Tips for Testing Campaigns

I was pondering for a while on the topic to post.At last managed to get a topic for today.The post would focus on few ideas to test new ad and creative type on live environment.When you traffickers receive any new creative/ad format which you wanted to know how it would look on the live publisher, here are the ways you can carry out this test

• Live testing of campaigns MUST be executed in short time.Once the test ad is live, test what you needed, and turn it off instead running it for days(which is a huge mess)

• Always check for the preview and click through on the ad server before going to make live

• If you wanted to do a quick test, book huge inventory, set highest priority, and scheduled it for one day(simply traffic as exclusive/roadblock campaigns).So this test ad becomes live as soon as the Ad server pushes.Note very very importantly this type of test should be finished in short time, say 10 ~15 min after the ad server pushes.Else, it would results in unnecessary impressions delivery and also would compete with other premium advertisements running.So be utmost careful while executing this

• Another good practice is to target.By this you actually reduce the competition with actual live ads scheduled.Pick the less traffic page group of the publisher to target.Usually the publisher would have less ads scheduled, so the possibility of competing is less

• You can also geo-target .Idea is , you target the test ad to to your local(country/state/city)this way you narrow down and keep yourself out of competing with scheduled ads.Example if you are in india further drill down to city level say " chennai/bangalore/mumbai" which is your target city
  

Testing campaign on live environment is a good practice, but do abide your limits and its impact.Always carry out within shorter time and immediately turn off once testing is done.More the testing time, more the inventory loss and higher the cost we would be liable to ad server vendors.

Now Ad delivery on PDF, Adode joins Yahoo

Adobe has joined with Yahoo to create an Ad delivery system for pdf files that publishers offers in the form of newsletter, Daily bulletin,.etc.

Adobe is planning to publish contextual adverts relevant to the PDF content in the form of Advert links on the PDF files.Sources say that, the advert be published in the side pane of the document and When an user tries to print out, the Advert links would be disappeared in the printed page.Yahoo has been specifically roped in to, energise the ad delivery system.

Though, the effort is appreciateble, but unsure how much avenue it brings to pump in the revenue, unless we know the online market share of adobe.Also adobe recently acquired Buzz word, an online word processor tool.All these actions are a clear indicator of Adobe's foray into online advertising market.

Welcome Aboard Adobe !

AdBid Central-Internet Marketing made simple?

AdBidCentral a new tool, which integrates media buying and selling process on a single platform.The system basically simplifies the complexities involved in everyday media buying/selling activities.The Ad bid central has got a in built search engine, which allows media buyers to search for their suitable ad space and also media sellers to search for their prospect media buyers.The search engine has options which you can use to filter down to suitable search results.

Further to this, the system also allows media buyers to upload creative units and send to media sellers for campaign activation.Also media buyers and sellers can monitor the campaign performance in real time.

You can find more information on AdBidCentral

Interstitial Ad-the Ambush

Penned down lines would find its usefulness for those, who's wanting to know what an Interstitial ad is.

Interstitial ad, is one of the most popular Rich Media ad type.Also, commonly known as Metastitial ads or transition ads.Interstitial ads are those, which would appear when an user navigates from one page to another page.There are some interstitials that would appear, when an user closes the web browser session.Technically, all these interstitial ads gets downloaded to the user's cookie, when an user visits a web page, which has an interstitial ad scheduled.And so, the downloaded interstitial ad would begin to monitor the user's behavior and when it finds that the user navigates to someother page or closes the browser, instantaneously the ad gets triggered and appears to the user.Depending on how the interstitial are programmed by the creative team, the interstitial appears either while navigating between pages or closing the browser.

Below is an example for an interstitial POPUp ad

In general, an interstitial ad type would be deployed for branding campaigns.Many people normally gets confused between an interstitial and superstitial ads.Actually, the nature of how these ad loads in both the ad types are the same, the only difference is being, a Superstitial ad appears on the background.One more thing on interstitial ad, I am not sure though is, some interstitials works on web browsers which has "Java Virtual machine" installed, a software addon for the web browser.

