OpenX Tips

By now, almost all OpenX ad server users will have heard about the OpenX Market. But many people still seem to be confused about what the OpenX Market is.

Here’s a quote from OpenX CEO Tim Cadogan that helps explain the OpenX Market:

The basic mechanics are pretty simple. When a publisher chooses to pass inventory into the Market, they set a floor price – this is usually the maximum price they can generate themselves. OpenX then runs a real-time auction to see if it can generate a higher-priced ad than the floor price set by the publisher. If the auction results in a higher-paying ad, the publisher runs the ad from the Market and makes more money.

If the auction does not result in a higher-priced ad, the publisher runs their original ad and OpenX takes no fee. Publishers are in complete control of both what inventory they choose to put into OpenX Market and their floor price.

Many publishers seem to think that the OpenX Market is a way of selling their ad inventory. As you can see from the above, it’s not. It’s a way of potentially earning more income from your inventory, by allowing the OpenX Market to “override” your already sold inventory with higher paying banners.

That means you need to keep in mind:

• The OpenX Market may not (and almost certainly will not) be able to fill all of your inventory. You must have, at the very least, one banner in your OpenX system that can be displayed if the OpenX Market cannot find an advertiser who wants to bid more than your configured floor price.
• Some or your site inventory will be worth more than the rest — this is called “premium” inventory. As a result, remember to review your statistics regularly after you start using the OpenX Market, to ensure that your floor price is set appropriately, or you might actually end up making less income.
• You don’t have to use the OpenX Market for all of your campaigns if you don’t want to. For example, you may want to simply not have your premium campaigns participate, and only use the OpenX Market option for your “filler”, or lower paying banners. Alternatively, as Tim says:

[As] publishers have complete control over their participation they can place premium ad inventory into the exchange. They simply protect the premium nature of this inventory by placing higher floor prices on this inventory.

While there have been reports of slowness with banner delivery when using the OpenX Market in the past, overall, it seems like the OpenX Market is a reasonably risk-free way for publishers to boot their advertising revenues, which is welcome news!

Of course, if all this leaves you still wondering how to easily do direct sales of inventory with OpenX, then you’ll be pleased to know that “Self-Service” ad selling has been scheduled for release in late 2009.