List of Features

DynAds Pro family of banner ad rotation and tracking scripts have very rich set of features that you can not find in other rotation softwares.

Technical features

• The scripts are written in Perl.
• Industry standard fast MySQL database back-end.
• It is available as
  • regular CGI script
  • Apache mod_perl compliant script
  • fast CGI compliant script
• It runs on any server platform that provides Perl and MySql. It is compatible with all operating systems : Linux, Unix, Solaris, WinNT, Win2000, Cobalt RaQ ...
• Installation is a breeze. It comes with a setup program to make it very easy installing and configuring the product.
• Ads are organized in campaigns. Campaigns are put into zones for rotation. See the illustration of DynAds Pro data model.
• It serves to unlimited number of domains from one installation of the software.

Web based administration control panel

• All management tasks are done via web based and password protected administrator control panel.
• Appearance of the admin panel can be matched to the style of your pages.
• Your advertisers can login to the admin panel and check their real-time statistics.
• Admin panel includes account management, ad and campaign management, zone management, advanced code generator and detailed report generators.

Configurable user accounts

• Admin can define unlimited number of user (advertiser) accounts.
• Rights of the users are controlled by means of profiles. You may choose to restrict an account to see only his/her statistics or give him/her right to edit every aspect of the admin panel.
• Every user can have unlimited number of ads and campaigns.
• Admin can enable/disable user accounts. Ads of the disabled accounts are excluded from rotations automatically.
• All of the reports can be e-mailed to the owner upon touch of a button.

Ad management

• No limit on the number of ads.

• General purpose content rotator

  It can deliver from a simple image ad to a whole HTML page.
• It supports all banner ad formats: images, text, HTML, DHTML, scripts, rich media ads, flash, or any other third party format.
• There is no limit on the size of the ad content to be delivered.
• All views of an ad are tracked.
• One automatic redirection URL for each ad. When defined, the clicks to the ad are tracked.
• Individual ads can be enabled and disabled in the admin panel. The disabled ads are automatically taken out of any rotation.
• Ads can be weighted in campaigns to adjust their selection probability.

• Global default ad and default page

  Default ad is served when there is no active ad in a zone. Likewise the default page is used to re-direct the visitors when the clicked ad is disabled or not found.

Campaign management

• An account may have unlimited number of campaigns.
• A campaign may include unlimited number of ads.
• Every ad in a campaign can be weighted to adjust the probability of being selected in rotations.

• Targeting features

  The campaigns are equipped with some powerful targeting features.

  • Date-Time targeting

    : You can specify the exact campaign start and end dates and times. The campaign becomes active in the specified interval and becomes inactive out of this interval.

  • Days of week and hours of day targeting

    : You can specify the hours of the week when a particular campaign will be active. For example, a campaign can be set to be active on Mondays between 10am and 6pm, and on Fridays all day.

  • keyword targeting

    : You can assign multiple keywords to a campaign. Later during the rotation, if you pass a list of keywords in the rotation code, then only the matching campaigns in the zone will be selected for the rotation. This feature enables you to implement context sensitive ads. For example, you can display computer related ads in one page and display books related ads in another page. Keyword targeting is ideal for directory listings or search engine type of sites.

  • IP targeting

    : You can specify the list of IP ranges that you want to the campaign be active for. For example, you can set a campaign to be active (or inactive) for some IP ranges that you know of.

  • Country targeting

    : DynAds Pro comes with an IP to country database. The program resolves the country of the visitor to your web site from his/her IP number. A campaign can be set to be active (or inactive) for visitors coming from some countries (up to 127 countries). That is, you can show different banners to visitors from different countries. The IP to country database can be updated online anytime in the setup program.

• Campaign types and credits

  One can define a campaign to be of four types:

  • Default

    campaigns do not have any targeting options. They are used as the default campaigns of zones.

  • Run of network

    campaigns have full targeting features. The number of clicks or views are not limited.

  • Expire on clicks (pay per click)

    campaigns are constrained by the amount of click credits. Clicks to the ads of the campaign are summed up. When the number of clicks exceeds the assigned credits, the campaign becomes inactive.

  • Expire on views (pay per view)

    campaigns are constrained by the amount of view credits. Views of the ads of the campaign are summed up. When the number of views exceeds the assigned credits, the campaign becomes inactive.
  You can define the cost of a click or view in terms of credits. This permits you to set the price of a click (view), and assign the total click (view) credits in terms of money.

