OpenX Hosted User Guide

OpenX Hosted facilitates the quick and easy delivery of advertising onto your website. OpenX Hosted is a hosted ad management solution.

Before exploring this in-depth guide to upgrading to OpenX Hosted and getting the most out of its functions, please take a moment to read about the product's key concepts:

Key concepts

How it works

Use the OpenX interface to:

So, those are the basics. Now we'll begin the detailed guide to how you can get the most out of OpenX. Let's get started!

Advertisers

An advertiser is the owner of the advertising you display on your website(s). Creating an advertiser in the OpenX user interface is the first step you should take. Following this, you'll be able to create campaigns to which you can attach banners.

Adding an advertiser

Go to Inventory > Advertisers:

Select Add new advertiser from the Actions box in the top right-hand corner of the screen. You are now in the Add new advertiser screen.

First, enter your advertiser's basic information:

  • Name: the advertiser's Name must be unique. You cannot create two advertisers with the same name.
  • Contact: the Contact name will be used in all emails to the advertiser.
  • Email: an Email address for the advertiser is required.

In the Advertiser report section, select if and when to send emails to the advertiser:

  • Email when a campaign is automatically activated/deactivated: OpenX automatically sends an email alert to the advertiser when a campaign is activated or deactivated. You can untick this checkbox if you do not want to send alerts.
  • Email campaign delivery reports: tick this checkbox if you want to send reports regularly to the advertiser. The default setting is to email a report every seven days. Change the value in this field if you want to email more or less often. It is unlikely that you will want to send email reports if you give the advertiser access to this information in the system.

The Miscellaneous section allows you to limit the delivery of ads for this advertiser:

  • Display only one banner from this advertiser on a web page: limit delivery of this advertiser's ads to one per web page.
  • Comments: a section for notes applying to this advertiser.

See also: About users for information about linking a user to an advertiser account.

Note: You can change the above details at any time by clicking on the name of any advertiser and then viewing the above information in the Advertiser Properties tab.

Advertiser properties

The Advertiser Properties tab contains the same fields as the Add new advertiser page. You can alter these details at any time. When working on this page, don't forget to click the Save Changes button when you're done.

Advertisers - Trackers

Trackers allow you to monitor conversions instigated by a visitor to your website(s) clicking on an ad. Conversions are most commonly measured as sales, leads or signups. From the Advertiser screen click on the Trackers tab:

You will now see a list of campaigns (and linked campaigns) to which you have added trackers. The Actions box gives you the option to Add new tracker or Add new campaign. Alternatively, you can click on any listed campaign to review and adjust your Tracker Properties.

The Add new tracker and Tracker Properties tabs are identical. Within them you can enter information or make adjustments to the Tracker Information form:

  • Name: assign your tracker a name of your choice.
  • Description: this field serves as a reminder for this particular tracker.
  • Conversion Type: this dropdown menu lets you choose between Sale, Lead and Signup, according to the type of conversion you want to track for this campaign.
  • Default Status: the dropdown menu offers Approved, Ignore or Pending.

    Tracker properties

    The Tracker Properties tab contains the same fields as the Add new tracker screen. This information can be edited at any time. Don't forget to click Save Changes when you're done.

    Linked campaigns

    The Linked Campaigns screen displays all of the campaigns linked by your trackers:

    The status of your campaigns is displayed, and the Conversion window shows their respective View and Click settings [see Linked Trackers].

    Tracker variables

    The Variables tab allows you to log information that is unique to a specific conversion. First of all, select your tracker type:

    This selection configures the way that data is passed from the page and into the conversion. The options in the dropdown are:

    • Track JavaScript variables: this setting means that the variables are set in the confirmation page as JS variables ( var = 'Test value'; )
    • Track JavaScript variables (backwards compatible, escaping needed): this setting means that the JS values must be URL encoded ( var = 'Test%20value'; ). It is provided for backwards compatibility only.
    • Track HTML elements using DOM: this setting will parse the confirmation for an HTML element with the specified name. It will take the value from that element automatically.
    • Custom JS code: this setting allows you to use your own custom JS code to pass the variable's value into the conversion.

