Adbar Management System - AMS

System Requirements

These are the technical specifications to run Radiation AMS version 2.1 on your Internet server. If you are unsure whether your web server meets these requirements, please contact your system administrator or send email to platforms@radiation.com.


 Any POSIX Compliant Unix platform compatible with BSD Unix. (Tested platforms include BSDi, IRIX, SunOS, Solaris and Linux) --or-- Windows NT/95 with a perl-friendly webserver.

 Web server support for Server Side Includes (SSI) in "exec cgi" and/or "exec cmd" mode.

 Support of referrer environment variables in SSI calls is highly recommended, but not required.

 Perl installation of at least Perl 5 or later (compiled with DBM support).


Radiation AMS does not require root access and can be installed in a shared server environment (such as individual directories of an Internet service provider).


Table of Contents

Section I - Installing AMS
Section II - List of files and directories
Section III - Editing AMS
Section IV - Beginning of User's Guide - The Basics
Section V - Building exec cgi tags                         
Section VI - Building exec cmd tags
Section VII - When to use cgi, when to use cmd
Section VIII - Using .htaccess
Section IX - Creating a new advertiser entry
Section X - Creating a new group entry
Section XI - Creating a new relation entry
Section XII - Saving time with defaults
Section XIII - Giving advertisers access to their statistics 
Section XIV - Examining traffic weighting with exposures
Section XV - Examining effectiveness with click-thru ratios
Section XVI - Double- and triple-weighting individual adbars                         
Section XVII - Serving multiple adbars per page
Section XVIII - Building refreshing adbars
Section XIX - Complex banners with HTML fragments
Section XX - Intelligent & random images
Section XXI - Remote serving of banners
Section XXII - Advanced techniques


UNIX Installation Guide

Section I.

Directions:

In order to install AMS you must have: telnet and FTP access to your webserver.

First you'll need to telnet into your server and go to the appropriate (CGI) directory where you FTP-ed the distribution archive.

To un-gzip the file, type the following command:

gzip -d [archive filename]

The file will now be un-gzipped and is ready to be untarred. To untar the file type the following command:

tar xvf ams-2.0c.tar

The file will now untar and create the appropriate directories while setting file permissions. You will also want to create an AMS sub-directory in a non-cgi in you web document area (for the image files used by the report generator).

We recommend taking a moment at this point to make sure the required directories and files were created (See section II). If for some reason they were not, please contact sales@radiation.com.

You are now ready to run the install program.

UNIX instructions

3 easy steps:

Step 1: Telnet into the appropriate directory.

note: The scripts in AMS are setup with the default perl location of /usr/local/bin/perl. If your perl resides elsewhere, you will have to edit the scripts. Please read the 'Editing AMS' guide (Section III).

Step 2: The installation program will prompt you for all of the needed information to complete the installation. Please be sure you know the following:


the location of your perl  for example: /usr/local/bin/perl

the location for a cgi directory to be setup (the installer will do the work for you once you tell it where to put the directory) example: /home/myaccount/public_html/cgi-bin/ams/

a url that corresponds with the cgi directory. Example: http://www.mydomain.com/cgi-bin/ams

a contact email address for whomever is administrating the AMS

a directory for images to be installed to. This must be a non-cgi directory. So an example might be: /home/myaccount/public_html/ams_images

a URL that corresponds with the images directory. Example: http://www.mydomain.com/ams_images


Step 3: run the install-UNIX program by entering the location of your perl, then install-UNIX.pl:

/usr/local/bin/perl install-UNIX.pl


The most common mistakes made during a UNIX installation are not knowing the proper location of perl, not having a writable db directory, and not properly giving the location of directories.  AMS requires a Perl5.002 or newer interpreter to function. To f
irst find your Perl interpreter use the command:

which perl

This will give you the location of the default perl interpreter. To
determine if this perl version is compatible, you can then type:

perl -v

This will display the version of perl you are using, make sure it is version 5.002 or newer.  If your default perl is not compatible, you will need to contact your system administrator to find a suitable perl version, if one exists on your system.