• Frequency capping by placing a credit quota

  You can place a periodic quota (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly) on the number of credits that can be spent in that time period.

• Abuse protection

  When the campaign is in pay per view (click) mode, the software protects for false credits from repeated views (clicks) originated by the same person.

• Temporary ad view blocking

  If this option is enabled, the same ad will not be delivered to the same person (browser) for a specified duration.

• Visitor tracking cookie

  When this option is enabled and when an ad of the campaign is viewed or clicked, DynAds Pro can place a unique visitor ID cookie in the visitor's browser. This unique visitor ID is saved with every event the software records. This makes it possible to track the visitors in the reports.

Zone management

• There is no limit on the number of zones on a page or website.
• A zone can include unlimited number of campaigns.
• The campaigns in the zone can be weighted to adjust the likelihood of being selected.

• Default campaign

  Every zone can have one default campaign associated with it. Default campaign is used to serve ads from, when there is no active ads in the zone. If a default campaign is not defined for a zone, then the global default ad is served.

Advanced code generator

• Content rotation code generator

  This is the generator for obtaining the ad rotation codes. You specify the detailed behavior of the rotation in the generator menu. Then the system generates the rotation code to paste to your pages.

• Link redirection and tracking code generator

  You can easily select the link to track. The generator produces the redirection URL for tracking. It is possible to redirect through static HTML files.

• Link or form rotation and re-submission code generator

  This the generator to obtain the code to submit an incoming link or form to a destination URL selected among the ads of a zone. You can filter out some incoming data fields or add new fields special to each individual ad. You can even change the posting method from GET to POST or from POST to GET.

• Remote tracking code generator

  With these codes you can track the events outside of DynAds Pro such as viewing of a website page. Now, DynAds Pro allows you to track events even if an ad is not present in the database, with the new auto-create mode feature.

Ad and content rotation

• Support for all ad formats

  DynAds Pro is a general purpose content rotator. It can rotate and deliver any type of contents. Thus, it supports all ad formats: image banner ads, text ads, HTML ads, script ads, DHTML ads, flash ads, rich media ads.

• Access methods

  DynAds Pro provides the most extensive set of ad access methods. Whether you choose to access the rotated ads from a server side technology such as PHP or SSI, or from a browser side technology such as JavaScript or pop-up/pop-under windows, DynAds Pro supports it. Here is the list of supported access methods.

  • Java Script

    This method is the general purpose content rotation method on the browser side. A simple SCRIPT tag retrieves and displays the rotated ads from the ad server.

  • IMG tag

    This method is for rotating images only such as gif or jpeg banners. IMG tag is ideal for rotating and tracking ads in e-mails and for maximum browser compatibility.

  • IFRAME or OBJECT tag

    You can rotate the ads in an inline frame or HTML Object. Both IFRAME and OBJECT are now standard tags in HTML 4.0, and all of the new browsers, including Netscape, support these tags.

  • Frame

    You can rotate the ads in a frame of a frame-set.

  • Pop-up and pop-under windows

    DynAds Pro has all the tools to manage your pop-up advertising campaigns.

  • Server Side Includes (SSI)

    You can include the rotated ad contents at the server side by using SSI rotation codes. The contents included at the server side become the part of your web page.

  • Active Server Pages (ASP)

    If your pages are written in ASP, you can include the rotated ads in your ASP page.

  • PHP

    If your pages are written in popular PHP, you can include the rotated ads in your PHP page easily.

  • Perl

    If you generate your pages from a Perl script, you can include the rotated ads in a Perl variable easily.

  • Java Script Array

    If you want to display the rotated ads in your way, then you can obtain the rotated ads in a Java Script array. Then you can display the ads in any way you like by using JavaScript.

• Single ad selection

  The selection process is the phase of the rotation where the ads to be displayed are determined among the ads of the campaigns in the zone. In single ad selection scheme, only one ad is returned from the rotation. DynAds Pro has four selection methods.

  • Weighted random selection

    The ad is selected randomly with the selection probability equal to the normalized total weight of the ad. Total weight is the multiplication of the weight of the campaign in the zone and the weight of the ad in the campaign. That is, if ad-1 has a total weight two times the total weight of ad-2, then ad-1 has two times chance for selection than ad-2.

