by completing the Add new advertiser form), you are directed automatically to the Add new campaign page where you can add a new campaign.

You can add new campaigns to Texisting T advertisers by navigating to an advertiser's properties page, selecting the TCampaign overview T tab and clicking the TAdd new campaign T link at the top of the page.

134BBasic information In the basic information section, give your new campaign a name.

By default, a new campaign is given the owning advertiser's name appended by "- Default". You can change it as required.

135BInventory details A campaign has a number of properties that you can specify which influence the delivery of the banners it owns, such as Impressions booked, Clicks booked, Activation date, Expiration date and Priority.

The Impressions Booked field specifies the number of impressions (or Ad views) before this campaign can end. Every time a banner from this campaign is delivered the specified value is decreased by one. Once this value reaches zero, the campaign expires. Usually this value is set to the number of impressions the advertiser bought for this campaign. If you do not want the expiration of the campaign to depend on a set number of impressions, select the Unlimited checkbox.

It is also possible to set the expiration of a campaign after a preset number of clicks. The field Clicks Booked specifies the number of user clicks before this campaign is ended. Each time a user clicks on a banner from this campaign this value will be decreased by one. Once this value reaches zero the campaign will be ended. If you do not want to end the campaign after a specific number of clicks, select the Unlimited checkbox.

In the Conversions Booked field, enter the quantity of conversions desired before the campaign expires. Conversions are determined by HTUconfiguration settingsUTH, the general criterion being that the product or service offered on the website has been converted from a query to a sale.


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136BContract details This section of the page is dedicated to specifying the start and end dates of the campaign. A campaign can be activated at once (on correct completion of the Add new campaign process) or on a date specified by you, by selecting the appropriate option button.

If you choose to specify a date, use the drop-down lists to define the day, month and year of activation. You cannot backdate the start of a campaign. Similarly, you can specify a date for the expiry of the campaign, or you can effectively create a campaign without an expiry date by selecting the option button against do not expire this campaign on a specific date.

The Revenue Information section allows you to specify how the advertiser will pay the publisher for the campaign and how much they will pay according to your choice from the drop-down list. CPM denotes cost per 1000 impressions, CPC is cost per click, CPA is cost per conversion (or acquisition) and Monthly Tenancy represents a fixed cost per month.

137BPriority information Priority level allows you to choose an option that influences the probability of delivery in terms of the number of times the banners owned by this campaign appear in their allotted zones.

In the course of creating a campaign, you can set its priority level. Priority levels available are Exclusive, High or Low.

Setting the priority allows you to configure the target daily delivery of banners for this campaign. Some priority options are only available according to choices you make in other parts of the form.

Available Priority Options according to settings:

Impressions booked Expiration Date Priority available Distribution


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Value entered Date set High Automatic

Value entered do not expire Exclusive, Low None

Value entered do not expire High Daily figure

Unlimited Date set Exclusive, Low None

Unlimited Date set High Daily figure

Unlimited do not expire Exclusive, Low None

Unlimited do not expire High Daily figure

Note that if you enter a value for Impressions booked and select a specific Expiration date, then only High priority and Automatic distribution is available. Automatic distribution will distribute the remaining impressions evenly over the remaining number of days of the campaign.

206BExclusive Choosing Exclusive overrides other linked campaigns. Distribution is limited to setting a campaign weight in the None field.

207BHigh Priority As the form suggests, a high priority choice is primarily for paid campaigns. Openads attempts to comply with the daily target of impressions for the campaign before allocating views to low priority (usually in-house and unpaid-for) campaigns. If you set a value for Impressions booked and a specific Expiration date, your only option is to allow Openads to calculate the target number of impressions automatically each day of the campaign’s duration; otherwise you can set the distribution target manually by selecting either Impressions, Clicks or Conversions from the drop-down list and entering an appropriate daily figure for the chosen attribute.

The effectiveness of the application in this respect depends upon available statistical data. On an hourly basis, Openads decides the likelihood that a banner belonging to this campaign will be displayed, based on banner delivery limitations and delivery capping, campaign settings, current statistics and predictions based on previously-recorded statistical information. Bear in mind that as Openads adjusts the probability of each campaign every hour, a lot can happen in that hour. If, for example, your website is visited a lot more than predicted in any one hourly period, Openads can’t compensate for that until the next hour.

Openads adjusts the probability factor if data shows that it is 'slipping back' in relation to other 'on target' campaigns. Prediction and compensation routines work to comply with the specified targets, but their effectiveness is always constrained by the depth


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of available data. This can affect the evenness in which impressions are distributed in the course of the day. In order for Openads to be able to carry out these routines, you must have maintenance set up correctly and properly scheduled. Read how you do this in the Maintenance section of this guide.

TImportant T: If the target number of impressions is zero or the field is left empty, the campaign will be deactivated.

High priority has a range of values from (1) to (10). The higher the selected value, the greater weight this campaign has in relation to others.

208BLow Priority Low priority campaigns are usually reserved for campaigns that do not pay for space. In most cases, these are house campaigns which advertise other parts of the website. If the high or medium priority campaigns do not use all the predicted impressions to fulfil their target, low priority campaigns will be delivered to fill the remaining impressions.

You cannot set an impression target for a low priority campaign. Instead, you can set a Distribution weight. This is particularly useful in deciding priorities between different low-priority campaigns. A low priority campaign with a weight value of 2 will be displayed twice as often as a low priority campaign with a weight of 1. The final number of impressions for a low priority campaign depends, of course, on the impressions remaining after high priority campaigns have used their 'quota'. Thus, if high priority campaigns use 8000 out of a total of 10000 impressions to meet their target, only 2000 impressions will be available for low priority campaigns. A campaign weight must have a value of 1 or greater if it is to remain active.

Here’s another example showing how weighting influences low priority campaigns:

234BTotal of 50000 impressions Campaign A Target 10000 : Actual impressions: 10000

Campaign B Target 20000 : Actual impressions: 20000

Total impressions used to meet set targets: 30000

Impressions left for low priority campaigns: 20000

Campaign C Weight 3 Actual impressions: 15000 (20000 / 4 (number of campaigns) * 3 (weighting))

Campaign D Weight 1 Actual impressions: 5000 (20000 / 4 * 1)

Important: If the weight of the campaign is zero or if the field is left empty, the campaign will be deactivated.

209BDelivery Capping This powerful feature can help you target campaigns more productively. HTURead about delivery capping for campaigns. UT

210BMiscellaneous - Companion positioning. There might be situations where you have two or more zones on a page where you wish related banners to appear together. Select this checkbox so that banners from the same campaign appear in those zones simultaneously and are not mixed with banners from a different campaign.

Remember to click TSave changes T after you have added or amended campaign settings.


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86BCopying Campaigns Openads allows you to copy existing campaigns easily. Select (click) the campaign you wish to duplicate in the TAdvertisers & Campaigns T page.

The TCampaign propertiesT page is displayed. Click the TDuplicate T link in the left-hand panel's Modify menu. This copies the currently-displayed campaign.

After a brief pause, the new campaign is displayed. By default, the new campaign's name has 'Copy of' appended to the beginning of the campaign name. Otherwise, all the properties of the new campaign remain the same as the original campaign from which it was copied.

You can change the name of the new campaign by amending the TName T field in the Basic information section of the page. Indeed, you can amend any of the properties of the duplicated campaign if required. Remember to click the Save Changes button to commit your new information to the database.

Copying an existing campaign is a rapid way of creating new campaigns that have common properties. You may have similar campaigns across separate advertisers. You can copy a campaign in one advertiser and move it to another advertiser if desired.

87BMoving Campaigns Moving a campaign is a simple operation. Select (click) the campaign you wish to move in the TAdvertisers & Campaigns T page.

The TCampaign propertiesT page is displayed. In the left-hand panel, you will notice the TMove to T section of the Modify menu.

The drop-down list contains all of the available advertisers to which you can move the currently-displayed campaign. Choose the destination advertiser from the list and click the arrow button to start the move.

After a brief pause, the page refreshes, showing the new campaign Tand the banners it owns T is now part of the destination advertiser.


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88BLinking campaigns to zones Campaigns must be linked to zones in order to deliver the campaign's banners to your website. HTURead about creating publishers UTH and HTUadding zones UTH.

There are two methods for linking campaigns and zones:

1. by linking campaigns to zones; 2. HTUby linking zones to campaigns.UTH

138BLinking campaigns to zones In the Administrator interface, navigate to the zone to which you want to link a banner. You can do this by clicking the required zone in the index of publishers in the TPublishers & Zones page:

In the TZone properties T page that displays, select the TLinked banners T tab.

In this page you identify the banner you want to link to your zone. The page is divided into two sections. In the top section, you have three options for linking banners to zones, available from the drop-down list:

139BLink banners by parent campaign Use this method to find suitable banners from a specific campaign. In the lower section of the page, select the Advertiser that owns the campaign you want from the drop-down list:


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In the drop-down list that appears next to the Advertiser list, select the appropriate campaign:

Click the arrow button to the right of the list to confirm your choice. Openads displays the banners that are compatible to the zone in size and type at the foot of the page. The banner or banners shown are now linked to the zone. Note that you have effectively linked the owning campaign to the zone and that all compatible banners in that campaign would be linked.

TImportant : TIf a banner that you expect to see listed is not shown, check that the banner's dimensions are compatible with the zone's size. This is especially important when an existing ad is updated - make sure that its dimensions have not been changed, otherwise the link to the zone will break.

140BLinking zones to campaigns In the Administrator interface, navigate to the campaign you want to link to a zone or zones. You can do this by clicking the required campaign in the index of advertisers in the TAdvertisers & Campaigns T page. In the TCampaign properties T page, select the TLinked zones T tab.

A list of available zones is displayed in the page:


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Select the zones to which you want this campaign linked. This means that all banners owned by your campaign can be delivered to the selected zones, provided that they are compatible with the zone type and size. Click TSave changes T. The TBanner overview T page is displayed. This shows the banners that are owned by your campaign. At the foot of the page statistics related to the banners; Impression, Click & Conversion credits and the expiration status of the campaign are reported.

You can check whether the banners in your campaign have been linked to the zones by clicking on a zone in the TLinked zonesT page. Select the TLinked banners Ttab in the TZone properties T page that displays to view the list of banners linked to the zone. HTURead about linking banners to zones. UTH


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89BDelivery capping of campaigns Delivery capping is a way of displaying ads more productively by putting a cap on the number of times a campaign, a zone or a banner is shown to a particular visitor.

You can specify delivery capping of campaigns when creating a new campaign, or in the TCampaign propertiesT page of an existing campaign.

You can specify two properties:

1. If you want to put a cap on the total number of times a visitor sees banners from this campaign, enter the total number in the TLimit campaign views to: total Tfield.

2. You can limit the number of times a visitor sees banners from this campaign in a single session by entering the maximum number of views in the TLimit campaign views to: per sessionT field.

The number of views is recorded in a cookie. You can reset the views total after a specified period by setting the period in the TReset view counters after:T field.

As delivery capping is based on the use of cookies, it will work only if cookies are enabled in the visitor's browser.

If the visitor has disabled cookies the delivery of the campaign's banners will not be capped. For example, if you use this feature to show a particular campaign only once a session, the visitor may see it more frequently. Also, if the visitor deletes all of his existing cookies, the information about capping will be lost and the visitor will see the banner again until the new limits are reached.

You can HTUcap the delivery of individual banners UTH and of HTUzonesUTH.


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29B6.3 Banners

In Openads, a banner is the creative that is displayed as advertising. Banners are always part of a campaign and can only be created if there are campaigns available.

This chapter deals with HTUadding a banner to your inventoryUTH; HTUlinking banners to zonesUTH so that you can publish them on your website; applying HTUlimitations to the delivery of bannersUTH and HTUcapping delivery of banners to a particular visitor. UTH


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90BManaging banners You can create a new banner on the Advertisers & Campaigns page or on each campaign's Banner overview page.

141BBanner types

Banner type Icon Description

Local banner (SQL) These are stored locally by Openads in your database.

