Request information about this plugin

When you are interested in using this OpenX plugin, we invite you to submit the form below. We will then contact you to discuss features, pricing, and licensing terms.

[contact-form]

New feature ‘click retargeting’ based on customer suggestion

We received several requests over the past year, from existing licensees and potential buyers, to add this feature. Based on the number of suggestions this sounded like the most popular new feature and therefore we decided to add it to this new version. We’re sure that there are great ideas still waiting to be implemented, so please let us know if there is something that you think is vital for a future release.

Use cases and scenarios

Just like with the existing features, this new feature adds virtually limitless use cases and scenarios to the software. But we wanted to give a few examples to tickle your imagination.

The click on a banner could be interpreted as a very clear signal by the web site visitor about their interest in the product or service being advertised. It might mean they are interested in the particular offer or the category it is associated with. Let’s take the example of a banner announcing a conference on online marketing. If you set a cookie when the user clicks this banner, this would enable you to target the user with other banners for related offers, or you could show them a banner for the same conference but this time with a special offer.

Being able to set a cookie when a banner is clicked also means you do not have to put a pixel on the landing page. This is useful because it is not always easy to have such a pixel incorporated, either because it’s not your own site or because the third party website can’t implement it quickly enough.

Immediate availability

The new version 1.3.0 of TargetiX, the Retargeting plugin for OpenX Source, is available for all existing licensees. Buyers that have purchased their license less than one year ago will receive the new version automatically by e-mail, and so will buyers that have an upgrade plan after the first year. If you have a license but no upgrade plan, this might be the perfect reason to consider getting an upgrade subscription. For just 15% of the original license fee per year, you would receive this and all future updates automatically.

We are excited about this new feature and hope our licensees and future buyers will like it as well. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to know more about the software or if you are interested to purchase a license.

More information and download

We have prepared a product page containing all information, documentation and a link to download this free Geolocation Magic Macros plugin for OpenX.

Targeting an advertiser’s potential customers

Advertisers are always looking for the most effective and efficient ways to spend their marketing budgets. One way of doing this is by displaying ads only to visitors that have previously visited their site. The assumption is that a visitor who has been on the advertiser’s site before is much more interested in the advertiser’s product or service than before. The intention to buy is often clear. The best option to turn the viewer into a buyer is by leading the visitor back to the advertiser’s site, with the aim of closing the deal.

Publishers can help advertisers to reach their potential buyers by facilitating a retargeting advertising campaign. Below we will explain how this is done.

Step 1: install a ‘tracking pixel’ on the advertiser’s website

A publisher using OpenX, enhanced with the Regargeting plugin for OpenX, can create an invisible ‘tracking pixel’ that can be installed on the advertiser’s website. Essentially, this tracking pixel captures and stores the fact that a visitor has been on the site. The visitor will not notice this, since it is a transparent 1×1 pixel image. Their privacy is not in danger, because the data that is being captured is anonymous. All it says is that ‘someone’ has been on the site. Installing the tracking pixel is simple, most webmasters can do it in less than 5 minutes.

Let’s assume the advertiser is called ‘Acme Inc.’. A tracking pixel would then capture the fact that the visitor has been on the advertiser’s site by recording a data flag like ‘acme=yes’.

Step 2: create a retargeting campaign

The publisher now creates a campaign in OpenX, and adds banners to it in the very same way as it’s always done. The only difference is that each banner will get a special delivery limitation. It basically says: this banner can only be displayed to a visitor when it is a known fact that the visitor has previously visited the advertiser’s site. Adding a retargeting condition to a banner is easy, it takes less than 30 seconds.

For the fictional advertiser Acme Inc., each banner for their retargeting campaign will be given a special rule saying: this banner can only be displayed when the visitor comes with a data flag like ‘acme=yes’.

Step 3: serve ads, including the retargeted ads

When a visitor comes to the site or sites owned by the publisher, the OpenX ad server operated by the publisher will determine which ad or ads need to be displayed for each page that the visitor requests. When OpenX is considering to display a banner for retargeting campaign, the delivery limitations will be evaluated and only when the banner meets all criteria, it will be displayed on the page. Evaluation of the retargeting rules is fast, it takes just a few milliseconds to execute.

When a visitor comes to the site, OpenX might consider to deliver a banner for Acme Inc.’s campaign. However, the banners in this campaign come with a rule, they can only be displayed when the visitor has a ‘acme=yes’ flag. When OpenX evaluates the condition and determines that it can not be met, it will proceed to find another banner that can be displayed.

Step 4: visitors click the retargeted ad and makes a purchase

When a visitor sees an ad for a site that he or she has visited in the past, it will jog their memory and result in more clicks than when they see just a random ad. And when they do click, it is often with the intention to carefully consider the product of service again. As a result, visitors reaching an advertiser’s site through a retargeted campaign are often 5 to 10 times more likely to purchase on their second visit.