  • Uniform random selection

    The ad is selected randomly while all ads have equal chance for selection. Weight values are not taken into account.

  • Server side sequential selection

    With every rotation request to the ad server, the next ad in the rotation is selected. This ensures that all of the ads in the zone are selected equal number of times.

  • Browser side sequential selection

    A visitor sees the next ad when he/she re-visits your site or when the ad is refreshed. This ensures that the visitor sees the ads in order.

• Multiple ad selection

  If you want to display more than one ad, you can pull multiple ads from a zone in a rotation. DynAds Pro has many features to support multiple ad rotation. The final selected ads are returned in appended form.

  • Selection Schemes

    Selection scheme determines how the campaigns in the zone and ads in the campaigns should be considered. Currently DynAds Pro provides 3 selection schemes.

    • Virtual ad list

      The active ads in the campaigns of the zone are thought as a big virtual list of ads. Then, the requested ads are selected from this big virtual list as specified by the ad selection method. Use this scheme if you do not bother to have multiple ads from the same campaign.

    • One ad from selected campaign

      In this scheme, first the campaigns are selected in the zone according to the ad selection method. Then, one ad from each selected campaign is selected randomly with the ad weights in the campaign. Use this scheme to select one ad per campaign.

    • All of the ads of selected campaign

      First the campaigns are selected in the zone according to the ad selection method. Then, all of the ads of the selected campaigns are selected. Use this scheme, if you are categorizing ads with respect to campaigns and want to display all of the ads in the campaign.

  • Limiting the number of ads

    In the code generator, you can specify the maximum number of ads to return from the rotation. If the number of active ads in the zone is greater than or equal to the specified maximum limit, then only the specified number of ads are selected. Otherwise, it can return ads less than the specified limit. Additionally, one can choose to return all of the active ads in the zone. Also, you can specify the number of ads to return based on the total number of active ads in the zone, like "total number of active ads in the zone minus N".

  • Ad selection methods

    DynAds Pro has 6 ad selection methods to support multiple ad selection.

    • Weighted random selection

      The ads are selected randomly with the selection probability equal to the normalized total weight of the ad. You can specify if you want duplicate ads in the resulting ad list or not.

    • Uniform random selection

      The ads are selected randomly while all ads have equal chance for selection. You can specify if you want duplicate ads in the resulting ad list or not.

    • Random slice selection

      The active ads in the zone are thought as a big virtual list in the order they appear in the database. Then a slice of ads is selected where the slice beginning is chosen randomly with equal probability. If you like, you can choose to have a circular slice.

    • Server side sequential slice selection

      This is like "random slice selection". This time, the slice beginning is chosen sequentially on the server. With every rotation request to the ad server, the next ad in the rotation is selected. You can specify how many ads to skip at every rotation request.

    • Browser side sequential slice selection

      This is like "random slice selection". But the slice beginning is chosen sequentially for each visitor. At every visit or ad refresh, the visitor sees the next slice of ads. You can specify the number of ads to skip at every ad refresh.

    • All of the active ads selection

      When you choose this option, all of the active ads in the zone are returned in the order they appear in the database.

  • List operations

    List operations are applied to the selected ad list to change the order of the ads in the list. You can apply the following list operations.

    • Randomize

      The positions of the ads in the list are randomly changed.

    • Circular shift

      The list of ads is shifted circularly by a random amount of positions.

    • Reverse

      The list is reversed such that the first ad becomes the last and the last ad becomes the first.

    • Reverse and Circular shift

      The list is first reversed and then circularly shifted randomly.

• Displaying unique random ads

  When using random ad selection methods, you can choose to display ads in random order while not displaying the same ad until all of the active ads in the zone are displayed to the visitor. This is very useful when you are using periodic auto-refreshing ads.

• Remote content retrieval (URL rotation)

  You do not have to enter the ad copy into DynAds Pro database. Instead you can write the ad content into a file accessible via HTTP and enter the URL of the file into the database. The rotation code will retrieve the ad content from the remote file location on the fly. For example, you can rotate your home page content (i.e. select one of several pages), by using a PHP or SSI rotation code.

• Periodic ad rotation

  In a zone, you can display the same ad for a specified time period. For example, you can rotate the ads daily displaying the same ad all day.