    Next, you have the option to add one or more variables:

    The available fields are:

  • Variable Name: the name of the variable should correspond with the type of variable you want to track.
  • Description: enter a description of your choice for this variable.
  • Date Type: the type of value to be passed on, i.e. String for text strings, Numeric for numeric values, Date for specific dates. The advantage of setting the data type is that it allows the system to perform appropriate operations on the data, e.g. summing numeric values or joining strings.
  • Purpose: this field tells OpenX what to use this data for. If you are tracking the amount of a sale, for example, then Basket value should be selected.
  • Reject if empty?: if no value is passed in for this variable, don't use this value in calculations.
  • Dedup conversions?: if enabled, OpenX will use this value to de-duplicate conversions. The usual usage is to pass in a sale number, and OpenX will ignore multiple conversions with the same sale number.
  • Variable hidden to: hide the variable to no, some or all websites.

    Once you are happy with your variables, hit Save changes.

Append tracker code

It is possible to append any HTML code to a tracker beacon. The HTML entered here will be displayed to the user when this tracker beacon is displayed. It is possible to append multiple HTML blocks to a tracker beacon (these HTML blocks can be selectively enabled). The HTML blocks will be delivered in the order specified here.

Note: the appended code above can only be delivered when using the JavaScript tracker.

Tracker invocation tag

Here is where you can collect the correct type of invocation code for your advertiser's banners. Select Image Tag or JavaScript Tag from the dropdown and copy and paste the code that appears in the Trackercode box into your website's source code:

Advertisers - User access

You can assign other users permissions relevant to an individual advertiser:

These permissions include creating new accounts; modifying banners; activating and deactivating banners and accessing the audit trail.

Fill in the new user's details and click Add user when you're done.

Campaigns

Campaigns belong to individual advertisers, and you should create an advertiser before defining a campaign. A campaign contains a number of creatives that can share delivery settings, or alternatively different delivery settings can be assigned to each banner. Delivery settings can be altered to give total control over the frequency and duration of ad delivery, their prioritization, and the limits placed on them according to a variety of parameters.

Adding a campaign

Once you have created an Advertiser, from the Advertisers screen click Add new campaign. This will take you to the Add new campaign screen:

The next step is to define what type of campaign will apply to this advertiser. The three campaign types are:

Once you have selected which campaign type this advertiser should be assigned, you should specify further details for the campaign:

Once you have made your selections, hit Save Changes to go to the Campaigns screen.

Campaigns page

The campaigns page gives an overview of your advertisers' campaigns, including information on their type, length, priority and impressions/clicks/conversions booked:

You can follow the prompt above your campaign information and add a banner, or alternatively click on any of your campaign's names to open the Campaign Properties tab.

Campaign properties

Click on a campaign in the Campaigns page and you will be taken to the Campaign Properties tab. This tab contains the same fields as the Add new campaign page. Changes can be made to this information at any time. Don't forget to click Save Changes when you're done.

Linked zones

You must link campaigns to zones on your website before you can deliver banners for the campaign.

To link a zone to a campaign in the Linked Zones tab, first select the zones you wish to link from the Available Zones list. When a zone or zones have been selected, the Link button will turn blue. Click it to move the selected zones to the Linked Zones menu:

You can filter the lists of Available and Linked Zones by selecting a Category from the relevant dropdown, or search by zone name or website name.

Linked trackers

Opening the Linked Trackers tab allows you to set the view and click information in the conversion window:

Decide whether you want OpenX to record views or clicks, then specify the period of time you want this process to last.

Note: Using view windows is much more resource intensive than the click windows option, as on any site there will be many more views than clicks (e.g. seven days of impressions could result in millions of rows of raw view data!).

Beneath this, the Linked Trackers section lists the name and default status of trackers linked to this campaign:

Note: Clicking on one of the linked trackers willl take you to the Advertisers > Tracker Properties screen.

Once you're done on this page click Save Changes to be returned to the main Campaigns screen.

Banners

Banners are creatives displayed as ads on your website(s). Banners can come in many file formats, including .gif, .jpg, .png, .swf (Flash), JavaScript, text and HTML. In order for banners to display they must be linked to zones on your website(s).