Local banner (Webserver) These are stored locally by Openads in a designated directory or an FTP site.

External banner These are stored remotely, typically on the Advertiser’s server.

HTML banner These are banners defined by HTML code and may comprise plain text, forms, multiple images and external banner networks, such as Google AdSense.

Text ad A text banner consisting of plain text, best exemplified by Google’s “Sponsored Links”.

142BSpecifying banners When you make a choice from the banner types drop-down list, the page refreshes to show a form appropriate to the type of banner you have elected to add. Each form has a common section that specifies keyword selection, description and banner weighting.

Note: You can deactivate any of the possible banner types in the Banner Settings page of the Administrator interface. If you do not see all of the banner types shown in the table above, you may find that the missing types have been deactivated.

143BAdding a local banner (SQL) Openads supports a large number of image formats for local banners, as summarised below :


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Format Type

.jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png Image

.swf Flash movie

.mov Quicktime movie

.rpm Real Media movie

The local banner form is divided into four sections. The first section deals with selecting the desired image as a banner for your campaign. Click the Browse button to locate the image on your system. The full path to your banner is reported in the Select the image.., field.

The next section of the form lets you decide the destination address for the banner you are adding. The destination is the URL to which a user is directed when they click the banner. Enter the URL in the Destination URL field. Note that the full URL must be added, including http://.

When a user clicks your banner, you can specify the frame in which the destination URL will open. Enter this location in the Target field. If you do not specify a frame, _blank is assumed.

TIP Frame targets include _top, which opens a destination page in the window occupied by the current frameset. i.e. replaces the frameset completely; _blank, which opens a destination

page in a new window; _parent, which opens the destination page in the frame that contains the current frameset. This only differs from _top when 'nested frames' are used; _self,

which opens the page in the same frame as the link.

The next section of the form deals with text options related to the banner :


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The copy you type in the Alt text field will be displayed in the user's browse in the form of a 'tooltip' when the mouse is passed over the banner. It displays in the location of the image if the image file has not yet downloaded to the browser. It also supplies the legend to a popup window's title bar. If you do not want any text to be displayed then leave this field blank.

You can change the status message in a browser by entering your alternative in the Status text field. The status message appears in the status bar at the bottom left of the browser window. When you pass the mouse cursor over a banner, the destination URL is shown in the status bar by default. In javascript-enabled browsers, your alternative text will replace the default. If you do not want to replace the default status message, leave the field blank.

Note that some browsers and browser plugins disable the ability for Javascript to display the status message. If you do not see a status message, this may be the cause.

You can add text to appear below your banner in the Text below image field. When this text is clicked in the browser, the user is directed to the web address you specified in the Destination URL field. You can format this text using basic HTML tags. Leave the field blank if you do not wish to add any text below the banner.

144BAdding an external banner Openads supports a large number of image formats for external banners, as summarised below :

Format Type

.jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png Image

.swf Flash movie

An external banner is stored remotely on an external server, typically the advertiser’s server. If the image file you wish to use is stored in this way, then you should select the External banner option from the banner type drop-down list. The appropriate form for this type of banner is displayed after a brief refresh of the page.

In the External URL field, enter the location of the image you want, in the form of a complete URL, including the image filename.

In all other respects, the external banner form is the same as the local banner form, but note that in the text options section, you must also specify the size of the ad, as Openads can’t detect the size of an image held remotely:


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145BAdding an HTML banner You can add a banner using raw HTML code. If you wish to add a banner using HTML, then select the HTML banner option from the banner type drop-down list. The appropriate form for this type of banner is displayed after a brief refresh of the page.

Enter the desired HTML code in the HTML banner field. Use the Return or Enter key to start a new line of code if required. Since this code will be inserted within the target page, there is no need to enter <html> or <body> tags.

Note that Openads inserts the HTML directly into the page that hosts the ad tag. Any omitted character (like a closing bracket) in this field will adversely affect the display of the web page that hosts the ad tag.

The checkbox Alter HTML to enable tracking of AdClicks permits you to specify that Openads can alter the HTML code you add so that click tracking can be logged.

You can paste HTML from a supported third-party ad server into the text box. Select the corresponding third-party ad server from the drop-down list box just beneath the HTML banner text box.

In all other respects, the external banner form is the same as the local banner form.


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146BAdding a text banner Text ads, as the name implies, consist of plain text with the option of including basic HTML to format it. Naturally, no image needs to be created or specified for this kind of ad. If you wish to add a text banner, then select the Text banner option from the banner type drop-down list. The appropriate form for this type of banner is displayed after a brief refresh of the page.

Enter the desired copy into the Text ad field. Use the Return or Enter key to start a new line of text if required.

In all other respects, the external banner form is the same as the local banner form.

147BFlash banner support Openads can handle Flash banners just like normal banners. For example, you can simply click TAdd new banner T in the usual way and then select the type of banner you want to add. If you choose Local banner (Webserver) or Local Banner (SQL) you can select your .swf file and upload it as usual. It is also possible to link to an external Flash banner (External Banner) and specify the full URL to the .swf file.

Openads automatically detects the type of the file and generates the HTML code needed to display the banner during invocation.

After adding a Flash banner, you may notice Openads does not track clicks for that banner. This is normal behaviour. Usually the destination URLs are hard-coded in the Flash banner and if the user clicks on the banner the Flash player will tell the browser to visit the hard-coded URL directly. Once this URL is set by the creator of the Flash file it is not usually possible for the ad server to replace it with its own click-logging mechanism. Different ad servers use different mechanisms to overcome this problem, but usually it requires the creator of the Flash file to supply a specially prepared version of it.

Openads has a unique feature which allows you to use any Flash file (even compressed Flash MX files) and still log AdClicks for that particular banner. The only requirement is that the links must already be defined in the Flash file (customarily as a hard-coded URL). Thanks to a small Flash editor which is included in Openads, the hard-coded URLs can be converted and changed to any value you want. You don't need to have any knowledge about Flash to enable the tracking of AdClicks.

In Openads, if you create a new banner and select a Flash file, a small checkbox called TCheck for hard-coded URLs T will be displayed below the upload field.

Once you submit the new banner and if this box is selected it will automatically check for hard-coded URLs inside the Flash file. If Openads finds any in the uploaded file,


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you are asked whether you want to convert these URLs. To the left of each hard-coded URL you will find a checkbox, which allows you to turn off the conversion for specific links. Also you can change the hard-coded URL and the target frame from within this screen.

When you are finished making the needed adjustments, click on TConvert T and the URLs will be converted to Openads' own AdClick tracking mechanism.

Openads also supports transparent Flash banners. Choose "Yes" from the Transparent background (Flash only) drop-down list in the Banner properties page if your flash banner has a transparent background. Openads changes the embedding code accordingly to allow the transparency. Note, though, that Openads does not transform the Flash file and can not make it transparent - the original file must have transparent parts in the first place.

148BKeywords, Description and Weight All Add banner forms share a common set of fields in which you can specify Description properties and a Weight value.

The Keywords field can be used to assign one or more keywords to the banner. These keywords are used by the delivery engine to determine which banner must be displayed when using direct selection. HTURead about delivering banners using Direct Selection.UTH If you want to assign multiple keywords to the same banner, use a space to separate them.

The Description field allows you to enter some meaningful text for your own use to identify the banner. This content is optional and is not used by the application in any operations.

The Weight field is reserved for entering a value that will determine the banner weighting and influences the likelihood that a particular banner may be displayed within a campaign. Thus, a banner specified with the weight of 3 is likely to be displayed three times as often as a banner with the weight of 1 within the same campaign.

149BCompleting the banner ad process Once you are satisfied with the information you have entered, click the Save Changes button to complete the process. The information is committed to the database.


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By default, the Delivery Options page is displayed, since this is the next logical step in the process. HTURead about delivery options in Delivery limitations. UT

The image you chose for this banner is displayed at the top of the page and is fully-functioning, in that the links, alt text and status text you specified are all active.

When you have specified Delivery Limitations, the TLinked Zones T page is displayed. HTURead about linking banners to zones. UT

150BBanners - advanced The TAdvanced T page deals with using additional code added to the HTML generated during banner invocation for this zone.

For instance, if you wish to show another form of banner - a popup, for example - on the same page(s) as the zone to which this banner is linked, you can add the code of the popup here. This code is executed each time this banner from this zone is delivered. You can paste the code in the text input box. The code can be from any of the supported ad servers. HTUSee also Zones - Append and Prepend. UT

151BCopying banners Openads allows you to copy existing campaigns easily. Select (click) the banner you wish to duplicate in the TAdvertisers & Campaigns T page.

The TBanner properties T page is displayed. Click the TDuplicate T link in the left-hand panel's Modify menu. This copies the currently-displayed banner.

After a brief pause, the new banner is displayed. By default, the new banner's name has 'Copy of' appended to the beginning of the banner name. Otherwise, all the properties of the new banner remain the same as the original banner from which it was copied.

You can change the name of the new banner by amending the TDescriptionT field in the banner properties form. Indeed, you can amend any of the properties of the


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duplicated banner (including the image file) if required. Remember to click the Save Changes button to commit your new information to the database.

Copying an existing banner is a rapid way of creating new banners that have common properties. You can copy a banner in one campaign and move it to another campaign if desired.

152BMoving Banners Moving a banner is a simple operation. Select (click) the banner you wish to move in the TAdvertisers & Campaigns T page.

The TBanner properties T page is displayed. In the left-hand panel, you will notice the TMove to T section of the Modify menu.

The drop-down list here contains all of the available campaigns to which you can move the currently-displayed banner. Choose the destination campaign from the list and click the arrow button to start the move.

After a brief pause, the page refreshes, showing that the banner is now part of the destination campaign.


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91BLinking banners to zones TOf course, the primary purpose for setting up publishers and the zones owned by those publishers is to deliver and display designated banners to them. After you have created a zone you can link banners to it. Only linked banners will be displayed in the zone. You can link banners to a zone on the Linked banners page of each zone. In addition to this it is also possible to link a banner to a zone on the Linked zones page of each campaign or banner.

1. By linking banners to zones; 2. HTUBy linking zones to banners. UT

153BLinking banners to zones Banners must be linked to zones in order to deliver them to your website. You can link banners to zones as part of a campaign, or link them individually. HTURead about linking campaigns to zones. UT

In the Administrator interface, navigate to the zone to which you want to link a banner. You can do this by clicking the required zone in the index of publishers in the TPublishers & Zones T page.

In the TZone properties T page, select the TLinked banners T tab.

In this page you identify the banner you want to link to your zone. The page is divided into two sections. In the top section, you have three options for linking banners to zones, available from the drop-down list :

Link banners by parent campaign

Use this method to find suitable banners from a specific campaign. In the lower section of the page, select the Advertiser that owns the campaign you want from the drop-down list:


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In the drop-down list that appears next to the Advertiser list, select the appropriate campaign:

Click the arrow button to the right of the list to confirm your choice. Openads displays the banners, that are compatible to the zone in size and type, at the foot of the page. The banner or banners shown are now linked to the zone. Note that you have effectively linked the owning campaign to the zone and that all compatible banners in that campaign would be linked. HTUSee also Linking campaigns to zones.UT

154BLink individual banners Use this method to link a single banner to your selected zone. In the lower section of the page, select the Advertiser that owns the banner you want from the drop-down list:


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In the drop-down list that appears alongside the Advertisers list, select a campaign to which your banner belongs:

In the new list that appears alongside the Campaigns list, select a banner to link to the zone. Only banners that are compatible in size and type with the zone are listed:

Click the arrow button to the right of the list to confirm your choice. Openads displays the banner at the foot of the page. The banner is now linked to the zone.

TNB: T If a banner that you expect to see listed is not shown, check that the banner's dimensions are compatible with the zone's size. This is especially important when an existing ad is updated - make sure that its dimensions have not been changed, otherwise the link to the zone will break.

155BLinking zones to banners In the Administrator interface, navigate to the banner you want to link to a zone or zones. You can do this by clicking the required banner in the index of advertisers in the TAdvertisers & Campaigns T page.


