I will be presenting a very practical use case of the integration of WordPress and OpenX. OpenX is an ad server. More information about OpenX can be found on my blog. OpenX is free open source software, just like WordPress, and can be downloaded from www.openx.org.

On large websites with a variety of sections, it can be a good strategy to enable advertisers to place their ads only next to those sections that match their product or service. By assigning a category to each blog post, this can easily be achieved. In my presentation I will demonstrate how the post category can be passed on the ad server, and how the ads can be targeted to the precise category or categories that the advertiser is looking for. That way, the ads will only show up on articles that match the targeting criteria.

There are many advantages to helping advertisers target only relevant blog posts:

• advertisers can target their ads more precisely, and as a result their ad spending will have a higher return on investment
• publisher of a site or blog will be able to sell advertising more easily and find multiple advertisers for a better segmented website
• site visitors will see more relevant ads, which means they will appreciate them more than just ‘random generic advertising’

This presentation is intended for beginning WordPress users with some experience adapting their theme (or a willingness to learn).

More information about WordCamp NL 2009 is on the webite, including a registration form. there are only 200 seats, and they are filling fast, so speed is of the essence!

OpenX is an ad server, a system used for online and simple management of advertising space. It is free open source software. Because it is very powerful and has a lot of features, in some cases it can be a real plus to hire a consultant.

In recent weeks I had a number of questions from people asking me what ‘OpenX‘ is. Clients that I help with their OpenX system and implementation know the answer, of course, but since I write about it on my weblog all the time, others have noticed the term too. A valid question, and below is a short introduction about OpenX, how it can be used and what my work around OpenX involves.

Short introduction of the OpenX Ad Server

OpenX Ad Server is an ad server, created and published by the British-American company OpenX.org. It is a system that can be used to manage and optimize the advertising space on one or more websites. It is a tool for web site owners (called ‘publishers’ in the online advertising industry).

What is an ad server used for?

When managing a website, or perhaps even multiple websites, there can be a lot of work involved in putting advertisements on the site and removing them again, especially when this is done by entering the ads directly into the site’s coding. It takes a lot of time and it reduces flexibility. An advertising server (usually shortened to ad server) like OpenX can provide a real solution in this scenario.

How does OpenX work?

Websites and zones
In the OpenX Ad Server, one can define websites, and also one or more zones for each website. A zone represents a space on the webpages where ads are supposed to be displayed. For every zone there is a little snippet of HTML code, which must be placed in the site, at the exact spot where the zone should go. This forms the integration between the site and the OpenX Ad Server. It is a one time job, that will take little time for an experienced webmaster or developer. The word ‘zone’ is a term in OpenX, other systems refer to it as ‘location’, ’spot’, ‘placement’ or ‘position’.

Advertisers, campaigns and ads
One can also create advertisers, campaigns and ads in the OpenX Ad Server. Those can be internal campaigns or campaigns from direct advertisers, but also ads from external ad networks like Google AdSense, from affiliate networks like Commission Junction, or from advertisers and agencies that use systems like DoubleClick.

Targeting: the right ad at the right spot
The final step is to link the right campaigns to the right zones, effectively determining which ads will appear where. This can be combined with various forms of targeting, matching the display of ads to specific situations. OpenX Ad Server can handle targeting based on date, day and time, geographic are (country or city, and more), web browser used by the visitor, and language set by the visitor, to name just a few. There are also advanced targeting options, using known information about members or customers (like their gender, education or age range), or from known details about the site’s content and structure (for instance: display the ad only in the ‘news’ section or anywhere but the ’sports’ pages).

Statistics: to measure is to manage
The OpenX Ad Server measures how often ads are displayed and clicked, and has reports for these numbers plus ad revenue for the publisher, advertiser and webmaster. It also has functionality to measure conversions, leads or transactions on the advertiser’s website that occur as a result on a click on a banner that was displayed on the publisher’s site.