Adding a new banner

In the Add new banner page you should first choose the type of banner you are linking to your campaign, and how it will be served. OpenX supports the following file types:

media file formats
image .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png
Flash movie .swf
QuickTime movie .mov
RealMedia movie .rm

and allows them to be served in the following ways:

Note: If you upload a Flash banner, a second field will appear which allows you to upload a backup image ad for browsers that don't display rich media ads. Using this feature is optional, but we recommended that you take advantage of it to comply with IAB guidelines for ad impression measurements.

Having selected the banner type, the following information must be supplied:

When you enter HTML code use the 'return' or 'enter' key to start a new line of code. Do not enter HTML or BODY tags because these are provided by the target HTML page. Tick the Alter HTML to enable tracking of Clicks checkbox to add click-tracking code to the banner.

Note: OpenX inserts the HTML into the page that hosts the ad tag. If you omit a character, e.g. a closing bracket, it can adversely effect the display of the web page.

Once these details have been entered, your banner will display in the Banners page:

Banner properties

The Banner Properties tab contains the same fields as the Add new banner screen. This information can be edited at any time. Don't forget to click Save Changes when you're done.

Banner delivery options

On the Banners page, click on either the banner Name or the Delivery option:

This takes you to the Delivery Options page (seen here with a dummy AdSense tag displayed):

The first option you are presented with is the adding of a delivery limitation. These limitations allow you to target ads according to either client, site, or time.

Targeting by Client, Site, and Time

When a visitor requests an ad, information about their client, the page, and the time is passed along with the request. You can use this information to target by:

  • Site - Channel: you must first set up at least one channel to target by channel (or section) of a website.
  • Site - Page URL: this will result in the ad displaying on selected page(s) in your site only
  • Site - Referring Page: select this option to show an ad to on pages linked to from the selected page(s).
  • Site - Variable: targeting in this manner will result in an ad being delivered to any ad request containing a specific variable. These variables can be any value passed in the HTTP request, e.g. to limit by gender=male or by a numeric variable, such as age 18 and over.
  • Site - Source: The Site:Source targeting is similar to the Site - Variable, except it targets ads against the passed in "source=" value only
  • Time - Date: target an ad to appear on a specific date of the month or year.
  • Time - Day of Week: your ad will appear only on a particular day or days of the week.
  • Time - Hour of Day: target times when visitors are more likely to respond to the ads being delivered, e.g. a breakfast snack ad in the morning.

See here for an example of some advanced targeting rules

Delivery capping by visitor

You can cap or limit the number of times a visitor sees a banner, campaign or zone. This is an effective way of increasing click-through rates, as visitors are most likely to click on an ad the first few times they see it.

There are two ways to cap banners:

OpenX uses cookies to record a visitor's number of views. You can reset the views total after a specified period by entering a value in the Reset views counter after field. If a visitor has diabled cookies a capped banner will not be delivered to that viewer. If a visitor deletes existing cookies, capping information is reset to zero and the visitor will continue to see the banner until the limits are reached.

Once you are happy with your banner delivery options, clicking save changes will take you to the Linked Zones page.

Linking banners to zones

In the Linked Zones tab you can see all the zones that are compatible in size and type with the selected banner. Select the zone or zones you want to link to your banner by ticking the relevant checkbox. Then click Save Changes:

Once you have performed your chosen actions and clicked Save Changes you will be taken to the Advanced tab.

Banners - advanced options

This tab allows you to append code to banners being displayed by the selected zone, for example if you want text to appear below the zone, or to deploy popups alongside the banner etc.

Managing banners

Banners can be copied and moved from one campaign to another. Copying a banner is a quick way of creating new banners with common properties.

Copying a banner

When you have any of the banner tabs open, the option to Duplicate is present in the Actions box in the top right-hand corner of the screen:

Clicking Duplicate takes you to the Banner Properties tab for your duplicated banner (named 'Copy of [banner name]'). The name and any or all of the banner properties can be changed according to preference. Once you are happy with your copied banner, click Save Changes.

Moving a banner

To move a banner between campaigns, select Move to in the Actions box. This opens a dropdown:

The dropdown lists all your campaigns. Select which one you want to send the banner to, click the arrow icon next to the dropdown and the banner will automatically be reassigned.

Websites

To begin serving ads you must first define at least one website within the OpenX interface. Typically, the first website you create within OpenX represents your own website. You can create as many additional websites within OpenX as you wish, representing either websites you manage or partner websites that use your ad server but are not under your control.