While the install program will handle setting the proper permissions, those performing the installation manually will have to make sure your ams_db directory is writable. The catch all is to set world writability by having the directory set to 777.

Remember that the location of directories is relative to your server root and will always start with a slash ("/").

You can troubleshoot the AMS installation with the Installation FAQ. If you run into further trouble, we first recommend contacting your system administrator with specific questions (e.g. the location of perl on your machine).

If you have questions regarding AMS itself (or the use of AMS), online support is available at: http://www.radiation.com/support/.


Section II.


UNIX - List of Directories and Files


Certain directories and files must be present in your untarred version of AMS in order for it to function properly. The list is as follows:

Directories:

ams under the cgi directory - holds the AMS scripts and most of the files.

ams_db in the ams directory - holds the dbs.

ams_image in the ams directory - holds the images used to display AMS.


Files:

ams-defs.pl - contains all of the needed global definitions for all of the scripts involved with the AMS system.

ams-utils.pl - Contains shared subroutines used by the AMS system.

ams_admin.cgi - The administrative control panel.

ams_init.pl - Initializataion routine used in pre-self-installer versions. More or less obsolete now, but can be used with a manual installation.

ams_shell.pl - The command-line version of the ams front-end - used for serving adbars from within a CGI file or for specifying particular rules.

ams_ssi.cgi - The SSI version of the front-end - used for serving adbars for normal web documents.

ams_stats.cgi - Shows statistics for how many times adbars have been displayed and clicked on.

change_admin.pl - Allows you to change the user name and password used to log into the administrator's control panel (ams_admin.cgi).

configure.tmpl - Template file used by the self-installation script for creating the shared defs file.

INSTALL - Instructions for installing AMS (same as README).

install-UNIX.pl - Installs AMS by prompting you for necessary configuration information, then moving files into the appropriate directories.

README - Instructions for installing AMS (same as INSTALL).




Section III.
Editing AMS's Script's


The scripts in AMS (for UNIX) are set up with the default perl location of /usr/local/bin/perl. If your perl resides elsewhere, you will have to edit the scripts. Please note that this should never be necessary for the Windows NT version (which relies upo
n the file association table to determine the location of your perl).

The scripts you'll need to edit are:

ams_admin.cgi (line 1)
ams_init.pl (line 1)
ams_shell.pl (line 1)
ams_ssi.cgi (line 1)
ams_stats.cgi (line 1)
change_admin.pl  (line 1)

You can perform the edits by using a UNIX text editor. A very common editor is pico, which is used (after telnetting to the AMS directory) by typing the word pico a space and then the filename. For example:

pico report.cgi

You will find the location on the line stated above (if for some reason your editor displays the lines differently, you are looking for /usr/local/bin/perl). Simply change it to whatever your actual location is, then save. In pico you save by exiting. Bef
ore pico actually closes, it will ask you if you want to save the changes you've made. Answer 'y' and hit enter. Repeat this process for all the scripts to be edited. Once you have done so, you can begin the installation.



USER'S GUIDE

Section IV.

The basics of AMS are easy to understand and to utilize. There are three quick steps to displaying a banner on, for example, your index page. First you will add an SSI tag to the html file for the index page. Next, upload that file and the ad to your serv
er. Then, using your admin panel, tell AMS you want to display that ad on your index page for x amount of exposures (or click-thrus). That's it, you're done. You can check in on the banner's performance with the reports panel.

The Details

Because AMS was designed to be flexible and meet a variety of needs, there are a few concepts that will help you get the most out of your ad management system.