• Periodic auto-refreshing of ads

  When enabled, the rotation code refreshes the ads in regular intervals without refreshing the browser. The ads are pulled from DynAds Pro ad server on the fly. No programming is needed. You specify the refresh period in seconds and the refreshing method in the code generator. The software handles the rest.

• Target keywords

  By specifying the keywords in the rotation code, you can display only the ads of the related campaigns in the zone. If one of the keywords in the rotation code matches at least one keyword of a campaign in the zone, that campaign becomes eligible for rotation. Not matching campaigns in the zone are excluded from the rotation.

  • Static keywords

    If you know the target keywords before the rotation, you can enter them as a comma separated list in the code generator. Then, the code generator will embed the keywords in to the rotation code in a URL query variable named 'kw'.

  • Dynamic keywords

    If the keywords are obtained on the fly while the visitor is navigating your site such as making a search by entering some search terms, you can pass the dynamic keywords by re-writing the rotation code in your script displaying the requested page. Thus, you can display on the fly context sensitive ads.

  • Page specific meta tag keywords

    Now, DynAds Pro ad rotation code can detect the meta-tag keywords of the page they are on. Thus, by placing the same rotation code on different pages, you can easily display ads matching the content of your pages.

• Scrolling ads

  Vertical or horizontal scrollers are great ways to capture the attention of the web site visitors. The rotation code can scroll the ads that are selected for display. In the code generator, you can select the direction of the scroll: up, down, up and down, left, right, left and right. In addition, you can specify the scroll rate. No programming is needed. The rotation code handles all the work.

• Ad presentation options

  In the code generator, you can choose to display the rotated ads in a container. You can attach lots of presentation attributes to the container to make the ads more eye catching.

  • Container types

    You can select the type of the container. It can be a <DIV> tag, a <TABLE> cell, or a <SPAN> tag.

  • Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) properties

    You can shape the appearance of the container by assigning CSS properties. The code generator has fields for several most used CSS properties such as width, height, border, background color, margin and padding. If you like, you can assign more CSS properties in the syntax you would write when you assign to the STYLE attribute of the container tag directly.

  • Ad positioning

    You can position and align the ad container in any position in the document or window. The code generator offers various alignment and reference points. For example, you can align the center point of the ad container to the center of the window. Even if the window is re-sized, the ad always remains in the center of the window.

    • Auto-adjusting reference points

      25 reference points on the ad container box. Reference point is adjusted automatically even if the size of the ad changes.

    • Auto-adjusting alignment points

      The alignment point is the point where the reference point of the ad container is aligned to. The alignment point can be the default position of the ad in the document, the top-left point of the document, 9 points on the window ([left,center,right]x[top,center,bottom]) or the mouse pointer. The document based alignment points scrolls with the document. On the other hand, the window based alignment points does not scroll. They are fixed on the window.

    • Horizontal and vertical offsets

      You can enter horizontal and vertical offsets to adjust the position of the container box relative to the alignment point. The offsets can be negative as well.

    • Floating sticky ads (Fixed position ads)

      By using a window based alignment point, you can make the ad container to stay fixed in the assigned position even if the document is scrolled or the window is re-sized.

    • Ads that follow the mouse pointer

      In the code generator, if you choose the alignment point as the mouse pointer, then the ad container box will follow the mouse pointer.

    • Movable ads by drag and drop

      By selecting an option in the code generator, you can make your ad container be movable around the screen. Then, the visitor can drag and drop the ad container in any place he/she likes.

  • Scheduled actions

    One of the exciting features of DynAds Pro is the ability to define a series of timed actions on the ad container. The actions are put into a schedule where you specify what to do when. The time is specified in milliseconds and starts from the ad load time. There is no limit on the number of actions in a schedule. If you like, you can repeat the actions in the schedule indefinitely. Currently the following actions are defined.

    • Hide the ad

      This action makes the ad container invisible. If you define a hide action at time zero, the container becomes invisible by default.

    • Show the ad

      This action makes the ad container visible.

    • Move by

      This action moves the container by the specified amount of horizontal and vertical pixels from its current position. The move can be done animated or at one step. In case of animated move, you can choose the speed of the movement.

    • Go to

      This action moves the container to the specified horizontal and vertical coordinate. The move can be done animated or at one step. In case of animated move, you can choose the speed of the movement.