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In the TBanner properties T page, select the TLinked zonesT tab. Only zones that are compatible to your selected banner in type and size are listed here:

Select the zone or zones to which you want this banner linked. Click TSave changes T.


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92BDelivery limitations Delivery limitation is a powerful feature of Openads that lets you create very specific situations in which banners are displayed. The purpose of this feature is to give you the opportunity of tailoring banner delivery to reach the optimum market for the type of advertising that you carry.

You can specify delivery limitations for banners in one of two ways:

• By clicking the Delivery options tab in the Banner properties page; • By clicking the Delivery link in the Banner overview tab of the Campaign

properties page:

156BSpecifying delivery limitations The Delivery options page is the place where you can set limitations on the delivery of a banner to its assigned web sites. In addition, you can specify certain parameters, called Delivery Capping, where you define an overall limit or 'cap' to the banner delivery.

157BDelivery limitation by date and time

211BDate


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You can limit the display of a banner to a particular date or period bounded by a starting date and expiration date. The drop-down list allows you to qualify your date selections:

Thus, you can create a limit that ensures a banner is displayed on or later than 7 June 2006:

If you want to create a delivery limitation that is bounded by a start and finish date, then you can combine two date delivery options for the same banner. The second date delivery option would represent the end or expiration date:

Note the logical operator drop-down list. You can choose from AND and OR. In the case of the example cited above, AND is the proper choice to combine the two dates. Now, a banner will be limited to displaying between a date on or after 7 June 2007 and 7 October 2007.

212BDay of week You can limit the display of a banner to a day or number of days of the week. In the following example “Is not any of” is selected in conjunction with the choices in the form, to limit display to just Monday and Tuesday:


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213BHour of day You can even specify the display of a banner limited by hour of the day. In the following example, the banner is limited to display between 6pm and 9.59pm only.

Of course you can combine the time-based delivery limitations to restrict the delivery of a banner to a very specific time period (such as a certain hour of a certain day within a particular week).

158BDelivery limitation by client browser

214BDomain Domains are expressed in human-readable form and typically include a country-specific suffix (such as .de, .fr etc.). Users who connect to the internet have a domain name in addition to their unique IP address. It is possible, therefore, to limit banner delivery by targeting the user's domain.

Using the domain to determine in which country the user resides is necessarily accurate, since a user in one country might connect to the internet using an ISP based in another country.

The domain limitation can match a specific portion of the users domain. If you specify .nl as the limitation, for instance, you can deny or allow all users who are online in The Netherlands.

The value of this is that if you own a website which targets different countries and a client wants to show his banner in only one specific country, you could allow this banner to be displayed only from that specific country. The client could also provide you with the same banner translated in various languages, in which case, you can specify the appropriate country suffix with each banner.

215BIP Address You can limit the display of a banner to users that have a particular IP address. Typically, you would specify a range of IP addresses to target. You can do this in one of two ways:


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1. Using wild (*) cards; 2. Using the base IP and the net mask.

Using wild cards is straightforward. For example, specify 217.205.*.* to target all IP addresses from 217.205.0.0 to 217.205.255.255.

The alternative is to enter the base IP and net mask in the following format:

217.205.0.0/255.255.0.0

This targets all IP addresses from 217.205.0.0 to 217.205.255.255. A valuable advantage in specifying a client IP address is in targeting users of a specific ISP (Internet Service Provider). ISPs are allocated blocks of contiguous IP addresses. You can target those blocks using either of the above-mentioned methods.

216BUser agent When users visit a web site, a text string is sent to identify the user agent to the server, and forms part of the HTTP request. This contains information such as application name, host operating system and language. You can use this limitation to target a particular user agent.

If there is some other parameter in the Useragent string that you want to target (e.g. Javascript version), you can set a limitation on a pattern in the useragent string. Note that this can be unreliable - each browser and OS has a different useragent string, and the formats of the string vary widely. In most cases, you will only want to target either an OS or a browser, and should use those limitations rather than Useragent.

159BDelivery limitation by website properties

217BPage URL You can specify a particular page URL so that the banner is displayed only to those visitors who visit via a particular website address.

218BReferring page By using this delivery limitation it is possible to show a banner when the URL of the referring page you visited contains a specific text. For example if an external website has a link to a page on your website you can show a specific banner targeted at visitors from that website.

TImportant: T This limitation works only if you use the Javascript tag to show your banner. This limitation will not work if you are using any of the other invocation types. This is because Openads uses Javascript to determine the referrer on the page that contains the ad tag. Also note that browser support for the referrer header is decreasing, as a result of privacy concerns.

219BSource "Source" in this case refers to the source parameter of the banner invocation code. In most cases, 'source' is used to tell the ad server the specific section of the web site that the ad attached to. Thus, by limiting by a source, you are limiting the display of


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the banner to only one section (channel) of the site. You have six options to qualify your keyword entry :

If the source parameter, for instance 'headlinesection', agrees with that defined in the banner invocation source parameter, then the banner will be displayed.

This feature can be useful to show a banner only on a specific page or section of your website. The advantage of using this condition is it is easy to change the display location of a banner by using this limitation.

Note the "Regex" options. You can specify that your site source value matches (or does not match) a regular expression. You can learn more about HTUregular expressions here UTH.

220BChannel A channel is, effectively, a pre-defined set of limitations that usually relate to a specific set of subject matter on your website. HTURead how to create Channels.UTH The channels you have defined are listed in this section:

Select the desired channel(s). The delivery limitations grouped within the channel determine how the banner's delivery is limited.

221BDelivery limitation by geography


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By using Geotargeting you can determine in which country or continent a specific banner is delivered. For example, if you have a banner intended only for a specific country you can use this feature to make sure the banner is only delivered to people who are currently in that country. The Geotargeting capabilities are built into Openads 2.4, but are not available by default, because you need to use a suitable plug-in that holds information about the geographical location of the IP address of the user. For more information about the GeoIP database, see HTUhttp://www.maxmind.comUTH. Refer to the Settings chapter to learn how to activate Geotargeting. During delivery, Openads 2.4 determines the IP address of the visitor and looks inside the database for the geographical location of the user. This information is then compared to the requirements you set for the banner.

222BLimiting delivery by country

If you want to show a banner to users from a specific country you can use this limitation. Select the country where your banner must be shown and Openads will attempt to detect the location of the user before the banner is delivered. If the location of the user matches the country you specified, the banner will be shown, otherwise the banner will not be considered for delivery. If for some reason the location of the user can't be detected, the banner will be shown also. It is also possible to select multiple countries at the same time. If the user is located in any of the selected countries the banner will be considered for delivery.

223BLimiting delivery by continent

Similar to limitation by country, in this case you can select a entire continent. Since Openads knows in which continent a country is located, it can use the detected country to deliver banners only to users from the selected continent. If the country of the user is not located in the selected continent, the banner won't be considered for delivery. You can select multiple continents at the same time.


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93BDelivery capping of banners Delivery capping is a way of displaying ads more productively by putting a cap on the number of times a campaign, a zone or a banner is shown to a particular visitor.

You can specify delivery capping of banners when creating a new banner, or in the TDelivery options Tpage of an existing banner.


1. If you want to put a cap on the total number of times a visitor sees this banner, enter the total number in the TLimit banner views to: total Tfield.

2. You can limit the number of times a visitor sees a banner in a single session by entering the maximum number of views in the TLimit banner views to: per sessionT field.



If the visitor has disabled cookies the delivery of the banner will not be capped. For example, if you use this feature to show a particular banner only once a session, the visitor may see it more frequently. Also, if the visitor deletes all of his existing cookies, the information about capping will be lost and the visitor will see the banner again until the new limits are reached.

You can HTUcap the delivery of campaigns UTH and of HTUzones. UTH HTUSee also Delivery limitations. UTH


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30B6.4 Publishers

After you have added banners to your inventory you need to define how banners are delivered from your ad server to website visitors. Before you can define which banners are displayed you need to create at least one Publisher. Usually the first publisher you define is used for your own website. If you have more websites that use the same ad server, you can also create a new publisher for each of your other websites. The delivery model of Openads is ready for multiple websites, and each can have multiple zones where banners are displayed. Additionally, you can add new publishers for partner websites that use your ad server, but are not under your control.

HTURead about creating and managing publishers.UTH


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94BManaging publishers New publishers can be created on the Publishers & Zones page, by clicking TAdd new publisherT.

TBasic information

A publisher has a number of properties that need to be set before it can be added to your system. The TName T, TWebsite, ContactT, and TE-mail T fields are mandatory. An error message is displayed if you do not complete all of the mandatory fields.

Each publisher must have a unique name that is used in the administrator interface to differentiate between different publishers. Type the name in the TName T field and enter a suitable short form of the name in the TMnemonic T field. This value is used by Openads in the channel script of HTUpublisher invocation. UT

In the Website field, add the full address of your website (including http:// or https://), add a contact name in the TContact T field and an e-mail address for the publisher in the TE-mail T field.

The option TMake the zones owned by this publisher publicly available T is a special setting which can be used to make the zones from this website available to other publishers. The significance of this option becomes clear when you choose to create a chain of zones. Briefly, where banners can't be delivered to a zone for some reason, you can create a chain of zones so that the next in the chain of zones can be used to deliver banners. You can specify that Tanother T publisher can be made publically available so that compatible zones from that publisher can be used as part of the chain. HTURead more about Zone chaining.UT

TLogin information

If you want publishers to be able to have some control over their zones and view publisher statistics, you can specify a login username and password for them.


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Enter a suitable name in the TUsername T field and a memorable password in the TPassword T field. Usernames must be unique (among publishers) and may contain any alphanumeric characters, including spaces. Passwords may contain any alphanumeric characters, including spaces. Passwords should be a minimum of 1 character, with no maximum limit. Both usernames and passwords are case-sensitive.

The checkboxes associated with the login information grant the logged-in user various degrees of control over what can be done in the publisher interface.

Select TAllow this user to modify his own settingsT if you are happy to let the publisher change his the Contact name, E-mail address and Login password.

Select TAllow this user to modify his own zonesT, if you wish to grant the publisher the right to change their zones without the right to choose which banners are linked to their zones. When you make this selection, you can then make detailed choices about how much the user can modify his zones. Select TAllow this user to define new zonesT if you wish to grant the publisher the right to create new zones and specify which banners are displayed in the new zones. Select TAllow this user to delete existing zones T if you wish to grant the publisher the right to delete existing zones, which includes any newly-created (and thus existing) zones.

Select TAllow this user to link banners to his own zones T if you wish to grant the publisher the right to decide which banners are to be displayed in their own zones, remove banners from their zones and link new banners to their own zones.

Select TAllow this user to generate invocation code T if you wish to grant the publisher the right to generate ad tags for the zones owned by this publisher.

Select TAllow this user to view zone statisticsT if you wish to grant the publisher the right to view statistics for the zones owned by this publisher.

Note that it is only possible for a publisher, with the appropriate rights, to make changes to their Town T zones.

You can specify that the publisher can be restricted to viewing only approved or pending conversions. Note that when creating and editing conversion trackers, you can choose the status of the conversion, namely Tignore T, Tpending T or Tapproved T. If you


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select TAllow this user to view only approved or pending conversions T, you prevent the user from viewing conversions whose status is ignore.

If you do not want the publisher to log into the interface, do not create a username and password.

160BPayment information [to be added]

161BOther information [to be added]

Click TNext T to confirm your publisher settings (when creating a new publisher) or TSave changes T when you are editing an existing publisher. When creating a new publisher, the TZone properties T page displays after you click the TNext T button. HTURead about creating zones.UTH


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31B6.5 Zones

Zones can be fully configured in the administrator interface, allowing you to link campaigns and banners from your inventory to a zone. After you have set up your zones you generate a small piece of HTML called bannercode or invocation code, which you can place on your website. The invocation code directly calls your zone to deliver the banners that are linked to it.

