Getting Started With OpenAds - Confessions From An OpenAds Newbie

Mark: I thought there was an option to not display the url in the browsers status bar, but I'm not seeing that option anymore. Maybe it's something they removed in one of the newer versions.

Great introduction to OpenAds. Keep us updated on your progress.

Ever since ShoeMoney raved about OpenAds I had wanted to look into it. I don't sell ads on my self-hosted blog, but I have a blogspot blog that makes decent AdSense money. I was thinking about selling ad space directly from it. If I understand you, I could install OpenAds on my own server and serve ads on a different site through it. Thanks for the tour and especially the link to the quickstart guide. You really saved people a lot of frustration and time with that.

PS - the zoom transitions in your video are kinda weird. I feel like I'm flying up your nose at a hundred miles an hour. ;-)

This seems like a newer, cleaner version of phpadsnew, which I've used in the past.

I haven't gone out of my way to sell ads outright to other publishers in a few years but most I dealt with didn't like me serving their ads on my sites with it. They wanted the hard-coded links, mostly to get the PR rank increase.

Nice video review. I have just written about Openads also, seems like there is some sort of viral openads thing going on at the moment.

nice video Mark. I will be checking out openads shortly (as soon as I get round to it!) I think this video will help me with the quick start guide etc.

cheers m8

Very interesting. Openads has been 'ad'ed to my to-do list. Great video, very informative :)

@avgjoe - "I thought there was an option to not display the url in the browsers status bar, but I'm not seeing that option anymore."

thanks for the tip avgjoe, I'm assuming you mean when I'm serving ads on multiple sites, to not show the location of my central server. I'll look into it.

@michaelmartine - LOL - flying up my nose is NOT the experience I was going for, I usually pick a transition at random, I'll try not to use that one again...

"I don't sell ads on my self-hosted blog"

You can use openads for stats on your OWN ads also ;-)

"If I understand you, I could install OpenAds on my own server and serve ads on a different site through it."

absolutely, in the video the "45n5 campaign" and the "tech site campaign" are showing ads for two different domains, but running from one central ad server

@Mike Panic - They have a half dozen options for the embedding code for the publisher, my guess is one of the options will show a hard coded link, I'm not %100, but I'm guessing the option is there.

@newsniche - the buzz is deserved and should be more, not sure why we haven't heard of it before.

@meilbeck - no problem and good luck with the install

@Matt Jones - good luck, you should enjoy it, let us know how it goes for you ;-)

Mark,

Thanks for the review. What do you think about the urls the OpenAds give you? Is there any room on modifying them to look more "eye appealing"?

@vlad - I haven't seen the option but I'll let you know if i do

> I'm not sure why nobody suggests for newbie publishers to at least look into what openads can do for them (and remember, it's FREE).

I've been pointing newbies to Openads for quite a while at http://blog.affiliatetip.com/affiliate-newbies/

It's a great program - I've been using it for affiliate campaigns for years, starting back when it was phpAdsNew.

@shawn - thanks

Hi Mark

Just wanted to say hello and thanks for the interesting post. I'd like to blog about why new affiliates might be interested in using Openads based on your posts.

I've asked Chris (one of the senior Openads devs) to comment on the URL issue. He knows that side of things inside out.

Finally, I appreciate the feedback on the documentation. The website is updated with a quick patch to make things a bit easier. We're working on an improved support section which should be live pretty soon too.

cheers, Oliver

There is a built-in feature to mask the destination URL displayed in the status bar, this feature is automatic in all invocation types that support it.

Basically anything that you enter into the "Status Text" field in the banner properties will attempt to set the browser status text to the value you enter.

It's important to note that newer browsers seem to be disabling this functionality :(

Thanks chris and oliver for the updates, I will check it out and notify the others that asked that you replied.