• Pop-up ad campaigns

  DynAds Pro has some unique features to rotate ads in pop windows.

  • Pop-up or pop-under campaigns

    You can select if the window should be opened as pop-up or pop-under.

  • Automatically fitting the size of the window to the content

    When you select this option, the rotation code automatically changes the size of the window to fit the dimension of its content. Thus you will be sure that, the ad content will not be masked by the window itself. This also means that you can make a pop-up campaign with different sized ads in the zone.

  • Pop-up blocker detection

    The rotation code can detect some type of pop-up blockers. If it does, it can display a message to the visitor.

  • Open the window after X seconds

    You can open the pop window after a certain time passed from the execution of the rotation code. This is a great feature if you want to display the ad only to visitors spending some time on your pages.

  • Open the window after the parent window loads

    You can delay the opening of the pop window until the parent page completely loaded.

  • Open the window after the parent document unloads (exit pop-up)

    You can choose to open the pop window when the parent document is unloaded or window is exited.

  • Show the window after X seconds

    You can hide the opened pop window for certain number of seconds you want. Use this feature to give time for loading the window content before showing it to the visitor.

  • Show the window after the window content loads

    You can hide the opened pop window until the page in the window loads completely. Use this feature to make sure that the window content is loaded completely before showing it to the visitor.

• Event recording

  By default, a record of every ad views (impressions) and ad clicks (if link tracking is enabled for the ad) is saved in the reports database. If you like, in the code generator you can disable the tracking of the views, the clicks or both.

Link redirection and tracking

• Static tracking URL

  It is possible to obtain the tracking URL in static form, a URL pointing to a static HTML document.

Link and form rotation and re-submission

• URL rotation

  The destination address of a link (form) is determined after the link (form) is clicked. The software will select the URL of one of the ads of the campaigns in the zone with one of the following methods as in the single ad selection scheme of content rotation.
  • Weighted random selection.
  • Uniform random selection.
  • Server side sequential selection.
  • Browser side sequential selection.

• Adding data to the destination URL

  The software can send all or part of the submitted incoming data to the destination URL.

• URL specific data

  You can specify specific variables for each URL for sending to destination.

• Re-submission by GET or POST request

  You can choose the type of the final re-submission to the selected URL. The re-submission type need not be the same with the incoming request type. Thus you can convert a GET (POST) request to a POST (GET).

Remote tracking

Reports and statistics

• Account summary reports

  Summary reports show a snapshot of an account. Administrator may generate reports of the total figures of all accounts.

  • Daily summary

    The total daily views and clicks of the account for the last X days.

  • Zone summary

    The total views and clicks of the account received from each zone.

  • Campaign summary

    The total views and clicks of the campaigns of the account.

  • Ad summary

    The total views and clicks of the ads of the account.

  • Category summary

    The total views and clicks of the ads of the categories of the account.

  • Ad type summary

    The total views and clicks of the ads of the ad types of the account.

• Log reports

  Users can see details of every event record. The following fields are available: time, type, zone, campaign, ad, category, ad type, IP, matching IP range (country), referrer, user agent and visitor id. You can display these fields in any order you like. The records can be sorted with respect to any fields.

• Count reports

  Count reports tabulates, in table or graphic form, the number of views, the number of clicks, and click through ratio of ads for user defined criteria.

  • Progress reports

    This type of reports displays the counts versus adjacent time slots. For example, you can report daily progress of a campaign in a given time interval.

  • Histogram reports

    These reports tabulate the distribution of view and click events over periodic time slots, such as counts versus days of week.

  • Other count reports

    The report generator is so general that you can report counts versus any criteria. For example, you can report counts of campaigns in each zone in a given time range.

• Visitor reports

  Visitor reports show the number of visitor transitions from one event to another event. For example, if you are tracking your pages, then you can report the number of visitors from one particular page or family of pages to the final sales page. For another example, by tracking the links in your advertisements such as banner ads or pay per click keywords and by tracking your sales confirmation page, you can report which banner or keyword brings you more sales.

• Purging event records

  You can selectively purge the saved records to free up disk space.

• Table or graphic presentation

  Most of the reports can be presented in table or bar graph form.

• Report e-mailing

  The reports can be sent to the owner via e-mail upon touch of a button.