Banner Ad Management

As a rule I don’t recommend including banner or text Ads on your website unless they are related to your specific industry and can be included in an unobtrusive way. Some web sites do quite well with Ads though, such as those primarily of the resource type. For example, if you sell wedding cakes it would be logical to include Ads for wedding supplies. That being said, studies have shown that web sites with Ads will have a higher bounce rate since many find banners to be an irritant, and my personal feeling is that they can take away from the professionalism of a web page. Know that if you do choose to include Ads they “typically” should not be added at the top of the pages since this can decrease the chance of a page being fully indexed by the search engines.

On the surface Ad Management for websites would seem like something that is simple to employ, yet much like eCommerce, there are numerous options to consider. If you’ve been thinking of serving up Ads on your website then there are some things you will need to know before making a decision about which script or platform to choose.

First and foremost you need to decide on the features that you will need. Ad Managers vary considerably – when deciding on the best platform or script option consider the following:

How many Ads will there be?
Do you want the different Ads to rotate on the page, or do you want a single Ad to show when the page is displayed?
Will you have advertisers, and if yes, will they be adding the Ads or will you add them?
Do you need Ad payment integration with Paypal, Bank routing, e-checks, IPN, etc?
What type of statistical information do you need for tracking?
Will you be serving up Ads on more than one page, and will you have different banner sizes?
Will you be showing both banner and text Ads?
Which banner Ad formats do you need – jpg, gif, png, swf, video?
How do you want the Ads included – JavaScript, Ajax, IFrame, etc?
Will you be showing AdSense or other network Ads?
Do you need auto-confirmation emails to advertisers, newsletter integration, auto-expiration of Ads that reach goals, etc?
Do you need to allow some Ads to show more than others?
Do you want to target Ads based upon search patterns or location?
Do you need to be able to customize the look of the advertiser log-in and Ad Management area?

As you can see from the aforementioned listing, there are lots of things to consider. Firstly, some of the current Ad Managers don’t rotate Ads on the page; instead a single Ad is shown upon the page refresh. Assuming that all of the Ads are set to display at the same frequency this ensures that every Ad has the possibility to be seen equally. With the previous method of “rotation” an Ad that is not first or second in the rotation will likely never be seen (unless the order is randomized) since few people stay on a single page for long periods of time. If you do choose Ad rotation then you need to consider the rotation speed (time Ad is displayed); if you allow gif animation or Flash, then you need to ensure that the animation duration does not exceed your Ad rotation duration.

If your Ad display needs are small and does not require the ability for the client/advertiser to manage their Ads or view statistics, then a simple image rotator script will work fine for you. Yet most people will want to view statistics, and will want to be able to administer the Ads from a management interface (ideally one that is easy to use). The following options will provide for these needs.

The first thing to know about Ad Managers is that Ads are typically purchased by CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per impressions). Impressions simply means how often the Ad will be shown and viewed on a page. Assuming you have 3 Ads being displayed and 600 visitors in a month, then the impression rate for each Ad (if set to show at a consistent rate) would be 200 each. The better Ad Management platforms will allow you to set up payment options wherein an advertiser can log-in and upload their banner (with IPN “instant payment notification” that will automatically allow the Ad’s activation), and then select one of your predefined Ad payment options. In this case you might want to charge .05 cents per impression, and .75 cents per click. The other option of course is to assign the Ad to run for a predefined period (such as three months) with a flat-fee associated with this duration (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, etc).

The better Ad Managers also allow for Text Ads. In this case there is a simple templating system that will resembled creating with Google AdWords. There will be an Ad title field, two lines for text, and an URL field. The text amount will be predefined such as 70 characters per line so as to fit in the width requirements of the Ad location. In addition, many of the Ad Managers allow you to create Ad categories and Zones for the grouping of different Ad campaigns, and the ability to include Ads by category type to one ore more pages. Some Ad managers will allow you to integrate AdSense and other Ad networks into your banner/text Ad location, and some of the best will allow you to target the display of Ads based upon search queries. For example, you might want to display premium Ads to visitors from the United States, and display a different Ad/s to everyone else; or display Ads by the visitor’s state, or limit an Ad’s exposure to one impression per unique visitor a day. In this case your advertisers will want to see statistics on CTR (click through rate) so having good statistics is important….and the management area needs to be easy to use with good documentation.