Zones always belong to a publisher, so you need to create a publisher before you can create any zones. HTURead about creating publishers.UT

In this chapter, you can read about:

• HTUhow to create a zone and specify its properties UTH; • HTUthe types of zone you can createUTH; • HTUhow to chain zones to prevent the non-display of banners UTH; • HTUappend code to a zoneUTH; • HTUthe probability of banner delivery to a zoneUTH; • HTUhow to generate invocation code for a zoneUTH; • HTUcapping zone deliveryUTH.


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95BManaging zones On creating a TnewT publisher, (by completing the Add new publisher form), you are directed automatically to the TZone properties Tpage where you can create a new zone. You can add new zones to TexistingT publishers by navigating to a publisher's properties page, selecting the TZone overview T tab and clicking the TAdd new zoneT link at the top of the page.

Each zone has a unique Name which can be used to differentiate between all the available zones. In addition you can specify a Description of each zone, which is also displayed in the administrator interface. This way it is easy to determine what a specific zone is used for.

The Zone type you select determines how the banners of this zone will be displayed on your website. The options available from the invocation code generator depend on the type you select here. HTURead about Zone types. UT

Unless the zone type is a Text ad, the zone will have a specific width and height and only banners with the same dimensions will be shown in that zone. When you create a new zone you can choose the Size of the zone from a drop down menu which includes all the standard dimensions, defined by the IAB. It is also possible to specify the width and height of the zone yourself. This should only be necessary when you use non-standard banners.

In certain conditions you might need a zone which isn't limited to a specific size, for example when you want to create a bar of different banners which have the same width, but may have a different height. Note that you can choose a Custom size. You enter the custom sizes in the Width and Height fields provided below the drop-down list box.

When choosing a custom size, you have the option to enter a specific size (e.g. '468' for the width), or a wildcard ('*'). A wildcard can be entered for the width, height, or both.


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For example, a banner of the size of 120x* means that all banners with the width of 120, and of any height will be eligible banners for linking to this zone.

Remember to click Next when you have finished specifying your new zone, or Save changes when you have finished editing your zone.

You are automatically directed to the TAdvanced T page, where you can specify additional properties related to the zone. These include HTUChain settings,UTH HTUDelivery Capping UTH and HTUAppending code to banners UTH displayed by this zone. When you have completed any settings in this page, click the TSave Changes T button.

The next page that displays, TLinked banners T, deals with HTUlinking banners to this zone UTH . This is where you link ads to the zone for display in your website. Once you have linked the required ads, you generate HTUinvocation codeUTH for placement on your web page(s).


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96BZone types

224BBanner, button or rectangle option Choose this option to have banners displayed as part of the content of the website.

225BInterstitial or Floating DHTML Choose this option to have banners displayed on top of the website content. These banners typically appear on loading of the page and disappear after a defined period of time.

226BPopup Choose this option to have banners appear within a separate window or popup. This window can appear either above or below (pop-under) the browser window in which the website is displayed.

In each of the above options, you can specify the size of the zone you define for the type in the Size drop-down list box. Openads uses this size to limit the available banners that can be linked to this zone. For example, if a zone size is 468x60, you will not be able to link a 120x600 banner. The available options are all industry-recognised (IAB) standard sizes.

227BText ad If your choice was the text ad zone type, then the part of the form relating to size appears dimmed, since a text ad's dimensions are rendered by its content, rather than any physical boundary.

228BEmail/Newsletter zone Choose this option to create a zone that can be served in an html email. You create the zone in the normal way, selecting the Email/Newsletter zone option. Click Save Changes, and then select the Invocation code tab to view the generated ad tag. Add this tag to your html email template. There are some important conditions to setting up this zone:

• When you create a campaign to include your email/newsletter zone, you must specify activation and expiration dates for it. If you do not, an error alerts you to this omission when you attempt to link your banner to an email/newsletter zone.

• Secondly, you cannot link a campaign to an email/newsletter zone; you must link at the banner level. You can do this by adding the desired banner to the campaign, viewing the banner properties page, then selecting the Linked zones tab. Here, you can choose the email/newsletter zone to link to your banner.

• You can use only plain banners in this type of zone - such as .gif, .jpg, .png; you cannot use .swf files or html ads.

• Ads cannot be rotated through email tags since the click-through has to be hard-coded in the tag, as most email clients do not support cookies. Without cookies you cannot determine the destination URL.

The concept behind this tag is that you can provide a single tag to be served in an email, and that this does not need to be changed when the banner creative changes.


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97BZone chaining A situation may arise where a zone is not currently linked to active banners, or where delivery limitation or capping settings prevent linked banners from being displayed. In such a situation, creating a chain of zones can prevent the non-display of banners. You can set a chain of zones in the TAdvanced T tab of the TZone properties T page. This tab is automatically displayed after you have created a new zone.

162BChain settings In a chain of zones, if the first zone in the chain is unable to display banners, then the second zone in the chain is invoked.

The Chain settings section permits you to define the application's behaviour in the event that this zone cannot deliver its linked banners.

Select the TStop delivery and don't show a banner T option if you prefer to have no banners displayed should the linked banners in this zone not be delivered. Note that this means an empty space would be left in the target website in the event that no banners can be delivered to this zone.

Select TDisplay the selected zone instead T option if you wish to deliver banners from another zone if the linked banners in this zone cannot be delivered. The zones available to you will be listed in the associated drop-down. Note that only zones from the same publisher are made available, unless another publisher's zones are made public. HTURead Managing publishersUTH for information about making a publisher's zones public.

In the TAdvanced T tab of the TZone PropertiesT page you can also HTUappend codeUTH to a zone and specify zone HTUdelivery capping. UTH


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98BZones - Append and Prepend

163BAppending other invocation codes In certain conditions you might want to append another code to the HTML generated during invocation. For example, if you wish to show another form of banner - a popup, for example - on the same page(s) as particular zone, you can add the code of the popup to the desired zone. This code is executed each time a banner from this zone is delivered.

You can paste the code in the text input box. The code can be from any of the supported ad servers.

If the type of your zone is set to Text ad, there will be some additional settings for you to configure on the Advanced page. By using the bottom two fields, you can determine the layout of all text ads delivered by this zone, by specifying the HTML which must be prepended and appended to the text ad.

Note that the append and prepend settings only get delivered if an ad is delivered. If a blank ad is delivered, the append and prepend settings do not get delivered. If you want to override this behaviour, and deliver the append and prepend HTML regardless of whether an ad is delivered, then set the 'Append even if no banner is delivered' radio button to 'yes'.

You can specify these settings in the TAdvanced T tab of the TZone properties T page.


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99BZones - Probability The TProbabilityT page of each zone (Zone properties - Probability tab) includes a list of all the banners which are currently considered for delivery for this zone. The list includes the name and id of the banner and also includes the probability of how often a banner is delivered.

If you want to change the probability of a specific banner you can do this by changing the priority of the campaign to which this banner belongs or by changing the weight of the specific banner. Please note: these change not only affect this zone, but all zones to which the banner or campaign are linked to.

If a linked banner isn't listed on the TProbabilityT page it simply means this banner isn't currently considered for delivery. If for some reason you think that a particular banner should be listed, please read the HTUOpenads website troubleshooting FAQUTH for information about how to resolve this problem.

If there aren't any banners currently considered for delivery the list will be empty, unless you created a chain between this zone and another. If this is the case, you will see how the chain is followed and the end result of the chain. In this case, you might see banners listed, which aren't linked to the current zone, but linked to a different zone in the chain.


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100BZone invocation tags

164BZone Invocation Where you wish to generate ad tags for the delivery of HTUbanners linked to a particular zone UTH, you use zone invocation. Navigate to the Invocation code tab in the TZone properties T page. Here you will see a form, the elements of which vary according to the type of zone for which you wish to create ad tags.

Completing this form sets parameters for the generation of ad tags. You must click TGenerate T or TRefresh T to update the bannercode once you have set or changed parameters.

The generated code is displayed in a Bannercode text box. You can copy this code to the clipboard for subsequent pasting in the website page.

Each type of zone has its own form for adding parameters to the generated invocation code.

The bannercode you generate is influenced by two factors:

1. The type of tag (banner invocation) you select in the TInvocation code T page;


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2. The type of zone you select when adding a zone to a publisher.

The type of banner invocation available to you in the drop-down list depends upon the type of zone for which you are generating bannercode.

Each zone type has its particular range of parameters, although some parameters are common for all zone types.

229BGenerating Ad Tags for Banner, button or rectangle type For example, let us assume you wish to generate ad tags for a Banner, button or rectangle zone type. In the TInvocation code T page, you now have a choice of invocation tag that corresponds with the zone type.

You must choose one of the options from this list for banners to be displayed in this zone. The parameters available to you in the remainder of the form vary according to your choice of zone type and lets yoou set conditions for the way banners are handled in this zone:


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165BTarget frame TNote the optional parameter that permits you to specify a target frame when the visitor clicks on the displayed ad. Adding a target here overrides any target setting made for a specific banner.

166BSource TThis optional parameter works in conjunction with delivery limitations. HTTUSee Delivery limitations for more information. UT

167BSupport 3rd Party Server Clicktracking TYou can set this parameter to support clicktracking by a 3rd party server. This provides additional statistical information that can be viewed in reports.

168BInterstitial type The form in the Invocation code page for generating ad tags for an Interstitial or Floating zone type varies according to the chosen Style. There are four styles :

1. Cursor 2. Floater 3. Geocities 4. Simple

This display defaults to the Geocities style. The first three parameters are common throughout the invocation code forms;


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TTarget frame T TNote the optional parameter that permits you to specify a target frame when the visitor clicks on the displayed ad. Adding a target here overrides any target setting made for a specific banner.

TSource T TThis optional parameter works in conjunction with delivery limitations. See TTDelivery limitations TTfor more information.

TSupport 3rd Party Server Clicktracking T TYou can set this parameter to support clicktracking by a 3rd party server. This provides additional statistical information that can be viewed in reports.

TYou can set this parameter to support 'cache-busting' by a 3rd party Ad Server. This adds "cb=INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE" in the generated code, providing a placeholder for the Ad Server's random number insertion.

Openads sets the required 'no cache' headers with all tags to ensure that banners are never cached. However, some ISPs may still cache content despite that request. Therefore, while you do not need to change INSERT_RANDOM_NUMBER_HERE, it is recommended you do so since changing the URL by having a random number in it helps to prevent that kind of 'unwanted' caching of content.

169BGeocities style This style of interstitial draws its inspiration from the Yahoo Geocities banner ads displayed on its members pages. These are displayed in a top of the browser window. A banner thus displayed can have its state changed by a user via buttons located above it. The banner can be collapsed by a button click such that only the control buttons are displayed. A collapsed banner can be closed by a subsequent button click.

This parameter controls the location of the interstitial:

There are three options, allowing you to choose the left top, right top or centred (at the top) positions.

This text provides the legend for the control to close the interstitial, located just below the banner. When a user clicks on this text, the interstitial will be dismissed.

The interstitial can be collapsed automatically after a defined period (in seconds). The associated controls for re-displaying or closing the banner are still available for use.

You can specify padding to be inserted between the border of the banner and the boundary of the interstitial. The value you enter corresponds to pixels.

170BCursor style As the name suggests, this style displays a banner adjacent to the user's mouse cursor and will follow it wherever the cursor is moved on the page.


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The first two parameters are common throughout the invocation code forms;

This optional parameter permits you to specify a target frame when the visitor clicks on the displayed ad. Adding a target here overrides any target setting made for a specific banner. See T Adding a banner Tfor more information about specifying a target frame for banners.

This optional parameter permits you to specify the name of the current page. This works in conjunction with any delivery limitations that you may have set for a banner. See T Delivery limitation options T for more information.


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You can set Smooth movement so that the banner does not 'chase' the cursor, but moves smoothly in its track, at a predetermined speed. If this feature is not enabled, the user will be unable to click the banner.

This option list is only available if Smooth movement is enabled. It determines the speed at which the banner tracks the mouse cursor's path.

