OpenX Tips

If you have more than one banner on a website page, it’s easy to ensure that you never show the same banner twice with the OpenX ad server.

Provided you are using Single Page Call, or the Javascript zone tag, the Local Mode zone tag or the XML-RPC zone tag, then under Tag Settings on the Invocation Code tab, you can set the “Don’t show the banner again on the same page” option, and OpenX will ensure that the same banner is not shown more than once on a page.

The "Don't show the banner again on the same page" option.

There is also the “Don’t show a banner from the same campaign again on the same page” option for Single Page Call and these three zone tags, which can be used to ensure that every banner on a page will be from a different campaign.

Of course, you can use both options if you want to ensure that not only is every banner on a page from a different campaign, but also that there are no duplicate banners.

It seems that OpenX 2.8.2, which the OpenX team announced would be coming out last week, is now available for download on the OpenX site.

Strangely, there’s been no announcement on the OpenX blog about the fact the release is now available; the promised support for video banners in OpenX is not included in the 2.8.2 release package; and the release notes are not available online, although they are included in the download package¹.

However, there are 113 resolved issues in this release, and so far, The Guru’s upgrade tests have seemed to work okay. If you’ve been suffering from the major issues in OpenX 2.8.0 or 2.8.1, mostly related to issues with Contract Campaign delivery; if you’d like the new Companion Positioning functionality (where non-companion campaign banners will be delivered in zones where a companion banner cannot be shown); or if you are affected by one of the many bugs fixed in the release, then an upgrade is definitely worth a shot.

Remember to always do a complete backup before you get started, of course, as it’s been a long time since OpenX 2.8.1 was released, and with an upgrade with this many changes, it will be comforting to know that you can roll back if you need to.

1. Interestingly, the release notes don’t mention OpenX 2.8.0 and 2.8.1 as versions that you can upgrade from, although you can, naturally, upgrade from these versions. [↩]

The OpenX team have announced the long awaited release of the OpenX ad server version 2.8.2!

You can find the announcement on the OpenX blog; it would seem that the OpenX Hosted service has now been updated to OpenX 2.8.2¹, so hopefully, the download package will be out shortly.

1. It would appear the upgrade of OpenX Hosted was to version 2.8.2 Release Candidate 25; The Guru is not sure why the upgrade was not to the final release version… [↩]

OpenX supports a number of different banner types. However, as banner types can be disabled in OpenX, it may be that the banner type you want to use is not present when you go to create a banner.

If this is the case, then you may need to enable the banner type.

OpenX 2.4

While logged in as the administrator account, go to Settings > Main Settings > Banner Settings. Here, you will find the Allowed Banner Types section, where you can select which of the banner types are enabled.

OpenX 2.6 and 2.8

While Working as the Administrator account, go to Configuration > Global Settings > Banner Storage Settings. Here, you will find the the Allowed Banner Types section, where you can select which of the banner types are enabled.

The Allowed Banner Types in OpenX.

Wow. Looks like the first ever new feature for the OpenX ad server that has been tracked through The Guru’s unofficial development roadmap has now been released — it is now possible to deliver pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll and overlay video ads with OpenX, when using the Open Source Flowplayer video system. Companion ads to go along with the video ads are also supported.

This is great news for OpenX users, many of who have been looking for this feature for years now; and the fact that the plugin has been built to work with an Open Source video player is excellent news for all publishers!

You can see a demo of a pre-roll video ad and an overlay ad, learn more about the features of the plugin, and download the plugin from the Flowplayer Open Ad Streamer plugin homepage.

The same site also mentions that this plugin will be part of the OpenX 2.8.2 release.