Server-Side Include Tags

AMS makes use of server-side includes (SSI) to allow ad-bars to be inserted directly in your html page. To get the full functionality from your AMS, you will need to be able to use the following SSI tags (the actual location of your AMS installation may d
iffer):

<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/ams/ams_ssi.cgi" -->
<!--#exec cmd="/cgi-bin/ams/ams_ssi.cgi" -->

Essentially, SSI #exec tags allow CGI scripts to be invoked from an html tag contained in your web document. Because of the sensitive nature of CGI scripts, it is always a good idea to speak with your website's system administrator before attempting to us
e these tags. In fact, most website providers turn this feature off unless specifically requested; before attempting to use these tags make sure your site allows this and that SSI #exec tags are configured.  Turning on this feature may be as simple as pla
cing a .htaccess file in the root directory of your web site.

There's More to Know About SSI:


Building exec cgi tags
Building exec cmd tags
When to use cgi, when to use cmd


Loading the Ads

In order to keep load times down, we highly recommend you keep the banners you are displaying on the same server as your copy of AMS. One easy way to keep track of your ads is to create a directory for your advertisers and ftp their ads to that directory.
 When activating the ad via the administration panel you will be prompted for the location of the ads.

The Administration Panel

Once you've accessed the Administration panel (located at the base cgi location you defined with a /ams_admin.cgi extension) you will notice three distinct fields, Advertisers, Groups and Relations. You have the ability to either display, edit or remove t
he entries in each field. You also have the ability to add a new entry to each field.

Advertisers

Each banner is loaded into the system from the "Advertiser Control", where you can set the information specific to that adbar (including image size, alternative text, border size, frame targets, etc.). AMS also supports "HTML fragments" as advertiser entr
ies, allowing you to mix a banner network with individual clients or to display complex multi-element ads. You can also control the billing style for each adbar, limiting the run by start and end dates, maximum number of exposures and/or maximum number of
 click thrus.

Groups

Adbars can be organized into groups with the "Groups Control", allowing you to easily place collections of adbars rather than selecting each advertiser individually. Through creative assignment to groups, adbars can even be "weighted" to appear more often
 in a group than average.

Relations

The "Relations Control" allows you to associate advertisers and groups of advertisers to particular pages in your website. Relations can include rules that assign entire directories at a time, or utilize "NOT" constructs to exclude particular pages from t
hose rules. The result is a flexible assignment strategy minimizing the amount of configuration necessary.

Section V.

Building exec cgi Tags


The easiest method for inserting AMS adbars within your web documents is the use of the #exec cgi SSI tag.

Suppose you have AMS installed in the cgi-bin directory on your webserver. To add an AMS adbar in your document, you just need  to add the following SSI tag:


<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/ams_ssi.cgi"-->


The real beauty of the AMS system is that adbars may be placed anywhere  in your document!  For example, if you want to have your AMS adbars centered, simply use the following html excerpt:


<center>
<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/ams_ssi.cgi"-->
</center>


Section VI.

Users Guide - Building exec cmd Tags


The alternative method for invoking the AMS via an SSI tag also happens to be the more powerful and flexible approach. This method involves construction of an #exec cmd tag. This form of SSI tag is invoked similarly, but instead of using the relative url 
for the cgi-bin directory, it uses the absolute pathname for that directory. To illustrate, let's assume the cgi-bin directory has the absolute pathname /usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin, in which case the SSI tag used would be:


<!--#exec cmd="/usr/local/etc/httpd/
cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl"-->


One thing to note is that instead of the ams_ssi.cgi script we are using the shell version of the same program (ams_shell.pl). This version has been modified for use with the #exec cmd tag specifically.

The real power of using the #exec cmd version is that you can pass the RULE you want to use directly to the AMS system by way of a command line argument. Suppose you have a relation set up which uses the rule AD=USE_THIS_RELATION. You can instruct the AMS
 to use this relation directly by using the following SSI tag:


<!--#exec cmd="/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl AD=USE_THIS_RELATION"-->


In general, you pass the exact rule as the command line argument in your SSI tag, but this will only work with the shell form.



Section VII.

When to use cgi, when to use cmd


You will find that the #exec cgi SSI tag should suffice in most cases; having a relation setup which just uses the relative webpage location on your server will have the AMS match up directly with the page containing the SSI tag.

