OpenX Tips

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

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

OpenX 2.8

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

The Allowed Banner Types in OpenX.

This week’s tip is something that seems to trip up a lot of new OpenX ad server users. If you can’t seem to link a banner to a zone, this tip is for you.

OpenX will not let you link a banner to a zone unless the banner dimensions match the zone dimensions and the banner type matches the zone type.

Banner types

There are only three different types of banners in OpenX:

• SQL / Webserver / External banners: These are all image or Flash-based banners; they simply have different storage locations¹.
• HTML banners: These are banners based on HTML and/or JavaScript code.
• Text banners: These are banners based on plain text (that is, no HTML markup).

Which type of banner you are using will have an impact on both how the dimensions of the banner are determined, and which zone type you can link the banner to.

Banner dimensions and zone dimensions

SQL and Webserver banners are image or Flash-based banners that you upload into OpenX (which are then stored either in the OpenX database, or are stored on your local web server’s directory). As a result of the fact that OpenX is able to inspect the image or Flash file when it is uploaded, OpenX can automatically determine the banner’s dimensions.

However, External banners cannot be inspected by OpenX; similarly, although HTML banners are stored in the OpenX database, OpenX cannot determine what the dimensions of your HTML/JavaScript code are. As a result, you need to specify the dimensions of all External and HTML banners in OpenX when you create them².

Setting the banner dimensions for an HTML banner.

Zones also have dimensions. Whenever you create a Banner, Button or Rectangle zone, an Interstitial or Floating DHTML zone, a Popup zone or an Email/Newsletter zone, you can select from a set of standard IAB banner dimensions, or you can enter your own dimensions.

Setting the zone dimensions.

In order to link a banner to a zone, the banner dimensions must be exactly the same as the zone dimensions. OpenX will not allow you to link a banner to a zone if the dimensions are not equal. This is a feature of OpenX, which means not only will OpenX ensure that you do not accidentally link, for example, a skyscraper banner into a rectangle zone (which would look rather odd on your site!), but also means that you can set up campaigns containing multiple banners of many different sizes, and then simply link the campaign to zones, and OpenX will figure out which banners to put into which zones.

The exception to the rule of banner and zone dimensions

Text banners and text zones are the exception to the rule, as they have no dimensions. Text banners and zones are used for displaying plain text banners, which are intended to be inserted into normal paragraphs of text on your site. As a result, there is no need for dimensions to be set at either the banner or zone level — the zone and banner will simply be as “high” and as “wide” as the text itself.

Wildcard zones dimensions

Sometimes, you know better than OpenX, and you need to link banners of different dimensions to a single zone. OpenX will let you do this, by using an asterisk as a “wildcard” when setting up a zone with custom dimensions.

You can use the wildcard for the height, the width, or both, depending on your needs.

A zone with "wildcard" width, and fixed height.

Banner type and zone type

To link a banner to a zone, the banner type must be suitable for the zone type (and vice versa). The following table lists all of OpenX’s banner and zone types, according to which types can be linked to each other.

As you can see, text banners and text zones are the odd types out; all other banner/zone combination are fine.

Happy banner/zone linking!

1. That is, SQL banners store the image or Flash-file data in the OpenX database; Webserver banners store the image or Flash data in a file in a directory on your web server; and External banners are where the image or Flash file is stored on some external system, and you simply provide the URL that the file can be loaded from. [↩]
2. OpenX 2.8 now, fortunately, requires these fields be filled in, so that you do not forget. However, older versions of OpenX did not have this requirement — so if you forgot to fill in the banner’s dimensions, if would often take frustrating minutes to figure out why it was not possible to link the banner to the zone. [↩]

Here’s a great question from the OpenX Forums about companion positioning:

“I have 4 zones… I only want to show banners from the same campaign for Zones 1 and 2. I don’t want to run an ad more than once on the same page.”

If you read last week’s post on companion positioning, then you will know that OpenX was not designed to do this — either you show banners from a companion campaign on all banners on the page, or you don’t. It’s not really built to run a companion campaign in some of the zones, but not in others.