Starting to use OpenX: hosting and scalability

OpenX Ad Server is a free open source application that can be installed on a publisher’s server. It was developed in the PHP programming language and stores data using the MySQL database, both of which are also open source software. Except for time and hardware, there are no additional costs, and no license fees. Another option is to hire a specialized hosting company to handle the technical aspects.

The OpenX Ad Server can be utilized by small and large websites. The system has been designed to enable installation on a cluster of web servers, allowing it to grow alongside the growth of the sites. There are companies that display in excess of 1 billion ads per month using OpenX Ad Server. That does involve quite a bit of hardware of course.

Nowadays one can also open an account on OpenX Hosted, on offer by the OpenX.org company. This is free of charge up to a volume of 100 million ads per month. For anything above that, there are paid enterprise accounts.

OpenX Market: an advertising market place

Giving away an open source system for free obviously isn’t generating any revenue for the developers. In April of 2009 the OpenX.org company launched a new product that is going to take care of that: OpenX Market. It is effectively an extension to the ad server. With any campaign defined, the ad server can contact the OpenX Market in real time, looking for an ad that has a higher bid than a floor price that is determined by the publisher. Advertisers are bidding against each other, and the highest bidder wins the ad position. If there are no bids that exceed the floor price, the publisher’s own campaign will be displayed. For site owners, this provides a risk free way of testing the open market for higher ad revenue. The OpenX.org company makes money from the OpenX Market through a 15% markup on the floor price, as part of the bidding process.

The features I mentioned above are in fact only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more advanced features and use cases.

Advanced applications and extensions

With the release of version 2.8 of the OpenX Ad Server software, another important feature was released for the first time: the plug in architecture. This enables developers to change or extend the functionality of the core system without having to modify that same core directly. This is an approach that has proven to be highly successful in other open source software like blogging tool WordPress or web shop system Magento.

More information about OpenX?

There is a lot of information about the system and functionality on the www.openx.org website. The software is available for free download there, but one can also open a free account on OpenX Hosted.

Consulting and Support for OpenX

OpenX Ad Server is a large system, and it will take a bit of effort and energy to get acquainted with it. One can get external help too, since there are a number of independent consultants around the world, and I’m one of them. The OpenX.org site shows my profile, reviews and references. I work for clients from all over the world. I have a page on my site that lists which services and support options for OpenX I have on offer. There is also a request form to contact me about OpenX consulting and support.

OpenX closes $10 million Series C Funding

On Tuesday, May 26, 2009, OpenX announced that it closed it’s third round of funding. This Series C funding of US$ 10 million brought the total sum invested in the company to almost US$ 31 million.

More information can be found in the company’s press release and blog. The news was also covered by technology news blog TechCrunch.

OpenX originated about 10 years ago as a typical open source project, back then it was known as ‘phpAdsNew’. It was actually the brainchild of the creator of phpMyAdmin, the tool that is still being used today to manage many MySQL databases. It went through a few incarnations, including ‘phpAdsNew 2′, then OpenAds and in the past year the name OpenX.

Developing a free open source ad server can hardly be considered a money making opportunity. That’s why I was thrilled back in the fall of 2007 when OpenX co-founder Scott Switzer told me about his idea for an open advertising market place. It seemed like a smart plan, and one that could bring in serious revenue because it is based on the enormous traffic that the combined OpenX users around the world generate. This idea is what we now know as OpenX Market, opened to the general user community in April of 2009.

In the current economic climate, investors are not as keen as they were a few years back. So the fact that in the middle of a downturn OpenX is able to close a third round of funding can be considered a tremendous achievement. I congratulate the OpenX team on this and wish them all the best. This also brings them a huge extra responsibility to spend the money wisely, for the investors but also for the OpenX user community.

Update May 28: OpenX blog now also carries this news, linked added.

OpenX: impressive growth, new software version

A press releases and a software upgrade from OpenX were published almost at the same time yesterday. Almost 1 year after joining OpenX as CEO, Tim Cadogan picked April fool’s day to make some very serious announcements.