By default this parameter is set to "No". If you enable this setting, the banner is not displayed when the cursor is at rest. This prevents the banner from obscuring the content of the page when the mouse is not being moved.

TDelay before banner is hidden This setting determines the length of time the cursor should be at rest before the banner is hidden, when Hide the banner when the cursor is not moving is enabled.

TTransparency of the hidden banner You can set a percentage transparency of the banner when the cursor is at rest and Hide the banner when the cursor is not moving is enabled. This setting only functions with Internet Explorer 5.5 or above. The percentage you set will determine how visible the banner will be and consequently how much of the page content can be viewed 'through' the banner.

THorizontal shift This setting (in pixels) determines the banner's horizontal position in relation to the mouse cursor. The default value is 10.

TVertical shift This setting (in pixels) determines the banner's vertical position in relation to the mouse cursor. The default value is 10.

TFloater style This type displays a banner that displays on top of the page content. It gravitates from one side of the browser window to the other, according to settings you specify in the parameters.

The first three parameters are common throughout the invocation code forms;


This optional parameter permits you to specify the name of the current page. This works in conjunction with any delivery limitations that you may have set for a banner. See T Delivery limitation options Tfor more information.


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TSupport 3rd Party Server Clicktracking You can set this parameter to support clicktracking by a 3rd party server. This provides additional statistical information that can be viewed in reports.

This parameter determines the direction in which the banner moves.

Note that the banner will move beyond the window boundary until it eventually disappears. You can specify that the banner repeat this movement in the Looping parameter.

This parameter allows you to specify a number of times the banner moves across the page while being viewed.


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Choosing Always active sets the banner to repeat continuously until the user leaves the page.

The default value is 3. This determines the speed at which the banner travel across the page. '1' is the slowest, '5' is the fastest.

Where you have defined Looping to be more than '1', you can specify a pause, in seconds, between the disappearance of the banner at the end of its travel across a page and its re-appearance on the other side of the page. The default value is 10 seconds.

This parameter specifies the banner's vertical location in relation to the top of the page, in pixels. Entering 300 in this field, for instance, places the banner's top border 300 pixels below the top of the page.

This parameter allows you to determine left- and right-margin settings for the banner. Setting this parameter enables the Left margin and Right margin parameters. If this parameter is not set, the margins are set as the left and right borders of the window.

Here you can specify a margin from the left border of the window, in pixels. Thus, entering a value of 200 would place the left margin 200 pixels from the left border of the window. Note that specifying a negative number will start the measurement from the right border.

Here you can specify a margin from the right border of the window, in pixels. Thus, entering a value of 200 would place the right margin 200 pixels from the right border of the window. Note that specifying a negative number will start the measurement from the left border.

Enable this parameter to set the background of the DHTML layer to transparent.

Set this parameter to specify a background colour.

Use the colour picker to specify a colour. Note that monochrome values are also available. The chosen colour is displayed in the sample box to the left of the picker.

TSimple style This style displays a banner inside a box on top of the web page content.


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171BSupport 3rd Party Server Clicktracking You can set this parameter to support clicktracking by a 3rd party server. This provides additional statistical information that can be viewed in reports.

TSet the horizontal position of the banner Use this parameter to determine the horizontal position of the banner on the page. Choose one of three options : Left; Center and Right. Note that these positions are


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calculated in relation to the overall window size, so if the user re-sizes the window, the banner will re-locate accordingly.

TSet the vertical position of the banner Use this parameter to determine the vertical position of the banner on the page. Choose one of three options : Top; Middle and Bottom. Note that these positions are calculated in relation to the overall window size, so if the user re-sizes the window, the banner will re-locate accordingly.

Set this parameter if you wish to offer the user the option of closing the banner by clicking a typical close button in the top-right corner of the bounding box.

Enter a value, representing seconds, after which the banner should close automatically. If no value is entered, the banner does not close automatically.

This parameter determines the space, in pixels, between the displayed banner and the interstitial. The default value is 2.

This setting allows you to specify a value, in pixels, to shift the default horizontal position defined by the Horizontal alignment parameter. Thus, if the interstitial is left-aligned, the horizontal shift value you specify is inserted between the left window border and the left edge of the interstitial. You can use this to be more precise with the positioning of the banner.

TVertical shift This setting allows you to specify a value, in pixels, to shift the default vertical position defined by the Vertical alignment parameter. Thus, if the interstitial is top-aligned, the vertical shift value you specify is inserted between the top window border and the top edge of the interstitial. You can use this to be more precise with the positioning of the banner.

TBackground color In this context, the background is that area occupied by the interstitial, 'beneath' the banner within it. Effectively, then, the visible area of the background will be whatever you specified in the banner padding parameter. With this setting, you can specify the colour of that area from the colour picker, by clicking the colour strip. Note that monochrome is also available.

TBorder color The border is a one-pixel wide line defining the boundary of the interstitial. You can specify the colour of the border from the colour picker, by clicking the colour strip. Note that monochrome is also available.

172BPopup type Popup ads are those that appear over (or indeed under) the current browser window, contained within a separate window which is sized to match the dimensions of the banner it contains.


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TIP

There is a minimum size limit of the window in most browsers, so it is recommended that the banner ad you with to display in the popup should be of at least that

minimum size - 200mm x 200mm is advised. If a banner smaller than the minimum window size is displayed, there will be an area of 'dead space' around it.

The popup window has a title bar. The legend of this title bar is, by default, 'Advertisement', unless you specified an alternative in the alt text field of the Add Banner form.




173BSupport 3rd Party Server Clicktracking You can set this parameter to support clicktracking by a 3rd party server. This provides additional statistical information that can be viewed in reports.


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TPop-up Type Select the desired option button to choose between a window that displays above (over) the current browser window (Pop-up) or one that displays under (behind) the current browser window (Pop-under).

TInstance when the pop-up is created TThis parameter determines when the desired popup is displayed. You can choose Immediately; When the page is closed or you can specify a period in seconds before the popup appears to the user.

TInitial position (top) & Initial position (left) These two parameters allow you to specify the precise position of the popup when first it is displayed. The 'top' position being the number of pixels you enter measured from the top border of the browser window; the 'left' position being the number of pixels you enter measured from the left-hand border of the window. If no values are specified here, then the popup window will display in the top-left corner of the browser window.

TAutomatically close after


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Normally, your popup will remain in view at all times unless dismissed by the user. You can override this default behaviour by specifying a period, in seconds, after which the window will close. The period of time you specify will start counting down from the moment the popup is displayed.

TWindow optionsT

This section of the form allows you to specify popup window controls and capabilities.


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101BDelivery capping of zones Delivery capping is a way of displaying ads more productively by putting a cap on the number of times a campaign, a zone or a banner is shown to a particular visitor.

You can specify delivery capping of zones in the TAdvanced T tab of the TZone properties T page.


1. If you want to put a cap on the total number of times a visitor sees the banners linked to this zone, enter the total number in the TLimit zone views to: total Tfield.

2. You can limit the number of times a visitor sees banners delivered to this zone in a single session by entering the maximum number of views in the TLimit zone views to: per sessionT field.



If the visitor has disabled cookies the delivery of the banners linked to this zone will not be capped. For example, if you use this feature to show a particular zone only once a session, the visitor may see the banners linked to it more frequently. Also, if the visitor deletes all of his existing cookies, the information about capping will be lost and the visitor will see the banners again until the new limits are reached.

You can HTUcap the delivery of campaigns UTH and HTUof individual banners. UTH HTUSee also Delivery limitations.UTH


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32B6.6 Channels

A channel is a group of delivery limitations which can be selected when specifying banner delivery limitations. This is particularly relevant when you want to provide an opportunity for advertsiers to target specific groups of visitors who may have an interest in certain types of subject matter, such as sports or finance, for example. Channels are associated with publishers and their specification influences the Publisher invocation code. HTURead about Publisher invocation.UT

You can create a channel by clicking the Channels button in the Publishers & Zones index:

Where no channels associated with a publisher currently exist, the Channels button is dimmed.

On clicking the button, the TChannel overview T page is displayed. Existing channels are displayed in this page. Click the Add new channel link to create a new channel.

In the TName T field, enter a suitable title for the channel. In the TDescriptionT field, type a description for the channel - it's purpose, for instance. You can add comments about this channel in the TComments T field. Click TSave Changes T when you have completed the form.

The TDelivery optionsT page displays. Here you specify delivery limitations for this channel. HTURead more about Delivery limitations. UT

The important factor about channel limitations is that you can group delivery limitations and subsequently refer to the channel when creating a delivery limitation for a banner. For example, you might create a set of limitations that aims at visitors who speak English; who have been referred from a specialist website and if the source parameter is "entertainment":


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When you have finished specifying delivery limitations, click TSave Changes T.

When specifying delivery limitations for a banner that is aimed at the visitor whose interest is "Entertainment", you can select the TSite: TChannel delivery limitation and choose the appropriate channel:

In the above example, the TSource T parameter of the zone to which the banner is linked would have "entertainment" specified as a value.


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33B6.7 Displaying banners using direct selection

Direct selection is a method of making a selection from your inventory by putting together a special selection string and placing it directly in the invocation code. The content of the selection string instructs Openads which banners to consider for delivery.

The big advantage of this method is the increased flexibility in selecting banners. As you can use paths, multiple expressions, logical operators and different types of statements, direct selection is potentially much more powerful than using zones. However, there is a price to pay for all this power; because the selection is made during invocation, you have to change the invocation code every time you want to change the selection. Bear in mind, too, that because direct selection is much more powerful, it is also more difficult to implement on your website. Direct selection is only intended for advanced users.

You specify the banners for direct selection in the TInventory>Direct selection T page. Here, you choose the type of invocation you require from the drop-down list.

Your next step is to specify the parameters associated with the banner invocation:

In the above example, these are the parameters available to you on selection of the Javascript tag.

174BBanner selection - Statements The idea behind direct selection is that each banner has a number of properties such as id, width, height, banner type and even keywords, which can be assigned to a banner in the administrator interface. These properties are available when making a selection. For example, with direct selection it is quite easy to show a number of html banners with a specific size and with certain keywords assigned to it. Also if you want


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to show one specific banner you can easily use the id property of the banner in the selection string.

A statement is nothing more than an indication of the property you want to look at and the value the property must be if the banner must be considered for delivery. Below you will find an explanation of each statement that Openads currently supports, which you enter in the Banner selection box.

175BBanner id If you want to show a specific banner, the easiest way to achieve this is to use the banner id statement. The banner id statement consists of the identifier bannerid, a colon and the id of the banner you are looking for, for example: bannerid:3. Because of backwards compatibility it is also possible to simply specify the id of the banner, without the identifier and the colon, for example: 3 is equivalent to bannerid:3. When you enter multiple statements, you separate them with a semi-colon.

176BWidth Every regular banner, except for text ads, have a fixed width. There are two variants of the width statement, one which allows you to specify the specific width and one which allows you to specify a range. The first variant consists of the identifier width, a colon and the exact width you want to use, for example: width:120.

If you do not want to limit the selection to just on specific width you can also use the second variant and specify a range of allowed widths. The second variant consists of the identifier width, a colon, the minimal width, a dash and the maximum width, for example: width:120-160. If you do not want to have a minimum width you do not have to specify it, it's optional. If it is not specified Openads will consider every banner that has a width smaller than the maximum you specified, for example: width:-160. Just like the minimum width, it is also possible to ignore the maximum width, but you can't ignore both at the same time. You must specify either the minimum or the maximum. If you ignore the maximum the statement will look like this: width:160-.

177BHeight Just like the previous statement does every regular banner, except for text ads, have a fixed height. There are two variants of the height statement, one which allows you to specify the specific width and one which allows you to specify a range. The first variant consists of the identifier height, a colon and the exact height you want to use, for example: height:250.