However, you may find that this does not work for your particular situation. The most common cause for this would be that your website is being "Virtually Hosted" by another website which has the AMS system installed. In a case like this, the relative pag
e urls may not match up directly, resulting in the need for the #exec cmd version to be used.

Another case where the #exec cmd version must be used would be when you want to have multiple AMS tags used on a single page, where each call must produce a unique adbar. Simply using the #exec cgi version in this case won't suffice because there is the p
ossibility that both calls will produce the same adbar. There is no way around that using this version. However, you can
use the shell version to accomplish this. To do this, you would create two relations, each with a unique set of ads that may be displayed. Each relation should then have a unique rule defined for it, and each AMS call should have one of the rules passed. 
For example suppose you have two relations set up, one using the rule AD=USE_RULE1 and the other using the rule AD=USE_RULE2. Adding the following tags will produce two unique adbars on this page:


<!--#exec cmd="/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl AD=USE_RULE1"-->



<!--#exec cmd="/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl AD=USE_RULE2"-->



Section VIII.

Using .htaccess


On NCSA and compatible web servers there is a file called .htaccess which (if configured) will allow the user to use SSI tags and CGI scripts to work on a directory by directory basis. A .htaccess file placed in the directory ./my_path/my_webdocs/my_dir/ 
will control the availability of SSI tags and CGI scripts for that directory and all of its subdirectories.

Before attempting to use of this you must check with your website provider to make sure .htaccess files are used by your system and that you are allowed to create them. On Netscape webservers and other non-NCSA compatible servers this will not work and on
ly your website administrator may turn on SSI functionality.

Assuming you can set a .htaccess file up in your directory, the following .htaccess file will allow your web documents to have SSI tags be parsed by the server:


Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .html


This .htaccess file instructs the webserver to parse all .html files for the presence of SSI tags.  Alternatively, your website provider may require that you setup a special file extension for using SSI parsed files. This is done mainly to keep the server
 load down and in many cases this will be the only allowed method for using SSI tags in your documents. If this is the case for your website, the following .htaccess file will accomplish this:


Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .shtml


Having done this, only those files with a .shtml filename extension will be parsed.

Section IX.


Creating A New Advertiser Entry


Overview
Radiation AMS is designed to make management of website adbars easy, even in a large website. The site administrator utilizes online, password-protected control panels to maintain advertisers' listings and assign adbars to sections of the website.


Advertisers
Each banner is loaded into the system from the "Advertiser Control", where you can set the information specific to that adbar (including image size, alternative text, border size, frame targets, etc.). AMS also supports "HTML fragments" as advertiser entr
ies, allowing you to mix a banner network with individual clients or to display complex multi-element ads. You can also control the billing style for each adbar, limiting the run by start and end dates, maximum number of exposures, and/or maximum number o
f click thrus.

Starting The Creation Of A New Advertiser Entry
After logging into the AMS Administration Control Panel, you'll see a section where you can "Add A New Entry" for either Advertiser, Group, or Relation.  To begin the creation of a new Advertiser entry, select the "Advertiser" radio box and enter a name f
or the entry in the text box.  Limit the name to just letters of the alphabet and numbers. Don't use any strange characters or spaces.  Once you've done that, press the "ADD" button.


On the page that comes up you'll see a form that you'll need to fill out to provide information about the adbar:

Toggle Button for adbar/html Fragment:
If your adbar is a .gif or .jpg file, select "Adbar".  If your adbar is an HTML fragment file, then select "HTML Fragment".  (See "Complex banners with HTML fragments" for more information on the uses of HTML fragment files).