The first story was a press release about the phenomenal growth in the usage of the OpenX Ad Server product and the accompanying OpenX Market. A few highlights:

• More than 8,000 publishers have opened accounts on OpenX Hosted, together serving about 5 billion ads per month.
• OpenX Ad Server has been downloaded and installed by more than 35,000 publishers, and together they serve a huge number of ads, estimated at 300 billion per month.
• OpenX.org Ltd is doing very well in the transition from being a developer of open source software into a commercial company offering software, services and monetization opportunities. In spite of the economic climate, revenues are increasing. Even more important in my opinion: the potential for OpenX Market is not just a concept anymore, because participating publishers can tell from their revenues that OpenX is also generating revenues.

Just a few hours later, a major new software release was announced on the OpenX company blog: OpenX Ad Server version 2.8 is now available to anyone. It has some exciting new features and benefits, including the new plugin framework, general availability of OpenX Market, and improvements in the user interface, scabability and performance. More about the new software in my earlier blog post.

Scott Switzer is OpenX’s founder and community leader. Scott put together a team 6 years ago to make OpenX a world class ad server, and he continues to lead the OpenX community and get them involved in creating this unique online ad serving product.

Erik Geurts is a longtime member of the OpenX community, and his full time job is consulting for companies who need help with OpenX. The chances are high that you have read Erik’s posts on the forum or his blog!

Scott and Erik will be in Amsterdam for an afternoon of questions and answers, road map discussions, and feedback sessions. Please come and meet Scott and Erik in Amsterdam on Thursday, March 26. This is a perfect opportunity to share your stories about OpenX, ask the questions you had on your mind for a long time, and meet other OpenX users.

This free informal event will start at 3 PM and will last until approximately 7 PM. The location is Cafe De Jaren, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 20-22, 1012 CP Amsterdam.

A quick reminder of the practical details:

• Event: OpenX informal community session
• Date: Thursday, March 26, 2009
• Time: from 3 PM until 7 PM
• Location: Amsterdam, Café de Jaren, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 20-22

There is no registration, but you are free to post a comment below if you plan to join us. Also see the announcement on LinkedIn

The Oranjerie building at the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam

On Thursday November 13, 2008, a group of OpenX publishers gathered in the beautiful Laranjezaal at the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam for the first ever OpenX community event in The Netherlands. In addition to Dutch users, there were also delegates from France, Austria and Monaco. I had the privilege of hosting the event, organized in close cooperation with OpenX.org London.

We started the day with a quick overview of OpenX, for the benefit of people evaluating the software. Then we focused on some of the new features in the recently release version 2.6. Single page call got a lot of praise, as did page URL targeting. Then Joan Blaas, managing director at MobzMedia, presented an intriguing case study about how they used OpenX as the ad server for the mobile edition of the world wide soccer site Goal.com. I want to thank Joan for presenting this case and giving us some insight about the technical challenges of showing ads on mobile devices.

After lunch, we started with some advanced features in OpenX, like geotargeting, page URL targeting and various techniques and features to target ads based on content classification and member data. We also briefly touched on the feature in OpenX that allows for dynamic replacement of placeholders with site data, conversion tracking and delivery of ads in e-mail newsletters.

The second half of the afternoon had a focus on the future. The new OpenX hosted and OpenX Market were greeted with enthusiasm. Since OpenX Hosted runs on the 2.7-beta release of the software, I could give the audience a sneak preview of the improvements in the user interface, and I could demonstrate how easy it is for a publisher to participate in the OpenX Market.

We also discussed the API that was introduced with version 2.6, allowing external systems to manage inventory and pull statistics. After a short discussion about options for scaling was followed by a questions and answers session.

One of the objectives of these community events is to bring OpenX users and publishers together. This seems to have worked well. I saw many business cards, phone numbers and e-mail addresses being exchanged. And I noticed people were comparing their best practices and industry insights.