Effects of employing retargeting: increased efficiency and effectiveness

When a publisher runs a retargeted campaign for an advertiser, there are two effects:

• Since the banners in the campaign will only be displayed when the visitor has previously been on the advertiser’s site, a relatively small portion of the overall visitor population. This helps the advertiser to spend their marketing budget more efficiently. In many cases, for publishers this might mean the difference between being able to sell a campaign or not.
• Because of the retargeting rules, a visitor seeing the banners will perceive them as much more relevant than when banners will be selected at random. It’s very likely that they will recall visiting the advertiser, and it is much more likely that they will click the banner and visitor the advertiser’s site again. Thus, the effectiveness of the ad campaign has increased.

Increased efficiency and increased effectiveness work in combination and supplement each other, by showing fewer banners and at the same time achieving a higher click-through ratio.

By helping an advertiser increase both the efficiency and the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns, a publisher is able to add great value. Offering retargeting will distinguish the publisher from his competitors. In a crowded market, with many publishers that are after the same advertising budget, it’s an essential tool to come out as the winner.

Please have a look at some of the other examples and use cases of the Retargeting plugin for OpenX

Targeting members of a closed forum

A publisher operating a closed forum was already successfully displaying ads on the pages that members can access when they are logged in. There were two public pages on the site that were not being used to their full potential, the login page and the page that users see after they log out. The ad revenue (eCPM) of those pages was low, and members complained that the ads they saw there were much less relevant than what they were used to on other pages.

Direct targeting when logged in

The publisher uses information provided by the members to select ads on closed forum pages, so that members see ads relevant to their interests and demographic information. Think of things like gender, age, marital status, education level and so on. It’s not hard to understand that ads for products that are designed for a female audience perform better when they are displayed only for female members, for example. When a member is logged in, it’s very easy to show the right ad to the right person. We tend to call this ‘direct targeting’, and it can be implemented with an out of the box installation of OpenX.

The problem was that the publisher could no longer do this form of direct targeting after the member logs of, or when the visitor is on the sign in page on their next visit. He simply didn’t know who the member was, let alone what profile to use for direct targeting.

Retargeting when logged out

The solution to this problem was to implement the Retargeting plugin for OpenX and to capture some of the profile data when the member is logged in. This data is then stored, anonymously, using the Retargeting plugin for OpenX. As a result, that data is still available even when the member logs out or when they land on the sign in page during their next visit.

Strong increase in eCPM and ad revenue

By implementing this relatively simple scenario, the publisher has seen his ad revenue on the public sign in and post-log off pages almost double overnight. It is estimated that this will pay for the purchase of the OpenX Retargeting plugin in about 4 to 5 months. And now that retargeting functionality is available in his OpenX Ad Server, he is planning to implement more scenarios. Helping his advertisers reach the best possible audience for their campaigns is going to be much easier, and that will help to continue increasing his ad revenue in the future.

Please have a look at some of the other examples and use cases of the Retargeting plugin for OpenX

We’re also very proud to report that this plugin has been downloaded over 1,000 times to date.

This is a bug fix release that takes care of one issue:

• Properly fixed the issue with scientific notation: the previous fix was generating a malformed JSON response in certain situations

In addition to this bug fix, an new built-in version check has been added so that we can notify users about new versions of this plugin from inside the user interface of the graphs pages.

Download: Statistics as Graphs plugin for OpenX 2.8+ Version: 1.0.4 Updated: September 2, 2011 Size: 312.46 KB

The Geolocation Magic Macros plugin for OpenX, Magic Geo in short, enables you to dynamically insert the name of the geographic location of a visitor into a banner. This can be used in both the HTML code and the destination URL. Using this new feature, you can automatically make a banner adjust its content to the location of a visitor.

Demonstration

The banner below demonstrates this by showing your country name and country code, and the name of the continent, and a link to a Wikipedia article about your country.

The code used in this HTML banner looks like this:
You are currently in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/{geo.country.enc}" title="read about {geo.country} on Wikipedia" target="_blank">{geo.country}, country code {geo.country_code}</a>, which is part of {geo.continent}.


More information and download

We have prepared a product page containing all information, documentation and a link to download this free Geolocation Magic Macros plugin for OpenX.

Your feedback is more than welcome

Please let us know your thoughts, experience and suggestions for this plugin using the comments below this post.

This plugin was designed primarily for use by publishers operating one or more websites, by ad networks and by advertisers. It enables them to deliver advertising campaigns to visitors who are most likely to be interested in the products or services being promoted. This is done by capturing and storing data about the visitor’s surfing behavior and search behavior, or demographic data. When creating an advertising campaign, the ads can be targeted to this known data about the visitor. For more information about the benefits of targeting and retargeting, please see the explanation and examples below.