If you do not want to limit the selection to just on specific height you can also use the second variant and specify a range of allowed heights. The second variant consists of the identifier height, a colon, the minimal height, a dash and the maximum height, for example: height:250-500. If you do not want to have a minimum height you do not have to specify it, it's optional. If it is not specified Openads will consider every banner that has a height smaller than the maximum you specified, for example: height:-500. Just like the minimum height, it is also possible to ignore the maximum height, but you can't ignore both at the same time. You must specify either the minimum or the maximum. If you ignore the maximum the statement will look like this: height:160-.

178BDimensions If you want to show banners which a specific width and a specific width, you don't have to use the width and height statements, but you can simply use the dimensions statement, which combines the two previous statements and looks at both the width


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and height parameters of the banners at the same time. The dimensions statement does not have a identifier and consists of the width of the banner, an x and the height, for example: 468x60. It is not possible to use ranges for the dimensions statement.

179BText ads Apart from regular banners, Openads can also be used to display text ads. Text ads have no fixed width or height, so the previous three statements can't be used for selecting text ads. We do have a separate statement for making sure only text ads are considered for delivery. The text ad statement only consists of the string text ad.

180BKeywords The last statement is also the most powerful and deals with keywords. As described in the chapter Banners, you can assign one or more keywords to each banner. Read about Banner properties. You can use the same keywords also as a statement in a selection string. For example if you assigned the keyword 'sports' to a banner, it will be considered for delivery if the use 'sports' as a keyword statement. If the banner contains more than one keyword, for example sports, news and science, you can use any one of these keywords to select the banner. So using sports will consider the banner, but using news will also work.

There are currently two reserved keywords which have a special meaning: default and global. Banners with the keyword global are always considered for delivery. Banners with the keyword default will be automatically linked to zones without any linked banners.

181BCampaign parameter Every banner in the inventory is owned by a campaign. By selecting a campaign from the drop-down list, you restrict the display of banners (as specified in your banner selection statements) to those owned by the chosen campaign.

When you have completed setting the parameters click the Refresh button to generate the appropriate invocation code. Note this fragment of invocation code, for a javascript tag;

which was generated from these parameters:


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6B7. Statistics

34B7.1 Overview

The Statistics feature provides essential results feedback for both Advertisers and Publishers of the effectiveness of campaigns and website management. Openads offers statistical results for AdViews, AdClicks, AdSales, click-through and sales ratios that can be viewed for advertisers, campaigns, banners, publishers and zones. This diversity of information can help you make informed judgements on the value of very specific elements of a campaign, such as visitor AdViews at particular times of day, or the usefulness of certain zones in relation to their web page position.

The admin interface gives access to statistics gathered by the maintenance scripts supplied with the application. Statistics are grouped by three tabs - Advertisers & Campaigns, Publishers & Zones and Global history. Global history shows total statistical data. Each view has a summary table included at the bottom of the page.

You have a number of options for viewing gathered statistics by specific periods in the drop-down list. Note that TAll statisticsT refers to figures compiled since the advertisers or publishers were originally defined.

TSpecific dates T activates the “From” and “To” fields adjacent to the list, where you can enter dates to create a ‘custom’ period of results.


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35B7.2 Advertisers & Campaigns

As an example, consider statistics for Advertisers and Campaigns for This month. After making the selection from the drop-down list, the page refreshes to show a list of your advertisers with their associated statistics.

You can specify the categories (column headings) of statistical data in Settings. Read about administration settings.

Each advertiser name is clickable, linking to specific statistics for the chosen advertiser.

You can expand each entry by clicking the small triangle adjacent to a table row. You expand each entry to view the campaigns owned by the advertiser; in turn, you can expand each campaign to view its contained banners. In each case, relevant statistics for the displayed entries are shown for the period chosen in the drop-down list at the top of the page.

You can click a banner’s link to view results in even more detail. In the case of this example, clicking the “Downloads Openads 2.4” link reveals daily results for the


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chosen period, last month. Furthermore, you can click on any one day to view an hourly breakdown of results.

182BHistory pages When you click an item from your statistical list, a history page opens for the item. There are history pages for Advertisers, Campaigns and Banners.

Each history page shows a detailed daily breakdown of results for the period you chose. In a history page you can create a graph of the available statistics and export the data to an Excel spreadsheet.

You can specify the detail to be shown on the graph by expanding the “Show Graph of Statistics” link and selecting the categories you want displayed:

Select the checkbox(es) of the data you want to see in the graph, then click Update.

To export data to Excel, click “Export statistics to Excel”. Through your browser’s control you are given the choice of saving the data to disk (in .xls format) or opening the data in your local copy of Excel.


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183BAdvertiser history When you click an advertiser from your statistical list, the Advertiser history page displays. Note the associated tabs – Campaign overview, which lists the statistics of the campaigns owned by the advertiser and Publisher distribution, which lists the statistics of the websites that have published the banners owned by the advertiser.

184BCampaign history When you click a campaign from your statistical list, the Campaign history page displays. Here, the associated tabs are Banner overview, listing the statistics of the banners belonging to the campaign and Publisher distribution, which lists statistics of the websites that have published banners belonging to the campaign.


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36B7.3 Publishers & Zones

You have a number of options for viewing gathered statistics by specific periods in the drop-down list. Note that All statistics refers to figures compiled since the publishers were originally defined.

Each publisher name is clickable, linking to specific statistics for the chosen publisher.

102BPublisher history When you click a publisher name, the Publisher history page displays.

The Publisher history page shows a detailed daily breakdown of results for the period you chose. Click any one day to view an hour-by-hour breakdown of the statistics. In a history page you can create a graph of the available statistics and export data to an Excel spreadsheet.

You can specify the detail to be shown on the graph by expanding the “Show Graph of Statistics” link and selecting the categories you want displayed:

Select the checkbox(es) of the data you want to see in the graph, then click Update. A fragment of a typical chart is shown below:


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To export data to Excel, click “Export statistics to Excel”. Through your browser’s control you are given the choice of saving the data to disk (in .xls format) or opening the data in your local copy of Excel.

Note the tabs available in the Publisher history page, namely Zone overview and Campaign distribution.

The Campaign distribution page shows statistics for those campaigns that have banners displayed by the selected publisher. You can view the results of the banners belonging to those campaigns here, too.

The Zone overview page lists the zones belonging to the publisher. Click any one of these to view the Zone history page. This is where you access statistics for the chosen zone. This page also has a Campaign distribution tab associated with it. This shows data for campaigns (and the banners belonging to them) that are linked to the selected zone.


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37B7.4 Global history

As the name suggests, global history offers you a chance to view aggregated statistics that show total activity for all advertisers and their campaigns and banners. You access the Global history page by clicking the appropriate tab in the main Statistics display.

In line with other history pages, you can specify a range of periods, create graphs and export data to Excel. Each view has a summary table included at the bottom of the page.


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7B8. Reports Openads can generate reports based on collected adserving data for agencies, advertisers, campaigns and zones. As these reports are produced in .xls format, it provides an excellent way to analyse data and produce personalised reports in Excel about your adserving performance.

103BCreating reports Creating your report is simplicity itself. First, click the Reports tab to display the list of available report categories. Then click the link of the sort of report you want to build. The report types are grouped by category:

• Admin Reports • Standard Reports

The Agency Breakdown report summarises impressions, click and conversions for a specified period for an Agency. HTURead about creating and managing Agencies UTH.

On clicking a chosen report link, the report specification page displays. Here, according to the type of report you choose, you can specify the report’s attributes. For example:

From the TPeriod T drop-down list, choose a date range for the statistics you want to include in your report. If you choose “Specific dates” from the period drop-down list, the “From” and “To” fields adjacent to the list become available, where you can enter


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dates to create a ‘custom’ period of results. From the Campaign list (in this case), choose your data source.

Openads gives you the option of showing related data in separate Excel worksheets. In the Worksheets group, the data you can include in each worksheet is shown and by default all checkboxes are selected. You can deselect any checkbox to exclude a worksheet if desired.

When you are satisfied with the selections you have made, click the Generate button. In Internet Explorer 7, you can choose how to handle the file in the typical download dialog:

Note the file format is .xls. Provided you have Excel loaded on your machine, you can open the report at once. Note how the data is arranged by worksheet in the downloaded file:

Below is a fragment of a Campaign Analysis report, in the default style:


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8B9. Settings

38B9.1 Overview

Openads 2.4 can be extensively configured by using the Settings tab of the Administrator interface.

Some settings are stored inside a configuration file for speed improvements; other settings are stored inside the database. Only settings stored in the database can always be edited. The settings that are stored in the configuration file can only be edited if the configuration file is writeable by the web server.

104BLocking and unlocking the configuration file The configuration file is stored in the /var directory. The filename is made up of your website address, appended by .conf.php; for example Twww.example.com.conf.phpT. Before you can edit the settings stored inside the file you must unlock it and allow the web server to make changes to it. By default the web server is not allowed to make changes to the file for security reasons. If you are finished editing the settings you must ensure the file is locked, otherwise it would be possible for other users on the same web server to be able to edit the settings.

105BUnlocking the Twww.example.com.conf.phpT file If you are using a Windows web server check the properties of the file and make sure the read-only flag is not set. If you are using a Linux or Unix web server you can alter the write permissions with the chmod command from the command prompt: chmod a+w www.example.com.conf.php

If you do not have command line access to your web server then your ftp client should be able to change file permissions.

185BLocking the www.example.com.conf.php file If you are using a Windows web server check the properties of the file and make sure the read-only flag is set. If you are using a Linux or Unix web server you can alter the write permissions with the chmod command from the command prompt: chmod a-w www.example.com.conf.php

If you do not have command line access to your web server then your ftp client should be able to change file permissions.


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39B9.2 Main settings

Openads can be configured by using the Settings tab of the Administrator interface. This page contains a series of tabs, the first of which, TMain settings,T is selected by default.

The advisory at the top of the page reminds you that the configuration file is not locked. After you have checked and made any changes to the settings, you can lock this file to secure your system. You can find your configuration file in the /var directory of your Openads installation. The configuration file's name is comprised of two parts; your website address appended by . Tconf.php T. For example, Twww.example.com.conf.php T.

You have a range of settings options accessible from the T Choose section T drop-down list:

You can read about these options in the following topics:

• HTUAdministrator settings;UTH • HTUBanner settings; UTH • HTUDatabase settings;UTH • HTUDelivery settings;UTH • HTUGeneral settings;UTH • HTUGeotargeting settings;UTH • HTUInterface defaults;UTH • HTUInvocation settings;UTH • HTUStatistics & Maintenance settings;UTH • HTUUser Interface settings.UTH

Note that after you have made changes in the above sections, you must click the Save changes button to store the settings. After you have clicked on this button you will be redirected to the next section in the list automatically.


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106BAdministrator settings This page comprises five groups of settings:

1. Login credentials; 2. Basic information; 3. Preferences; 4. Synchronisation settings; 5. Timezone information.

186BLogin credentials You can change the username and password of the Admin user here. Ensure that you keep a secure record of the changes you make here. If you have forgotten your password, HTUfollow the password reset procedure.UTH

187BBasic Information This is where you add or amend the contact details of the admin user.

188BPreferences Here you can specify the default language of the interface in the TLanguage T drop-down list. Select TAdmin's delete actions need confirmation for safety T if you want a confirmation dialog to appear when the user attempts a delete operation. This gives users an opportunity to cancel a delete action that they may have taken inadvertently. Remember, you cannot undo a delete in Openads. If you want all outgoing email messages made by openads (notifying the end of campaigns etc.) to be recorded, select the TLog all outgoing email messages T checkbox.

189BSynchronisation settings You can tell Openads to check for updates to the software automatically; select the TCheck for updatesT checkbox.

190BTimezone information Set the timezone for your adserver here. If you change the timezone from its original setting, you may affect the statistics you gather, as the interval since the most recent scheduled maintenance might then be altered.

