If you are a publisher looking for a free ad server that allows you to take control and maximize your revenue by presenting the right ad campaigns, track the performance of all your online advertising, and enjoy the freedom to combine direct, network and house ads to boost up your revenue per page, then there is only one place to go to: OpenX Ad Server.

Overview

OpenX Ad Server is a webhost plan powered by Host Color, which basically helps online publishers who want to reap big profits from their sites. Over 30,000 publishers have already subscribed to this open source ad server, and so far in its existence, OpenX has provided satisfaction to almost all its subscribers in more than 100 countries.

Technical Specs

Latest release	OpenX 2.6.2
Delivery Model	License: GNU Public License v2 Hosted/ASP: Currently running in private beta testing
Inventory Management	Smoothly deliver campaigns across a timeline Rotate different ads and ad networks Start and stop ads with the click of a button Manage all types of ad formats
Campaign Delivery Options and Targets	Start and end dates Impression, click or conversions targets per day or lifetime of the campaign Relative campaign weights Exclusive campaigns Companion positioning
Rich Media Support	Traditional image, HTML and JavaScript ad formats Integrated Flash support All other media formats supported as HTML banner ads
Support for 3rd party Ad tags	Google AdSense Doubleclick Atlas Yahoo! Publisher Network Bluestreak Eyeblaster Falk Mediaplex Tango Zebra Plugin Support for Custom Tag
Targeting	Geo-targeting*: Country, City, US Area Code, US/Canada Post Code Continent, Region. Contextual targeting Keyword targeting Behavioural targeting Zone-based targeting Page URL, Variable Bandwidth Language Domain, Referring Page, IP address Browser, Operating System, User agent ISP/Organisation Designated Market Area, Source Time/Date, Day of Week, Hour of Day Longitude/Latitude Channel Homepage
Delivery Capping	Frequency by user per session and time period Delivery optimisation: Automatic inventory optimisation to meet campaign targets and share traffic fairly among campaigns
Prioritization	Smoothly deliver high and low priority campaigns Sophisticated algorithms allocate your ad inventory in the most efficient way possible
Companion Positioning	Use ads from one campaign for all ad locations on a page.
Direct ad selection by banner, campaign, advertiser, size and keyword, Statistics and Reporting	Revenue Reporting eCPM CPC CPA / CPL Monthly Revenue Ad management: real-time/hourly/daily Click tracking Tracking and reporting across channels Customization of reporting Excel, HTML, CSV formats Post-click tracking Conversion tracking
High Volume Ad Delivery	Serve 100s of millions impressions per month on a single server Serve billions of impressions per month using a server farm
Server Requirements - Minimum **	Any web server with PHP support PHP 4.3.11 or higher MySQL 4.0.18 or higher
Server Requirements - Recommended	Operating System: Linux, Unix and BSD based operating systems. Web Server: Apache or lighttpd. PHP: PHP 4.3.11 or higher PHP accelerator: eAccelerator, PHP_Cache or similar Database: MySQL 5 or higher

* OpenX is distributed with the free MaxMind GeoLite Country database. MaxMind provide other open source and commercial GeoIP databases which can be used with OpenX.

** Please use the recommended requirements for production systems as this is covered by our continuous testing framework.

Features of OpenX Ad Server

Delivery and targeting: In OpenX, you can deliver more ads from multiple advertisers and ad networks while at the same time prioritize higher value ad campaigns. You also have the capability to increase overall click through rates by controlling the frequency of the campaign, and target advertising to higher value visitors based on geographic location, keywords and user data. Most of all, you can integrate with existing customer databases to increase ad targets.

Inventory management: You get to save time by effectively managing your ad space from intuitive interface, and at the same time advertise across multiple websites.

Statistics: You come up with sound trafficking decisions by monitoring and comparing the performance of your ad campaigns, as well as the relative performance of the various parts of your website, and export all the data to excel for analysis.

Reporting: You enhance customer relations by generating campaign-specific performance reports for your advertisers, provide direct access to ad campaign reporting, and export statistics to excel for custom reporting.

Campaign management: Through OpenX, you serve ads right from direct advertisers alongside those from ad networks, and as well set ad campaign goals as start and end dates, and performance targets based on impressions, conversion and clicks.

Conversion tracking: You can track almost every click to conversions so you know the exactly value of your ads. In OpenX, you can also run your own affiliate marketing campaigns.

Efficient and scalable: For one, OpenX has a user-friendly interface, thus you don’t get disoriented the first time you use it. It is also scalable; it enables you to deliver millions of ads each month from just one ad server, and use distributed statistics to serve billions of ads.

Open Source technology: OpenX is free to download and very easy to use.

Customer Reviews:

“OpenX has already been in the business since 1998, but owner Tobias Ratschiller, the same man behind phpMyAdmin. First known as Open Ads, Scott Switzer has continued improving the site and now is the co-founder of OpenX Limited.”

“Among the best features customers and end-users like about OpenX is that for a free ad server, it does prove true to its purpose. First, it is easy to use, from downloading to installation. Second, unlike other ad server hosts, the Help feature of OpenX truly guides you in troubleshooting problems that you encounter in your site. As a user you are not left hanging on what to do with the issue; rather you get to solve it on your own.”

“OpenX is also a good ground where site owners and advertisers meet, discuss and take a hands-on with the business. Advertisers can modify the settings of their ads anytime they want to, and they are as well given a pass code to perform secure activities. At the same time, OpenX provides transparency to all parties involved in the site, via tracking reports, open discussions and performance ratings. Thus you know who is accountable for losses, to who’s share do the profits belong, and basically everything else that the website is made of.”

“Most of all, just like what it boasts in its features, OpenX is easy to use. It has a control panel that is not confusing to new users, thus you know exactly what to do once you get started in your site.”

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