Once you have created your website you can link users to it and define which activities they can perform, e.g. creating zones and generating tags to add to a website's pages. You can also divide your website into channels for different categories of ads, such as 'leisure' or 'mortgages'.

Adding a website

Go to Inventory > Websites. On the Websites landing page, select Add new website from the Actions box in the top right-hand corner of the screen. You will now see the Add new website screen:

To create a website:

When you have completed this process click Save Changes. You will be returned to the main Websites page.

Website properties

Click on any website on the main Websites page to open the Website Properties tab. This tab contains the same fields as the Add new website page. This information can be altered at any time. Don't forget to click Save Changes when you have finished editing.

Invocation tag

The Website > Invocation Code tab allows you to enter the information necessary to generate ad tags. These tags will be pasted into your website's HTML in order to invoke (call) OpenX to deliver ads.

The types of tags you generate depend on the choices made on this page:

The featured options are:

Once you have made your choices click Generate to view your tags:

Once you're done, click Close Window to return to the Invocation Code screen

User access

You can assign other users permissions relevant to an individual website:

These permissions include creating new accounts; modifying, defining and deleting zones; linking banners, generating ad tags and accessing the audit trail.

Fill in the new user's details and click Add user when you're done.

Zones

Zones are the spaces on your website that are used for displaying ads. A zone could be a single space on a specific page, or a space on multiple pages that shows the same collection of banners. Zones are part of a website, so you must create a website before you can define its zones.

When you link banners and campaigns to zones, OpenX creates tags you can copy into your website to start serving ads.

Adding a zone

To add a zone, go to Inventory > Zones and click Add new zone in the Actions box in the top right-hand corner of the screen. You will now be in the Add new zone screen:

To add a zone:

Once you're done click Save Changes to view the main Zones screen.

Advanced options

In the Advanced tab of the Zones page you are able to set the following properties:

Zone Chaining

Sometimes a zone cannot display an ad because it is not linked to any active banners, or because delivery limitations prevent it from doing so. To ensure that a blank zone is not displayed you can create a chain of zones. When it is not possible to display a banner for a chained zone then a banner from another zone can be used to replace it.This is why zone chaining can also be used as an effective method of prioritising your campaigns.

You have two options when initiating zone chaining:

Note: Only zones from the same publisher are available in the dropdown, unless you made zones for another publisher public.

Delivery capping per visitor

You can place a cap (limit) on the number of times a visitor sees an ad in a particular zone. You can cap zones in two ways:

Once you are happy with your selections, click Save Changes and you will be taken to the Linked Banners tab.

Linked banners

The Zones > Linked Banners allows you to control which banners you would like to link to a particular zone:

The first dropdown gives you two choices:

The second dropdown allows you to choose from the advertisers that have banners compatible with this zone in their campaign. Once you have made your selection further dropdowns appear listing the relevant campaigns and individual banners. To finalize your choice click the arrow to the right of the final dropdown:

The linked banner and its parent campaign/advertiser will then be listed at the bottom of the page.

Probability

The Probability tab lists all banners currently considered for delivery in a zone:

Note: To change the probability of delivering a banner change the priority settings in the Campaign page or alter the weight of the banner in the Banner page.

Invocation code

The Zones > Invocation Code tab is where ad tags are generated. These tags are then pasted into HTML pages which invoke (call) OpenX to deliver ads. The types of tage available depend on the type of zone you have defined. The tag types (listed in order of popularity) are:

Note: Hosted doesn't allow for Local Mode or XML-RPC tags. Users wishing to use them should switch to the downloadable version of OpenX.

Depending on the zone and banner(s) you are currently working with, the dropdown menu will contain combinations from the list above (unless you are generating a No Cookie Image Tag, in which case only the Bannercode will display):

When you select the tag type, you can set various optional parameters in the Tag settings section of the page which change the bannercode for your zone. These parameters vary depending on the type of zone and the type of zone tag you use. The following table describes these parameters and which tags use them.

Note: If a tag is not available in the dropdown menu it is possible that the system administrator has disabled this tag type for the server. Contact your administrator for more information.