As Openads performs many operations based on time (eg. logging and presenting banner delivery statistics), it is important that your server's timezone be correctly configured in PHP There are two different ways to do this, depending on which version of PHP you are using. PHP 4.3, PHP 4.4 PHP 5.0 Setting the timezone in these versions of PHP requires that you export an environment variable called TZ in your web server configuration. This is obviously dependent on the web server you are using. As an example, if you are using the


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Apache web server, you can do this with the HTUSetEnv directive UTH: SetEnv TZ Europe/London You should also set the environment variable for your HTUmaintenance cronjob UTH, for example, at the top of your crontab file, enter: export TZ='Europe/London' These examples may be different, if you have a different web server or crontab shell environment. PHP 5.1, PHP 5.2 Setting the timezone in these versions of PHP is quite easy! Simply set the HTUcorrect timezone UTH in your HTUphp.ini fileUTH. For example, in your php.ini file, set: [Date] ; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions date.timezone = Europe/London Help! I can't do either of those things! If you do not have access to set the timezone on your server, don't panic! You should start off by asking your system administrator or your hosting provider to set this up for you. (Any decent hosting provider will be happy to learn about PHP timezones, and make the required changes to their setup so that everyone can have it set up correctly).

Alternatively, you can call "date_timezone_default_set()" on PHP 5.1 and PHP 5.2 or you can set "date.timezone" in a .htaccess file. If you're still out of luck, however, Openads can be installed without the PHP timezone setup - Openads will simply make a best guess about which timezone your server is in, and you can then select a timezone manually if it's wrong. However, we strongly recommend that you set up the timezone in PHP correctly.

Other Time Issues It is important that the time on your server is correct, otherwise your statistics may not be accurate. This is especially important if you are running Openads on more than one server. As a result, it is important that you configure your server with an NTP service, to ensure that your server clock(s) are accurate. See your operating system documentation for more information.


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107BBanner settings This page covers default settings related to banners. The TDefault banners T section allows you to specify a global default banner in the event that Openads is unable to connect to the database server, or if there is a problem with the database. The specified banner may also be displayed if there are no active matching banners available.

Note that this feature is disabled by default (left blank) and can be overridden by zone chain settings. A default banner specified here is not logged for statistics-gathering.

The TAllowed banner typesT section lets you specify the types of banner that can be used.

These settings determine which types of banner you can specify in the Administrator interface. Enabled banner types appear in the drop-down lists when adding banners, for example.

If you select TAutomatically alter HTML banners in order to force click tracking T, then Openads will alter HTML banners in order to allow clicks on HTML banners to be logged. This feature can be overridden on a per-banner basis in the Administrator interface when you add an HTML banner, by deselecting the TAlter HTML to enable tracking of Clicks Tcheckbox. TNote: TGoogle Adsense is an easy way to display Google text or image ads and is popular among Openads users. With the TAlter HTML to enable tracking of clicks Toption selected, Openads can track Adsense clicks by visitors who use Internet Explorer (IE 6 & 7), Firefox and Opera (9) in Windows. In fact, the HTML in this case is not altered; instead TAdsense ads are automatically detected and handled as a special case, using Javascript methods.


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T108BDatabase settings TGlobal database server settings T TBefore you can use Openads you need to specify the type of database, username and password to use. You did this first during the installation process, but you can change those settings here. All of these settings are stored inside the configuration file, so if you want to change these settings the configuration file must be be unlocked.

TDatabase hostname T TSpecify the hostname or the IP address of the database server.

TDatabase port number T TSpecify the number of the port of the MySQL database server to which you are trying to connect. The default port number for a MySQL database is 3306.

TDatabase username T TSpecify the username which Openads must use to gain access to the database server.

TDatabase password T TSpecify the password which Openads must use to gain access to the database server.

TDatabase name T TA MySQL server usually contains a lot of different databases, for different users or projects. Each database has a unique name. You need to specify the name of the database which is used for Openads.

TGlobal database optimisation settings T TIf you want to use persistent connections to the database server check this option. The use of a persistent connection can speed up Openads considerably and may even decrease the load on the server.

T


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There is a potential disadvantage however, where on sites with a lot of visitors the load on the server can increase and become larger than when using normal connections. Whether you should use regular connections or persistent connections depends on the number of visitors anticipated and the hardware you are using. If Openads is using too many resources, you should take a look at this setting first. Persistent connections are turned off by default.


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109BDelivery settings This page allows you to specify settings related to ad delivery.

TGlobal Openads Server Access Paths T This group of settings defines access paths to specific elements of your Openads server. These are specified by default when you first install the application.

Admin Interface URL The URL by which you will access your Openads installation's user interface.

Delivery Engine URL The URL that will be used for delivering banners. This URL will be put into all of your zone invocation tags.

Delivery Engine URL (SSL) The URL that will be used for delivering banners over SSL connections. This URL will be put into all of your zone invocation tags.

Image Store URL The URL that will be used for delivering banner images.

Image Store URL (SSL) The URL that will be used for delivering banner images over SSL connections.

If you have installed Openads in HTUthe normal wayUTH then the Administrator Interface URL needs to be "www.example.com/path/to/openads/www/admin ", while the the two delivery engine URLs need to be "www.example.com/path/to/openads/www/delivery", where " www.example.com" is your site's URL, and "path/to/openads" is the directory under your site where you have installed Openads. By default, the image URLs will be " www.example.com/path/to/openads/www/images", however, you would be free to change these to whatever you require, assuming you also configure Openads to store banner images in a location that will result in the images being available via the URL(s) you select here. See HTUGlobal Webserver Local Banner Storage Settings UTH .

Note: If you have installed Openads by using virtual hosts, then the URLs you use for these sections must match the domain names of the virtual hosts you have selected.

A word on Configuration Files

For a HTUnormal installationUTH , Openads will have one configuration file in the var directory: www.example.com.conf.php. You will only be able to access Openads via this domain name (ie. www.example.com). If your web site can also be accessed by


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"example.com", for instance, then Openads will Tnot T work using this domain name. It is not recommended that you attempt to configure your configuration files so that this will work - instead, use your web server to redirect web access. So, for example, calls to " example.com/openads/" will be sent to "www.example.com/openads".

For an installation using virtual hosts, [nb:link to be added] then there will be a number of configuration files, one for each domain name used. However, you will note that only one configuration file contains the real configuration for Openads - the delivery domain configuration file, so that less file parsing is required during delivery. All other configuration files are place holders that will redirect to the real configuration file.

TGlobal Webserver Local Banner Storage Settings

Storing method When adding a banner to your inventory, you must choose a banner type. If you choose the Local banner (Webserver) type, you can specify where the banner you upload is stored. If you want to store the banners in a local directory set this option to TLocal Directory T. If you want to store the banner on an external FTP server set this option to TExternal FTP Server T. On certain types of web server you may want to use the FTP option even on the local web server.

Local Directory If you specify TLocal DirectoryT, enter the full path to the desired directory in the TLocal DirectoryT field.

Moving banner files from the database to a local directory An advantage in having your image files in a separate directory, outside of the Openads root, is that they are unaffected by subsequent upgrades. If you already have those files stored in the database, you can move them to the local directory. Firstly, as mentioned above, specify Local directory as a storing method in the Main settings:Banner settings page. Ensure that you define the Public url and and Local directory in the appropriate fields. Click Save Changes. Now click the HTUMaintenance tabUTH . From the choose section drop-down list, select storage. Click the TMove images stored inside the database to a directory T link. Your images are moved from the database to the local directory you specified. Note that the storage option in the choose section drop-down list is only made available when you have specified the public url and local directory locations.

External FTP Server if you specify TExternal FTP Server T, complete the details in the form. Specify the FTP Host server where Openads needs to copy the uploaded banners to. The Host Directory path you specify needs to be in the web server's document root, as the web server must be able to serve the files directly. Do not specify a trailing slash (/). If you don't specify a directory Openads will upload the banner to the root directory of the


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ftp server. If you don't specify a username and password Openads will attempt to log in as an anonymous user with the administrator's e-mail address. Note that security can be compromised if you are able to store your banners on an FTP server that can be accessed by anonymous users and is not recommended.

TGlobal File Names T The files named here effectively constitute the Openads delivery engine.

TGlobal Delivery Caching SettingsT To help speed up delivery, Openads uses a cache which includes all the information needed to deliver the banner to your website visitors. You can specify the interval between cache updates in the TTime Between Cache Updates (seconds) T field. The default value is 1200 seconds. Remember that changing this value is a compromise - reducing the interval updates your cache more frequently, but at the expense of more load on your adserver; increasing the interval reduces the load, but you will have to wait longer for banner and zone changes to appear on the website.

TUse Remote Origin ServerT Currently undocumented.

TGlobal Banner Delivery Settings

Evaluate banner delivery limitations during delivery This checkbox is selected by default. De-select this checkbox if you do not wish to use delivery limitations and, since Openads would no longer check for delivery limitations during delivery, gain a small improvement in performance.

Obfuscate channel when delivering ads Select this checkbox if you wish to prevent channel information being detected.

Allow PHP code in ads to be executed Select this checkbox to permit PHP code in ads to be executed. Note that this is a potential security risk and due consideration should be given to the consequences of this permission.

3rd Party Click Tracking Delimiter [to be added]

TGlobal P3P Privacy PoliciesT Use P3P Policies Internet Explorer 6 is the first browser to implement the w3c P3P standard. The P3P standard is created to protect the privacy of your users. By default Internet Explorer will reject third party cookies unless a valid privacy policy header is also sent, together with the cookies. These setting will allow you send these privacy policies headers together with the cookies which Openads sends. If you want to enable P3P Privacy Policies, select this checkbox.


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P3P Compact Policy This is the compact policy which is sent together with cookies. The default setting is: 'cur adm our nor sta nid', which will allow Internet Explorer 6 and later to accept the cookies used by Openads. If you want you can alter these settings to match your own privacy statement.

P3P Policy Location If you want to use a full privacy policy, you can specify the location of the policy in this field.

Remember to click TSave Changes T when you have completed specifying your settings.


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110BGeneral settings Production server By designating your Openads server as a TProduction serverT, you suppress any error and debugging messages in delivery, ensuring that the system doesn't output any PHP messages to a live site. During testing you can de-select this checkbox so that any error messages during delivery are shown.

User Interface Enabled This checkbox, selected by default, controls the availability of the user interface. There may be certain changes or other maintenance operations you want to carry out where the user interface ought to be disabled, in which case you de-select the checkbox. This means that users, whether an Advertiser, Publisher or Administrator can no longer log in to the interface. The TAuthentication Tpage shows this message:

Take care when choosing to disable the user interface as you will not be able to log in to the admin interface subsequently. You can, however, alter your HTUconfiguration file UTH directly to enable the user interface again, by changing the TuiEnabled T value to "1".



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111BGeotargeting settings Openads 2.4 can determine the geographical location of a visitor from their IP address using a geotargeting database. You can exploit this information for statistical or marketing purposes, or you may wish to set delivery limitations based on geographical location.

Select an option from the TGeotargeting Module TypeT to specify which database should be used. Openads supports GeoIP databases. A free country database is provided from MaxMind, but if you need a more accurate database, or want a database with more information, you can buy one from MaxMind. For every purchase MaxMind will guarantee a small donation to the Openads project. For more information, refer to the HTUMaxMind websiteUTH.

By selecting a geotargeting module, you enable Geotargeting delivery limitations. Alternatively you can select the TShow geotargeting delivery limitations even if GeoIP data unavailable T checkbox to make Geotageting delivery limitations available.

In the Geotargeting database location fields, enter the path to the geotargeting database directory corresponding to the category of geotargeting database. The directory should not be placed in the web server's file structure to prevent someone accessing and downloading it via a web browser.

TGeoIP Apache module T If you are using the GeoIP Apache module, select TMaxMind mod_apache GeoIP T from the module type drop-down list. You do not hace to specify the database locations when using this type.



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112BInterface defaults This page allows you to specify default values for the administrator interface, notably including default banner and campaign weight.

TInventory

TShow extra campaign info on Campaign overview page - set by defaultT If this option is enabled extra information about each campaign will be shown on the Campaign overview page. The extra information includes the number of Impressions booked, Clicks booked, Conversions booked, activation date, expiration date and the priority setting.