Looking back, I can say I really enjoyed hosting and presenting this event, and I felt very fortunate to meet so many OpenX users. I want to thank all community members for participating, and for making this event a success. I even had some requests to make this into a yearly event, and I’ll certainly consider doing just that.

If you were unable to make it to the event, but still would like to talk to me about what OpenX can do for you, why don’t you visit my OpenX pages here on the site or contact me. It would be my pleasure to talk to you!

Judging by the registrations so far, on the day you will meet a really interesting mix of new and experienced OpenX users, along with people evaluating the software.

A quick reminder of the event details:

• When: 9am to 5pm (13th November)
• Where: Hortus Botanicus, Plantage Middenlaan 2a, Amsterdam (click for map)
• Cost: Free!

We’ve put together a draft agenda for the event to give you some idea of what to expect. This is based on the topics that you have suggested in your submissions and may well change a little as more and more of you register.

09:00 – 09:30 | Registration

09:30 – 10:30 | What is OpenX?
Session for evaluators and new users

10:30 – 11:00 | What’s new in OpenX 2.6?
Overview of the new features and benefits

11:00 – 11:30 | Publisher presentation
Displaying ads on mobiles

11:30 – 12:00 | Integrating OpenX into your site
Showing ads in Joomla!, WordPress, or your CMS

12:00 – 13:00 | Lunch break

13:00 – 14:00 | Advanced use of OpenX
For example: targeting, multiple sites, multiple networks

14:00 – 14:30 | The future of OpenX
OpenX Hosted, OpenX Market, plugins and API

14:30 – 15:30 | Scaling OpenX
How to deliver large volumes of ads

15:30 – 16:30 | Question and answer session
Unconference style – informal and interactive

16:30 – 17:00 | Wrap up

We look forward to meeting you on November 13 in Amsterdam!

OpenX Hosted is a mostly free, hosted version of the well known ad server, available over the web, saving publishers from installing, configuring, maintaining, upgrading and worrying. OpenX Market is a new way for publishers to monetize their web site through an open market place of advertisers and publishers.

Both of these new services have been in the making for some time, and I’ve had the privileges of sneak previews, demos and actual beta testing. It was as far back as September 2007 when Scott Switzer, the founder of OpenX first told me about both ideas when I met him in Amsterdam.

Scott, congratulations on the launch today! This brings OpenX into a new phase, and I’m really excited for you and the OpenX team.

You can read more about OpenX Hosted and OpenX Market on the OpenX website. And of course, you can still download your own copy and install it on your own server, just as usual.

Not only is this the first ever OpenX community event in The Netherlands, it’s also the first time that OpenX and an independent consultant organize an event together. We hope to meet many OpenX users, but also people looking to learn about OpenX and what it could do for their website and business.

Registration is now open! Based on what you tell us you want to learn, we will put together an interesting program with presentations, demos, and Q&A sessions. But there will be plenty of opportunity for informal talks with fellow OpenX users, community consultants and OpenX team members.

I’m looking forward to this event next month! See you in Amsterdam…

The first session was with a group of developers at Thomas Telford. They had been using OpenX for a while, but wanted to know more about the advanced features in the latest versions. We discussed various subjects, including all the different types of invocation code and their advantages and disadvantages. Then we spent time on techniques for targeting ads using page URL targeting, source parameter, and geotargeting. At the end of the session, we turned our attention to the future of OpenX, tackling subjects like the API.

The second session had a different focus. This time a group of traffickers from inside Thomas Telford and from one of their clients wanted to learn all about creating the ad inventory in OpenX. We talked about setting up advertisers and campaigns, and all the settings one can use to tweak campaign delivery. We also went over the various types of ads that can be defined in OpenX, and how to run creatives from external sources like ad networks. At the end of this session, we briefly touched on targeting again, this time from a campaign management perspective.

I would like to thank Matt Pull at Thomas Telford for asking me to come over. I had a great time in London. Judging from the responses from course delegates, it was time spent very well.

If you’re interested in a similar training session for your company or team, why don’t you contact me to discuss your requirements. I’d be happy to put together a training program just for you.