Parameter Description Used by which tag types?
Target frame This value sets the HTML TARGET attribute in the bannercode. The Default option opens the target page in a new browser tab, or you can change it to open in a new window or in the same window. All
Source Enter a source value if you want to limit banner delivery based on source, such as 'music' or 'construction'. See also: Banner delivery limitations. All
Support 3rd party server clicktracking Use this setting to track clicks in OpenX for ads served on an external ad server.
See also: the 3rd Party Click Tracking white paper.		 All
Insert cache-busting code JavaScript tags automatically insert a random number into the invocation code to ensure that an earlier banner is not delivered from the browser cache. With all other tags, to avoid ad caching, you must enter this manually into the tag and tick Yes. All
Include comments Removing comments from the bannercode reduces the amount of code in your web pages. However, before you remove comments review them carefully as they contain important information about the code. After you have set and reviewed the comments for all optional parameters you can then tick No to remove them. All
Show text below banner Tick Yes if you want to display text below a banner. Enter this text in the Banners page. JavaScript, local mode, XML-RPC
Don't show the banner again on the same page. Tick Yes if you do not want to show the banner again on this page view. JavaScript, local mode, XML-RPC
Don't show a banner from the same campaign again on the same page. Tick Yes if you do not want to show any other banner from this campaign on this page view. JavaScript, local mode, XML-RPC
Store the banner inside a variable so it can be used in a template This option enables you to use local mode to display banners in site templates. If you tick No and use a site template, the banner will display before the rest of the page loads. Local Mode
Host language PHP must be running on the remote host. XML-RPC
Use HTTPS to contact XML-RPC Server Tick Yes if you want to connect to a secure server using HTTPS. XML-RPC
XML-RPC timeout (seconds) Set the number of seconds to wait for a response from the server. XML-RPC
Refresh after To automatically refresh a banner, specify the number of seconds between each reload. After each refresh, a new banner from your zone is displayed. iFrame
Resize iframe to banner dimensions This option is only available if your website and OpenX are on the same top level domain. In this case, it is possible to show banners of different sizes in a zone and the iFrame will resize to fit.
Note: Enabling this option may cause security alerts in modern browsers.		 iFrame
Make the iFrame transparent This option works only with Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher. iFrame
Include Netscape 4 compatible iLayer Because the Netscape 4 iLayer does not work well with tables, do not place the banner in a table cell if you are using this option. iFrame
Include code to track Google AdSense clicks Tick No if you do not want to track these clicks. iFrame

Types

OpenX supports a wide range of zone types. When you create a zone you must select which type you want. This selection affects the types of zone invocation tags you can create to place in your web pages. Here we will discuss zone types and the tags they support.

A zone can be one of the following types:

Targeting Channels

Channels are a convenient way of defining different content sections of a website and applying a separate set of delivery limitations for each channel. Channels are useful when advertisers want to target specific visitor interests, for example 'restaurants' or 'plumbers'.

There are two types of channel:

To create a website channel:

To create a global channel:

In the Name field, enter a suitable name for the channel, for example 'entertainment'. This value must match the Source value you enter when you generate the tag for a banner linked to a zone. You can also add Description and Comments for the channel.
See also: Zones - Invocation Code.

When you click Save Changes, the Delivery Options page appears:

Here you can set delivery limitations for the channel. First, select an option from the Add delivery limitation dropdown:

See here for an example of some advanced targeting rules

Then, choose your main delivery criteria from the Delivery Limitations panel:

This allows you to limit delivery when:

Linking a banner to a Channel

After you create a set of limitations for the channel it becomes available for selection when setting delivery limitations for banners that are linked to zones on the selected website. To apply the channel limitation to a banner, select the Site - Channel option in the delivery limitations section for the banner and select the channel from the list of those available. All limitations you set for the channel are then applied to the banner.

When you have finished setting your delivery limitations, click Save Changes.

Direct Selection

Note: Direct selection is recommended for advanced users only.

Direct selection is a method of delivering your inventory without using websites or zones. It offers greater flexibility and power, it should be noted that because the selection is made from within the ad tag you must change the tag whenever you want to alter the selection. It is also more difficult to implement on your website, hence our recommendation that it only be used by advanced users.

To begin using direct selection, go to Inventory > Direct Selection.