TShow extra banner info on Banner overview page - set by defaultT If this option is enabled extra information about each banner will be shown on the Banner overview page. The extra information includes the destination URL, keywords, size and the banner weight.

TShow preview of all banner on Banner overview pageT If this option is enabled a preview of all banners will be shown on the Banner overview page. If this option is disabled it is still possible to show a preview of each banner by clicking on the triangle next to each banner on the Banner overview page.

TShow actual banner instead of plain HTML code for HTML banner previewT If this option is enabled the actual HTML banner will be shown instead of the HTML code. This option is disabled by default, because the HTML banners might conflict with the user interface. If this option is disabled it is still possible to view the actual HTML banner, by clicking on the Show banner button next to the HTML code.

TShow banner preview at the top of pages which deals with banners - set by default T If this option is enabled a preview will be shown at the top of the Banner properties, Delivery options and Linked zones pages. If this option is disabled it is still possible to view the banner, by clicking on the Show banner button at the top of the pages.


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THide inactive items from all overview pagesT If this option is enabled all inactive banners, campaigns and advertisers will be hidden from the Advertisers & Campaigns and Campaign overview pages. If this option is enabled it is still possible to view the hidden items, by clicking on the Show all button.

TShow matching banner on the Linked banner pages - set by defaultT If this option is enabled the matching banner will be shown on the Linked banners page, provided the Campaign selection method is chosen. This will allow you see exactly which banners are considered for delivery if the campaign is linked. It will also be possible to look at a preview of the matching banners.

TShow parent campaign on the Linked banner pagesT If this option is enabled the parent campaigns of the banners will be shown on the Linked banners page, if the Banner selection method is chosen. This will allow you to see which banner belongs to which campaign before the banner is linked. This also means that the banners are grouped by the parent campaigns and are no longer sorted alphabetically.

Default campaigns to anonymous [to be added]

TStatistics

TBeginning of Week - set as Monday by defaultT For most people a week starts on a Monday, but if you want to start each week on a Sunday you can.

TPercentage Decimals - set as 2 by default T Specifies how many decimal places are used to display a percentage on statistics pages.

TDefault weight


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Default banner weight If you want to use a higher default banner weight you can specify the desired weight here. This setting is 1 by default.

Default campaign weight If you want to use a higher default campaign weight you can specify the desired weight here. This setting is 1 by default

TPublisher defaults

TModes of paymentT Enter the forms of payment you allow in this field. Separate each mode by a comma. This list populates the TMode of payment T drop-down list in the Payment information section of the TPublisher propertiesT page.

TCurrencies T Enter the currency denominations that you allow in this field. Separate each denomination by a comma. This list populates the TCurrency T drop-down list in the Payment information section of the TPublisher propertiesT page.

TTax IDT If you want to take the tax id of the payee, select this option. A field is made available for entering the id in the Payment information section of the TPublisher propertiesT page.

TApproved check boxT Select this option if you want to record whether the tax id is approved or not. TYes T and TNo T options are made available in the Payment information section of the TPublisher propertiesT page.


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113BInvocation settings

114BInvocation settings This page allows you to specify defaults related to banner invocation.

191BAllowed invocation types Specify the options a user can have for invocation tags. When you generate invocation code, you can choose the tag type from a drop-down list. The settings you choose here populates that list.

192BInvocation defaults You can choose whether 3rd-party clicktracking is enabled by default and which type appears in the clicktracking drop-down list by default.

When you generate invocation code, the TSupport 3rd-party server clicktrackingT list in the TSettings T section of the TInvocation code T page reflects the choice you make here.


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115BStatistics & Maintenance settings This page allows you to specify a number of settings related to Statistics and Maintenance.

193BGlobal Statistics Logging Settings This section deals with the extent of statistics that are logged.

230BReverse lookup the hostnames of viewers when not supplied Where a viewer's hostname is not supplied, you can instruct Openads to perform a lookup on the viewer's IP address to resolve a hostname for it. Storing hostnames allows you to see which hosts are retrieving the most banners.

231BExtract the viewer's Operating System and web browser using phpSniff phpSniff is bundled with Openads and determines the client's browser and system information. Note that presently this is rather resource-hungry and should be used only if the information it gathers is an essential requirement.

194BGlobal Prevent Statistics Logging Settings If you don't want to keep track of click-throughs and impressions from certain computers you can add these to this setting. For example: you can add your own IP address to prevent your machine from influencing the statistics each time you visit your own website. You must type each hostname or IP address on a new line. Note that you can only use hostnames if they are provided by the server or by Openads. If the hostname isn't available you can only use IP addresses. Instead of using the full hostname or IP address you can also use wild cards (i.e. *.altavista.com or 192.168.*).


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116BGlobal Maintenance Settings

Default Ad Impression Connection Window & Default Ad Click Connection Window These two settings control the default conversion 'window' used when creating a new tracker. The value you enter here (in seconds) is entered by default in the corresponding TDefault conversion rulesT fields in the TAdd new trackerT page. Read about HTUConversion Tracking UTH.

TGlobal Priority Settings

232BUpdate advertisement priorities immediately when changes made in the UI Select this checkbox to ensure priorites are updated immediately. When this setting is not selected, advertisement priorities are updated during the next scheduled maintenance.

233BE-mail Warnings In this section, you can specify when and to whom email warnings should be sent.

The Enable qmail patch setting prevents a known bug in qmail that causes emails sent by Openads to show the headers within the body of the email.


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117BCustomizing the admin interface Openads gives you the option to customize the appearance of the administrator interface.

195BApplication Name Enter the name that you want to appear in the page’s header, typically the name of your website.

196BName of custom logo file Enter the name of the image file of your custom logo. You can use .gif, .png or .jpg formats. This file should be placed in the www/admin/images directory of your Openads installation.

197BColour of the header foreground Specify the colour (in RGB format) of the tabs that are currently inactive.

198BColour of the header background Specify the colour (in RGB format) of the header background.

199BColour of the active tab Specify the colour (in RGB format) of the currently selected (active) tab.

200BColour of the text in the header Specify the colour (in RGB format) of the text that appears in the header.


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40B9.3 Maintenance management

Click the TMaintenance T tab of the TSettings T page to carry out a number of maintenance operations. Select a section from the drop-down list:

118BMaintenance This section allows you to check the status of your current maintenance setup. If you have yet to set up scheduled maintenance, you may see this advice:

If you have set up scheduled maintenance, you may see this advice:

Read more about the importance of maintenance and how to set up HTUscheduled maintenance UTH.

119BPriority Click the TRecalculate priorityT link to instruct Openads to calculate campaign priorities again.

120BStorage The images used by local banners are stored inside the database or can be stored in a directory. If you store the images inside a directory the load on the database will be reduced and this will lead to an increase in speed. This option is only available if you have specified TLocal directoryT as a storing method in the Main settings>Delivery settings page. Ensure that you define the Public url and and Local directory in the appropriate fields.

121BDelivery Limitations Under some circumstances the delivery engine can disagree with the stored ACLs (Access Control Lists) for banners and channels. Click the TCheck ACLs T link to validate the ACLs in the database. The results of that vaildation are reported in the page.


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122BAppend codes Under some circumstances the delivery engine can disagree with the stored append codes for trackers, Click the TCheck append codes T link to validate the append codes in the database. The results of that validation are reported in the page.


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41B9.4 Product Updates

The TProduct UpdatesT page allows you to check on the status of your current Openads installation and to manage past updates.

Select CTheck for updates T to view the status of the current version of your Openads installation. Note that this is a good place to check which version your are running and the versions of each part of the associated software bundle.

Select the TManage past updates and backups T option to view information about your upgrade history including details of backup tables that exist. From here you can delete backup tables and leftover logfiles and configuration backups.


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42B9.5 User log

This page lists all maintenance operations carried out by Openads.

You can view the details of each operation by clicking the appropriate TDetails T link. This displays the User log details page. Here, the script actions are shown in detail.

Advertiser reports can be specified in an Advertiser's properties page. The period between reports can also be specified. If you selected the TLog all outgoing e-mail messages T checkbox in the TPreferences T section of the TAdministrator settings T (Settings>Main settings>Administrator settings), then e-mail messages sent to Advertisers are included in this list. The User log details for an advertiser report shows exactly what is contained within the email to be sent to the advertiser. The following illustration shows a portion of an email report :


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43B9.6 Agency Management

Agencies use Openads to administer multiple groups of advertisers and publishers in a single installation.

123BOverview This method of working is used when a single installation of Openads supports more than one organisation that manages advertisers and publishers. Agencies cannot share or access each other's information. All reports, campaigns, zones, etc., are unique to the agency that set them up.

Agency Management can also be used if you have an Advertiser or Publisher who wants to traffic all of their own campaigns and zones. You can set up these entities as an Agency, and they can run Openads as if it were their own setup.

Note that from the outset, a decision should be made whether or not to use agencies. If agencies are used, then all users should log in to the agency while trafficking campaigns. If you log in as administrator, there is the potential to link campaigns to zones across agencies, in which case Openads may not function properly.

Also note that at the moment, prioritisation is performed across agencies. This means that a huge campaign on one agency could affect the delivery priority on another campaign.

Note that if you want to link a banner from one agency to a zone in another agency, you should treat this transaction as if the agencies are on two separate servers - create a tag from the Advertiser, and load it as an HTML banner in the website. In order to track clicks, make sure that you select 'Alter HTML to enable tracking of AdClicks', and select 'Rich Media - Openads' from the associated dropdown.

201BAgency Management You can add and modify Agencies in this page. Agencies use Openads in a similar way to Advertisers, except that they manage multiple advertisers in a single installation.

202BAdding a new agency To create a new agency, click the TAdd new agencyT link.

The Add new agency page displays. There are two sections to this form, Basic Information and Login Information.


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Here you add information that identifies the new agency and the contact details for the agency user. The Language drop-down list contains languages currently supported by Openads.

203BLogin information - New Agency Choose a username and memorable password that you will use to log in to the Agency interface.

If, on logout, you would like the user to be redirected to a specific address, enter the full URL in the TURL to redirect to on logout Tfield.

Select the TAllow this user to edit conversions T checkbox if you wish the agency user to be able to change the status of conversions (from Pending to Approved, for example). You can read about conversions and conversion status in the HTUConversion TrackingUTH section.

Click TSave Changes T to complete the process. The TAgency ManagementT page re-displays with your new agency listed.

When you log in to the interface as an agency user, your agency name appears on all pages. In the Agency interface you can start to add Advertisers, Campaigns, Publishers and Zones.


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204BChannel Overview This page shows any channels you have created associated with this agency. You can create a new channel by clicking the TAdd new channelT link. HTURead more about Channels UTH. The channel you create here is associated with the agency, which means that when you create a delivery limitation, it will be available to all zones, to which a banner is linked, that are owned by publishers created within the agency. Read about banner HTUdelivery limitations UTH. You can review all of the channels you have created in the TSettings>Channel ManagementT tab.


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44B9.7 Channel Management

This page allows you to manage existing channels and create new ones. HTURead more about ChannelsUT

To create a new channel, click the TAdd new channel T link.

Existing channels are listed here, noting their associated publishers. When you set "Site - Channel" HTUdelivery limitations UTH on a banner, the available channel limitation depends upon the owning publisher of a zone to which the banner is linked. If the zone's owning publisher has a single channel called 'News' associated with it, then that will be the only "Site - Channel" limitation available for the linked banner. In this page, however, you can create a new channel that is not associated with a particular publisher and is, therefore, available to all banners, irrespective of the owning publisher of the zone to which the banner is linked. Thus, a new channel created here called (for example) 'Finance' would be available for selection in a delivery limitation:

205BAdding a new channel Enter a TName T and TDescriptionT for the new channel in the appropriate fields of the TBasic Information T section. You can add relevant information, if required, in the TComments T field. Click TSave Changes T at the foot of the page. On saving, the TDelivery options T tab is displayed. Here you can specify Client and Site delivery limitations. You can read more about HTUspecifying delivery limitations relevant to a


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channel here UTH . When you are satisfied with the delivery limitations you have set, click TSave Changes T.

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