I’ve looked at and test-drove numerous stand-alone Ad Management scripts/applications and the majority of these are single-domain license utilizing encrypted source code and ionCube, ZendFramework, etc to lock it to one domain which prevents portability. Pricing will vary from approx. $20 to several hundred. What I found is that almost all of the applications available are heavily branded and don’t allow the removal of the copyright notice and link. A good example of excessive branding is Softbizscripts’ Ad Manager. I purchased this application since it had most of the features I wanted yet found out that there was no way to remove the branding, or visually improve the typography used in the management interface. Branding really isn’t an issue if you are the only one accessing the log-in and management area, yet if you plan to allow advertisers to upload their own banners and create their text Ads, view their statistics, etc. it would not be ideal to have the name of the script is large bolded letters at the top, with their logo, and a link back to them. Moreover, you really need to be able to change the page colors, typography, and other styling elements to best integrate with your web site.

Beyond the stand-alone Ad Management scripts the other option is to use a “hosted” Ad management script. In this case there are many very good ones, and some are white-label which allows for easy integration and the removal of branding. Of these a few are free to use, while others charge a small fee, and some are quite expensive, yet these are designed for large companies that plan to run an Ad Network across multiple domains. When assessing any Ad Management option be sure to check out the demo both from a user, advertiser, and manager perspective. That being said, some of the better options follow:

AdSpeed

AdSpeed is an affordable option that provides some great features. Some of the options include: powerful ad targeting (by country, city, browser / device, frequency), ability to show only geotargeted ads to visitors from countries of choice, support for Flash and rich media ads, and they have a WordPress plug-in. They provide an IFrame or JavaScript option for inclusion, and allows you to create different ad sizes by “zone” and contextual ads such as AdSense. Their Free plan gives you up to 10,000 impressions a month (if you exceed it, AdSpeed will start displaying their own ads on your site 10% of the time). Paid plans start from 100,000 impressions for $9.95 / mo.
https://adspeed.com/

OpenX OnRamp

OpenX is a popular option that was once a stand-alone application called phpAdsNew. OpenX OnRamp is one of the three Ad Management products they offer and is the only free one (free if you’re delivering less than 100 million ad impressions a month). While many people are very satisfied with On Ramp, I have read how some have found issues with the Ads not displaying consistently, and there is little tech help available. On a positive side it is has every feature you can imagine: geotargeting, advertiser, zone, and channel management, default ads for when you have no “premium” ones to show, etc. It is also integrated with OpenX Market. This allows you to sell your unnecessary ad space to OpenX Market and actually make money with them. For larger companies there is OpenX Enterprise which is very costly, starting at $1200/mo.
https://www.openx.com/publishers/community-ad-server

TrafficSpaces

TrafficSpaces has a nice looking user interface, and since it is white-label it can be easily customized to match your website. It also includes payment integration which is important if you intend to allow advertisers to pay you directly. Their interface is very modern and uses AJAX. They provide payment integration for PayPal and credit cards, and includes all targeting features (geotargeting, browsers and devices, frequency capping). The only downside I noted is that 3rd party Ad networks or affiliate Ads can’t be targeted in any way. The price is free for up to 50,000 impressions a month. Paid plans start at $19.99 for 100,000 monthly impressions.
https://www.trafficspaces.com

AdButler

AdButler has very affordable pricing, the ability to serve ads from your own domain (instead of uploading to their server), the option to upload images to AdButler’s servers for faster loading (for a small fee), and support for pop-up and pop-under ads. The disadvantage is their somewhat unattractive user interface. They also don’t allow Ad targeting by country. Their price is free showing their own advertisements on your ad spots 7.5% of the time. Paid plans start at $5.95 / mo with $0.40 CPM cost, or $11.95 / mo for 50,000 monthly impressions.
https://www.adbutler.com

BittAds

BittAds is a Netherlands-based Ad management solution with lots of features, an XML API for integrating Ads with your videos or content, and a WordPress plug-in. They allow you to target your ads by a number of conditions, give your advertisers separate logins to track their stats, and provide detailed reports. Basically, they have everything most people are looking for in an ad manager. The price is free up to 10 million impressions a month, but you are limited to 10 concurrent ads. Standard Edition has a base fee of €90 / mo and BittAds charges you on a per-CPM basis. The downside is the administration area is a little challenging to work with. documentations is poor, and you cannot rotate Ads on a page; they are also a bit pricey when you exceed the free option. This is the Ad Manager that I am currently using for a client.
https://www.bittads.com

Beyond these options there are many other hosted options which have similar features that you might want to consider. As always, just do a search, and be sure to read the specifications, test-drive by way of the demo, and if there is a free trail take them up on it before paying out any money.