However, you can subvert OpenX to do “partial” companion position, if you really need to. Well, to a limited extent, anyway. There are two different ways:

Put your non-companion zones first

If you can, you can put your zones that don’t have companion campaign banners in them first on the page. OpenX will happily select banners from any campaign as it goes along, until it gets to a zone where it selects a companion campaign banner. From that point on, all banners will have to be in the companion campaign¹.

Use mixed zone tag types

The iframe, Image and No Cookie Image tag types do not support companion positioning. So, you can set up your companion campaigns to be delivered by zone tags that do support this option (the JavaScript zone tag, for example), while your other zones are delivered by a zone tag type that does not support companion campaigns (say, the iframe zone tag).

Unfortunately, this does mean that other options, like not showing banners twice, or not showing banners from the same campaign again for the non-companion campaign banners will not be available.

1. Note that this trick does not work when using Single Page Call. [↩]

What is companion positioning? The OpenX 2.8 user guide only mentions the topic very briefly, so it’s worth a deeper look.

Companion positioning is a way of ensuring that when one banner on a page is from a campaign, then all banners on the page will be from the same campaign. So, for example, imagine your web site has two zones on every page, and an advertiser says to you that they would like to advertise on your site, but only if they can have their banners in the two zones show up at the same time. This is when you want to use companion positioning.

Setting up companion positioning

Setting up companion positioning in OpenX is very simple. When you have an advertiser that wants a campaign with companion positioning, all you have to do is enable the “Companion positioning” option under “Miscellaneous” on the campaign property screen.

Enabling companion positioning for a campaign.

Effect of companion positioning

Consider the following example, where there are two advertisers, each with one campaign:

Advertiser 1, Standard Campaign:

• Banner 1: Linked to Zone 1
• Banner 2: Linked to Zone 1
• Banner 3: Linked to Zone 2
• Banner 4: Linked to Zone 2

Advertiser 2, Companion Campaign:

• Banner 1: Linked to Zone 1
• Banner 2: Linked to Zone 2

As you would expect, when the two zones are placed on a single page, there are five different possible outcomes — four different combinations of Advertiser 1’s campaign banners can be displayed, and one combination of Advertiser 2’s campaign banners. That is, as Advertiser 2’s campaign is set to be a companion position, it’s banners never show up with any other banners other than its own.

To see the above example in action, see the Tip #29 example page, which you can reload over and over to see how companion positioning ensures that the two companion banners only ever show together on a page.

Caveats

There are a number of caveats to be aware of when using companion positioning:

• When OpenX delivers one banner from a companion campaign, then all of the other zones on the page must have banners from the companion campaign. If any of the other zones on the page do not have a banner from that campaign that can be delivered (e.g. there is no banner from the campaign linked to the zone, or the banner has delivery limitations or capping applied that prevent the banner from being delivered), then no banner will be displayed in the zone¹. You should ensure that your companion campaigns have banners linked to all zones that will appear on your page, and that all banners in companion campaigns have identical capping and delivery limitations!
• The whole point of companion positioning is to display multiple banners from the same campaign on the same page. If you want to run companion campaigns, remember that you must not have your zones configured with the “Don’t show a banner from the same campaign again on the same page” option!
• Older versions of OpenX had a bug in companion campaign delivery, which meant that if the first banner on a page was from a non-companion campaign, subsequent banners could still be from a companion campaign, resulting in a mixed non-companion/companion banner situation. You should upgrade OpenX to the latest stable release to avoid this issue.
• Companion positioning will not work with the iframe, Image and No Cookie Image zone tag types. Obviously, companion positioning will also not work with the Popup zone tag type, as this opens a new window, which contains just the one zone.
• If you are using the OpenX Market, it would make sense to not enable the Market for your companion campaigns. As your advertiser is paying to specifically have their ads displayed in all of your zones on a page at once, it does not make sense allow any of those banners be overridden by an OpenX Market banner!

1. Note: This appears to be set to change in OpenX 2.8.2, so that if no banner from the companion campaign is linked to a zone, then a normal banner will be delivered. See issue OX-5508 [↩]

Greg Rickaby has a great post up showing how to create banners with delivery limitations on his site. Go check it out if you want to see a real-live demo of how to perform site segmentation using delivery limitations!