There are various types of statement available:

Banner, campaign, width and height statement types comprise:

For detailed guidelines on banner selection and using the direct selection delivery technique, refer to our direct selection tutorial.

The other tag settings are:

Note: The tag settings available to you will vary depending on the type of banner invocation you selected at the top of the page.

When you have made your selections, click Refresh.

User Access

A user is any person using the OpenX interface and has a username and password with which to log onto the OpenX installation. A user is linked with at least one OpenX account, and can be linked with any number of accounts. A user can have multiple roles for different linked accounts. Each role has its own set of permissions which define the actions a user can perform on the associated account.

User roles

The user roles in OpenX are:

The following table describes the permissions associated with each user role:

Role Permissions
Administrator Server administrator rights:

  • Create manager accounts
  • Add users to manager accounts
  • Can act as a manager
  • Create other administrator users
  • View Home and User log pages
  • Manage global and maintenance settings
  • Access to direct selection
Manager Account manager rights:

  • Create and manage advertisers and websites
  • Add other manager accounts
  • View Home and User log pages
  • Manage account preferences
  • Access to channel management
Website Website rights (if permitted):

  • Create zones

  • Link banners to zones
  • Generate invocation code
  • Link additional users to this account
Advertiser Advertiser rights (if permitted):

  • View campaigns

  • Modify banners

  • Activate campaigns

  • Deactivate campaigns

  • Link additional users to this account

Note: These permissions relate to specific user/account associations. If a user linked to a manager account is granted permission to link additional accounts to that manager account is not able to link new users to any other accounts with which it is linked unless the managers of those accounts have granted separate permissions.

It is not necessary to logout of OpenX and then log back in to move from one user role to another. To change user roles, select this option from your list of roles in the Working as menu in the top right-hand corner of the screen:

Adding users

Go to Inventory > User Access and click on Add user in the top right-hand corner of the screen:

To create a user enter:

Once you've entered these details, click Add user to return to the main User Access screen.

My Account

An account is an entity within OpenX that 'owns' various other entities, such as campaigns, banners, websites, zones, and even other accounts. OpenX has four types of account:

These account types have the following permissions:

Preference Settings Advertiser Website Manager Administrator
user preferences change name, email address or password X X X X
account preferences manage banner/email report/tracker/time
zone & UI settings		 Limited Limited X X
global preferences manage global settings for banners, conversion
tracking, database, debug logging, email, geo-
targeting, maintenance, synchronization and UI		 - - - X
maintenance settings check maintenance is running, check banner
cache, recalculate priority, move images
from database to server and synchronize
delivery limitations		 - - - X

"X" = permission allowed / "-" = permission denied

An account can have one or more users linked to it, and a user can be linked to one or more accounts.

In the My Account tab you can view the account settings and user log for your current role. You can only view the account settings for the role you are currently logged in as, regardless of how many roles you have.

User preferences

Opening the My Account tab takes you to the Name & Language screen in User Preferences:

From the User Preferences screen you can:

Account preferences

The My Account > Preferences page is visible to all administrators and managers, and can also be viewed by advertiser and website users depending on the permissions they have been assigned. In the Preferences tab, select a preference type from the dropdown menu to view and change its settings:

The preferences you can manage are:

Note: If you are an advertiser or website user and have not been assigned certain permissions, those options will not appear in the list. For managers, if an option is greyed out then that action can only be performed by administrators.

Banner preferences

Campaign email reports preferences

Time zone

To change the time zone for a user, select an alternative time zone from the dropdown menu.

User interface preferences

User log

In the User Log screen you can carry out an Audit trail to any of your advertisers and/or websites:

The audit trail can apply to whichever dates you choose to select.

A Maintenance log option can also be selected for the dropdown, which provides information on all maintenance operations carried out within OpenX.

Targeting channel management

For information on targeting channel management see Targeting Channels.

Statistics

OpenX provides a wide range of statistics to help gauge the effectiveness of specific advertising campaigns, and the performance of indivdual ads within those campaigns. Statistics are gathered each time the maintenance script runs.

Selecting the Statistics tab will show you the figures for today (the default setting):

The dropdown tab offers several options for the dates you view, and by selecting Specific dates you can enter dates in the fields provided.