Traffickers !!!

Points to be noted While Trafficking Interstitial ads

Traffickers, normally interstitial ads would be of Tag form and you would need to make special settings on your ad server to traffic intersititals unlike normal ads.Moreover, you may need to make additional modification the interstitial creative tag before uploading on the Ad server so as to ensure impressions and click recordings.I would highly recommend the Traffickers to check with your Ad sever manual to know how to traffick interstitial ads.

Relevancy of Online advertising, a disaster?

In our industry, throwing up advert much relevant to the content and to the Targeted Audience is the prominent factors which determines a good advert.But sometimes, it might leads to disaster.One such case which, I came across today when, I happened to check my email on my 30gigs account.When I opened up the 'Inbox", I saw a leaderboard(728x90) Google Adsense advert on the Top, campaigning to create a gmail account.

Refer to the screenshot below

So whose loss, whose gain?

• Can we blame GoogleAdsense for showing this advert?
• Should we blame the 30gigs team for placing google adsense on their inbox ?

We cannot blame either of them as, GoogleAdsense does not know the 728x90 property details on 30gigs.At the same time even 30gigs does not know what are the Scheduled ads that would be displayed.So sometimes things are inevitable.

So whats the lesson in the store?

Too much of Relevancy not only gets you conversions, but also eats your cake :-)

Trafficking Text Ads containing Special Characters

Trafficking Text ads, ain't simple as they appear.One have to be utmost cautious while dealing with such ads.Important point is, when you Traffick a Text ad, which contains special characters or any Double byte characters such as "$,#,.." would be truncated on the web site.Because web browser might not properly interpret the special characters pushed through an ad server, so the aftermath would result in either Special characters not thrown up on the web site or the character would gets altered.

Example:

Actual Text creative: Buy TV for 430£ HURRY NOW !

Displayed Text Ad: Buy TV for 430 HURRY NOW !

Observation:The "£" is missed in the Displayed Text ad.

There's a work around for this.All you got to do is, replace the special characters with its HTML equivalent while setting up on your Ad server.Download document which contains Special characters and their HTML Equivalents " Click Here to download "

Note:

• Once you replace the special characters with its HTML equivalent, Please preview the ad and ensure it displays properly.Also run a Test campaign on a Test page before you Turn the actual ad live

• I would highly recommend that you check with your ad server vendor or refer to Ad server manual to know whether you need to replace with HTML Equivalents.
  

Yahoo!'s Smart Ads a Behavioral Targeting

First, a bite of what's Behavioral Targeting

Behavioral Targeting:It is the most advanced level of targeting, wherein a program would monitor users behavior and collects data, when the program reaches a sufficient data level, it would throw advertisements relevant to the collected data.(pros-Highly Targeted customers!!!)

Yahoo recently launched such a service which is a pancake for its customer which is known as SmartAds and currently doing its Beta trial.This innovative, Patent-Pending Ad Delivery Platform allows Marketers to Present Highly Targeted Online Display Ads in Real Time to Match a User's Distinctive, Expressed Interests.Todd Teresi, Yahoo’s senior vice president of display marketplaces said that the product will start in travel and is expected to expand by the end of the year to retail and automotive.

He adds an example

If a person looking for a sporting event in another city, a travel ad may pop up that provides the lowest rate from the user’s location to the destination city. For auto advertisers, Teresi says creative may include geographically relevant images with local dealer offer. He calls it a “template assetized approach,” stating, “All of a sudden, the ad experience becomes more relevant.”

As of now, SmartAds is being sold by direct sales, but may be made available through an auction-based system or an automated format. Teresi reported that during its testing period, SmartAds displayed a click-through rate that was two to three times higher than other traditional ads using target placements techniques.

I would greatly appreciate Y!'s effort to provide better ROI, but how the service would be priced? a premium based?