Availability

The Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting Plugin for OpenX Ad Server is available right now. It is already in use by a network of nine websites as well as two ad networks in The Netherlands, and a digital marketing agency in Germany.

Request information about this plugin

When you are interested in using this OpenX plugin, we invite you to submit the form below. We will then contact you to discuss features, pricing, and licensing terms.

[contact-form]

Additional information

The difference between direct targeting and retargeting

Targeting is a technique used by online publishers and advertisers to increase the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. It can be applied directly, matching the ads on a webpage to the content of that page or known demographic information about the visitor. It can also be applied indirectly, using information that was captured and stored earlier to decide if the ad should be delivered. This is often called behavioral targeting or behavioral retargeting.

What is behavioral targeting and retargeting?

Behavioral targeting uses information collected on a visitor’s past web-browsing behavior, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they performed, to select which advertisements to display to that individual. Wikipedia has an article about Behavioral Targeting.

How does the Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting Plugin for OpenX Ad Server work?

The Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting Plugin adds a table to the OpenX database, and stores information about the visitor in that table. The data is not stored in cookies on the visitor’s computer. It then enables OpenX users to specify delivery limitations to any banner in a campaign based on the stored retargeting data.

Example scenarios for behavioral targeting and retargeting

The only limitation for using the Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting Plugin for OpenX Ad Server is your own imagination. Here are a few examples of how we think you can use this plugin:

• When a visitor enters your shop pages but doesn’t complete a sale, you could display special ads at their next visit, encouraging them to buy your product after all.
• When a visitor searches for information related to a US state, you can target ads to them that are relevant to that state, when they visit one of your other sites.
• If a visitor has viewed a product page on your website more than 5 times, you could conclude they are more than likely to buy the product. By displaying an ad with a special offer or discount at their next visit, you could persuade them to buy the product.
• When someone buys a product from your site, at subsequent visits to your site you can show them ads for related products, supplies or services to complement their initial purchase (up selling and cross selling).

Additional technical details

Data storage mechanism

The data that needs to be captured comes from the actions a visitor performs on a website, or from data the visitor enters. This data is sent to the OpenX Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting Plugin via an API. It requires that the webmaster or developers of the website incorporate this API in their site. There are no restrictions on the programming language used for the site. The plugin supports two types of data storage: single elements like a visitor’s gender or year of birth, and counters like the number of times a visitor has viewed a product page in your shop.

Privacy Measures and Opt-Out Mechanism

Any data stored inside the retargeting data table is completely anonymous. It is not tied to an IP address. The Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting Plugin also supports an opt-out mechanism. This means visitors can indicate they prefer not to be served ads targeted to their search or surfing behavior. Any and all data about the visitor in the OpenX database is removed and no more new data will be collected.

Update: information about availability added.

Update: due to continued spam comments on this post, we’ve had to close the comments section. If you want to contact us, please see the form on the Retargeting plugin for OpenX product page.

It seems simple enough

The idea is simple: a developer can create a small piece of software called a plugin, that can be installed inside an existing installation of OpenX. Doing so adds new features to the core software, without the need to make any changes to the original program or software. Plugins can even have their own tables to store and retrieve data in the OpenX database. And when the core system is upgraded to a new version, the plugin will move along with it.

It just isn’t happening

An elegant concept, which has been very successful in other open source projects, like WordPress and SugarCRM, to name just two. So why haven’t we seen a constant flow of OpenX plugins yet?

There is some documentation about developing plugins for OpenX Ad Server, but that’s mostly a list of ideas for plugins, and some links to very early prototypes. These are mostly about making it easier to integrate ads served by OpenX into other applications like blogging software. A plugin to support in-video and video overlay advertising has been announced several times but hasn’t been released yet.

It may be part of the problem that the developers at OpenX haven’t been promoting the plugin concept as much as they could have, except for a blog post announcing the plugin framework in May 2009, and another one in April 2009. Developers are not always aware that they can use it, and users are not always aware that they can extend their system by having a plugin developed. And it does take a little money, time and energy to develop a plugin, which can be hard if there is no outlook for a return on that investment.

Kick starting the OpenX plugin ecosystem

The team at AdServerPlugins.com wants to promote the development of new plugins for OpenX, by releasing plugins that demonstrate the capabilities of the OpenX plugin framework. We will develop free plugins, but we are also available for projects by paying customers to develop bespoke plugins. But we also want to offer the platform of our website www.adserverplugins.com to others, enabling them to promote and distribute their plugins.

In short, we would like to break through the chicken-and-egg situation of customers waiting for developers and developers waiting for customers. We would like to see the emergence of an ecosystem of providers and users of OpenX plugins.

Let us know what you think

We would love to hear what you think about this plan. Please contact us or post your comments below. Feel free to tell us about your ideas for plugins (either as a developer or a user).