OpenAds Testing: Help Me Out And Click That Banner

I have been testing OpenAds for last few days and am having some issues with click tracking side of things. I have often wondered who and when clicks on my ads and OpenAds makes this kind of tracking a little easier. Or does it?

Last few days, after being liked to by Andy Beard which triggered a wave of links and traffic, presented a great opportunity for testing. I was in particular focusing on geo-targeting features of OpendAds. However I incidentally discovered that either OpenAds is not suitable for affiliate links or – are you ready?- I am being cheated by my affiliate networks. But before I point my finger to any party…

… here are some numbers form two ad zones served by OpenAds to put things in prospective. First here is a snap of yesterdays totals according to OpenAds:

OpenAds Stats

And get this one! My affiliate networks are reporting that yesterday these two ad zones send to my merchants only 14 clicks/visitors. Quite a loss of clicks if you asked me!

Before I begin point my finger at any particular party I would like to run a test and you can help me with it. Just click that banner above- it will land you on one of my other blogs. Hopefully I can collect some conclusive data on whether or not OpenAds is good for serving your affiliate links- or whether or not I am being treated well by my merchants/affiliate networks. Either way it may be interesting experiment. Thanks in advance to every one who will click the banner.

And of course if you have experienced similar problems and have found a solution, please let me know.

20 thoughts on “OpenAds Testing: Help Me Out And Click That Banner”

  1. I've never had two stats packages track clicks or impressions the same. Who is right? We'll probably never know

    I do find that openads tracks on the high side of things though, as if they aren't filtering many of the bots that are making some clicks.

  2. Thanks Mark,

    I have never thought of bots. Do you think networks like CJ and others filer them out?

    I really like what OpenAds can do in terms of geo-targeting or as they call it probability. But this gap between clicks on my end those reported by networks made me a little worried.

  3. sure they filter them out, but none do it the same. It's also extremely hard to determine what is a human and what is a bot sometimes.

    I'm sure everybody tries their best but it's like any statistics package for anything, what's a bot and what's a human?

    you can even put sitemeter AND analytics on your site and watch the differences.

    heck I get different impression counts from google analytics and google adsense.

  5. if you are worried about it do a simple redirect on the link, record EVERY single click, then see how the results match up.

    they have basic php/mysql scripts that do it, google it

  7. I’ve never had two stats packages track clicks or impressions the same. Who is right? We’ll probably never know

    I do find that openads tracks on the high side of things though, as if they aren’t filtering many of the bots that are making some clicks.

  8. Thanks Mark,

    I have never thought of bots. Do you think networks like CJ and others filer them out?

    I really like what OpenAds can do in terms of geo-targeting or as they call it probability. But this gap between clicks on my end those reported by networks made me a little worried.

  9. sure they filter them out, but none do it the same. It’s also extremely hard to determine what is a human and what is a bot sometimes.

    I’m sure everybody tries their best but it’s like any statistics package for anything, what’s a bot and what’s a human?

    you can even put sitemeter AND analytics on your site and watch the differences.

    heck I get different impression counts from google analytics and google adsense.

  11. if you are worried about it do a simple redirect on the link, record EVERY single click, then see how the results match up.

    they have basic php/mysql scripts that do it, google it

  13. I had to stop with Open Ads – the queries was messing the display with my banners and stats – not too sure why or what was happening with my sql – but I know SQL filled up real quick 50mbs within 2 weeks!

  14. I had to stop with Open Ads – the queries was messing the display with my banners and stats – not too sure why or what was happening with my sql – but I know SQL filled up real quick 50mbs within 2 weeks!

  15. as if they aren’t filtering many of the bots that are making some clicks.

    I'd say that has alot to do with it, but who knows.

    I clicked the advert out of curiosity before I even read this post 😉

  16. as if they aren’t filtering many of the bots that are making some clicks.

    I’d say that has alot to do with it, but who knows.

    I clicked the advert out of curiosity before I even read this post 😉

  17. Open Ads does give you very much the raw data without any prettying up that some companies use. I run awstats in addition to the OpenAds server and the two together provide a very nice overview. Awstats gives me a clue as to what is going on as a whole while OpenAds is better at the zone to zone stuff.

    I use OpenAds as the delivery agent for all my adverts it makes adding adverts to lots of sites much simpler. It also means that if an affiliate partner from DGM stops being active I can drop them at one location and that's all the work I need to do.

    As tools go I have to say it is useful if not especially well coded and by that I mean the code works very well but is no fun at all to edit.

  18. Lord Matt,

    Thanks for stopping by. Do you run your OpenAds on a dedicated server?

    I am not sure if OpenAds worth the effort if you run just a few banners on a website. I have also noticed that MySQL tends to “swell” quiet quickly.

  19. Open Ads does give you very much the raw data without any prettying up that some companies use. I run awstats in addition to the OpenAds server and the two together provide a very nice overview. Awstats gives me a clue as to what is going on as a whole while OpenAds is better at the zone to zone stuff.

    I use OpenAds as the delivery agent for all my adverts it makes adding adverts to lots of sites much simpler. It also means that if an affiliate partner from DGM stops being active I can drop them at one location and that’s all the work I need to do.

    As tools go I have to say it is useful if not especially well coded and by that I mean the code works very well but is no fun at all to edit.

  20. Lord Matt,

    Thanks for stopping by. Do you run your OpenAds on a dedicated server?

    I am not sure if OpenAds worth the effort if you run just a few banners on a website. I have also noticed that MySQL tends to “swell” quiet quickly.

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