Do you remember the last time you forgot to pull out a banner from your site and let it run for three months, rather than the 10 weeks you were paid to put it up there? Did you go the extra mile and deny a new customer the chance to put their banner up because you thought the space was taken during those two weeks? It’s ok, you’re only human and luckily for you, there are fantastic robotic solutions to those little slips that human nature causes once in a while.
One of the solutions to managing advertising efficiently on your affiliate website is OpenX, an open source ad server that is currently managing advertising on more than 100,000 websites around the world. This product is free, and it is available as a hosted service or as downloadable software to be installed on your own server. OpenX will keep strict control over your ads, their expiration dates and click counting.
So, Are you ready for OpenX?
“Damn right I am!” is what you’re probably thinking. “This is a free tool that will manage my advertising on its own and I’ll have more time to close deals and make more money.” This is absolutely true, OpenX is a product with a lot to bring to the table and if you think you need it then you should probably go for it. However, you may not realize that your current blogging platform already has the tools you need to manage advertising without having to download more software and put it on your server.
If you are using WordPress, Drupal, Blogger or any other superb blogging platform, then you need not to get OpenX. These platforms already come with a built-in system to manage ads that you should definitely get your hands on.
Maybe you do. Yes, you, even if you are on a blogging platform. Our recommendation is that when you check on the tools that your blogging platform offers for ad control, you compare it to those of OpenX. OpenX keeps track of almost 900,000,000 banner impressions on a daily basis, this means that almost 7,500,000 banner clicks are being tracked every day too. Once you install OpenX, you have access to graphs like this one:
OpenX allows you to have a complete picture of how successful your website is for adverts, so that you can either use the data to brag to your clients, or to start working on your SEO a little harder.
Wait, There’s More…
When you upload advertising to your website, OpenX allows you to specify a wide set of rules. For example, you can limit the time length the ad will be up, the dates and times when you want it to be visible and even limit the number of clicks the ad can get. If you were paid for 1,000 impressions, then once that target is reached the ad will go down immediately. You can also play with those tools, such as determining that a certain ad can only get 500 clicks in one day, or for a specific date and OpenX will do it for you, while you take your time to watch the WSOP and sip out of a beer.
OpenX has been compared to others of its kind such as Google Ad Manager and TrafficSpaces, and has been deemed more efficient in many levels.
The team behind OpenX is developing even more features and plan to run advert brokering very soon, if that is something you are interested on. If you are not getting all these features in your current blogging platform then go get it, if you are not on a blogging platform, definitely go get it. However, if you have access to these features without downloading extra software, you might not need to go through the hassles of it.