There are four options:

For each advertiser and website you can view some or all of the following categories:

When you click on specific advertisers, campaigns or websites, additional tabs are displayed which provide more detailed statistics. Some tabs include the options Export statistics to Excel.

Note: All statistics refer to figures compiled since you originally defined each advertiser or publisher.

Note: Impressions that are generated by known spiders and robots have been filtered from all reports presented in OpenX Hosted in accordance with Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) guidelines.

Advertisers & Campaigns

When you click the Statistics tab, OpenX displays today's statistics for all of your current advertisers. Change the date period to view statistics for another period, such as last week or the entire month, etc.

Expand information for an advertiser to view their campaigns. To view statistics for a specific campaign, click on the campaign. You can now view the following campaign statistics for the selected period:

Similarly, in the Advertisers & Campaigns tab the following tabs are displayed by expanding information for an advertiser and clicking on a specific banner:

In the View by menu you can select to aggregate statistics by:

Note: If you view statistics by hour the database will take longer to return the information. Also, the more advertisers you have the longer it will take to process the information.

A total of statistics for the selected view is displayed at the end of the page.

Websites & Zones

Select Websites & Zones from the left-hand menu when in the Statistics tab to see statistics for all your current websites. The default setting is for today's statistics, but information for whichever time period you wish to view can be selected from the dropdown menu:

Note: If you view statistics by hour, the database will take longer to return the information. Also, the more websites you have the longer it will take to process the information.
A total of statistics for the selected view is displayed at the end of the page.

Global History

When you select the Global History option in the Statistics tab, OpenX displays an overview of statistics without specifying associated advertisers or websites. The tab includes the option to Export Statistics to Excel.

The dropdown menu offers a choice of dates to aggregate statistics by.
A total of statistics for the selected view is displayed at the bottom of the page.

Advanced Reports

Click on Advanced Reports when in the Statistics view and you will be presented with a number of more in-depth reporting options.

The options are:

Clicking on any of these will take you to the chosen report's screen. Select the Period, Limitations and Worksheets you want, then click Generate to produce your report in an Excel format. Please note that worksheets cannot be generated for campaign delivery reports.

Note: Limitations - by advertiser and website - can be applied to the extent of the above reports as desired.

Some Report Abbreviations

Req: requests (user requests an ad; by default this is not logged)
Impr: impressions (user requests an ad, and ad is delivered to user)
Clicks: click
Ctr: click through ratio
Conv: conversion (sale)
Pend conv: pending conversion (not approved)
Impression SR column: sale ratio: ratio of sales to impressions
Click SR column: sale ratio: ratio of sales to clicks
Rev: revenue
Cost: media cost
Num.Items: the number of items inside a conversion (i.e. when you sell two books in one sale)
Tech Cost: tech cost of a banner
Income: revenue minus technology cost
Inc. Margin: income/revenue
Profit: (revenue) minus (technology cost) - (cost)
Margin: gross profit/revenue

ERPM: (revenue/impressions * 1000)
ERPC: (revenue/clicks)
ERPS: (revenue/conversions)
EIPM: (income/impressions * 1000)
EIPC: (income/clicks)
EIPS: (income/conversions)
ECPM: (cost/impressions * 1000)
ECPC: (cost/clicks)
ECPS: (cost/conversions)
EPPM: (profit/impressions * 1000)
EPPC: (profit/clicks)
EPPS: (profit/conversions)

Show ERPM column: effective revenue per thousand impressions (e.g. 1,000,000 imps -> 1,000 clicks -> 10 sales @ $100/sale => 10*$100 / 1,000,000 per imp)
Show ERPC column: effective revenue per click
Show ERPS column: effective revenue per sale
Show EIPM column: effective income per thousand impressions (subtracting costs, like technology costs and generating net amounts)
Show EIPC column: effective income per click
Show EIPS column: effective income per sale
Show ECPM column: effective cost-per-thousand impressions (e.g. 1,000,000 imps -> 1,000 clicks -> 10 sales. Cost per imp = 0.01c : 0.01*1,000 = 10c)
Show ECPC column: effective cost-per-click
Show ECPS column: effective cost-per-sale

EPPM: effective profit per thousand
EPPC: effective profit per click
EPPS: effective profit per sale