URL For Ad-Bar (or) Relative URL For HTML Fragment:
If your adbar is a .gif or .jpg file, enter the absolute URL for it.  For example:

http://www.radiation.com/ads/my_adbar.gif

If your adbar is an HTML fragment file, then enter its relative URL.  For example:

/ads/my_adbar.htmlf

URL For Link:
Enter the absolute URL for the website you want the adbar to point to.  For example:

http://www.somewebsite.com/

Alt Tag:
Type in the message/phrase you would like used in the "alt" tag of the adbar.  (Note that this is completely unnecessary for HTML fragment adbars, and is optional for regular adbars).

Extra IMG Tag Information:
Type in whatever extra information you want to be included in the <img src=""> tag (such as border, height and width).  For example:

border=1 width=468 height=60

Billing Method:
If you are charging for the display of adbars on your website, you have a few options to choose from.  If you are charging "Per Exposure" you can set a limit to the number of times the adbar is displayed (once the number of exposures has been reached the 
adbar will no longer be displayed).  If you are charging "Per Click-Through" you can set a limit to the number of times the banner is clicked on (once the number of click-throughs you set has been reached the adbar will no longer be displayed).  "Flat Rat
e" should be used if you charge a flat fee for adding the adbar to your site, with control over start and stop time.  And finally, "No Charge" should be selected if you're not charging to add the adbar to your site.

Start Date:
If you want to have the adbar start on a certain day, you can select this to turn it on, and then enter the appropriate date.

End Date:
If you want the adbar to stop being displayed on a certain day, you can select this, then enter the appropriate date.

Submit Advertiser Entry
That's it!  Click the "Submit Advertiser Entry" button to create the advertiser entry.  Next you'll need to add the entry into a Group or a Relation so that the AMS system knows what pages/sections of your website you would like the adbar displayed.


Section X.


Creating A New Group Entry

Overview
Adbars can be organized into groups with the "Groups Control", allowing you to easily place collections of adbars rather than selecting each advertiser individually. Through creative assignment to groups, adbars can even be "weighted" to appear more often
 than average.

Starting The Creation Of A New Group Entry
After logging into the AMS Administration Control Panel, you'll see a section where you can "Add A New Entry" for either Advertiser, Group, or Relation.  To begin the creation of a new Group entry, select the "Group" radio box and enter a name for the ent
ry in the text box.  Limit the name to just letters of the alphabet and numbers, and don't use any strange characters or spaces.  Once you've done that, press the "ADD" button.


Selecting Banners To Be In The Group


On the next page that shows up, you will see a selection box listing all of your advertiser entries.  Select all of the advertisers you want to be in the group.

Windows users can select multiple advertisers by holding down the SHIFT key for entries right next to each other, or the CONTROL key for entries that aren't next to each other.

Macintosh users can select multiple advertisers by holding down the SHIFT key for entries right next to each other, or the COMMAND key (the key with the apple on it) for entries that aren't next to each other.

Once you've selected all of the adbars you want in the group, click on the "Create Group" button to submit the new entry.

Now that you have your new group, you can add it into a Relation so that the adbars you selected are displayed on certain pages/sections of your web site.



Section XI.

Creating A New Relation Entry

Overview
Using a Relation is how you specify what page or pages you want an adbar or group of adbars to be displayed on.  Relations are extremely flexible, allowing for any combination of adbars and groups to be displayed across any part of your web site.

Because AMS is so flexible, think first about what adbars you're going to want in what sections of your web site.  If you take the time to plan out a strategy and get everything set the way you want from the start, you can save yourself from doing more wo
rk in the future.

Starting The Creation Of A New Relation Entry
After logging into the AMS Administration Control Panel, you'll see a section where you can "Add A New Entry" for either Advertiser, Group, or Relation.  To begin the creation of a new Relation entry, select the "Relation" radio box and enter a name for t
he entry in the text box.  Limit the name to just letters of the alphabet and numbers, and don't use any strange characters or spaces.  Once you've done that, press the "ADD" button.


Selecting The Advertisers And Groups In The Relation


On the next page that shows up you will see a selection box listing all of your advertiser entries, and a selection box listing all of your group entries.  Select all of the adbars and groups of adbars you want to be in the relation.

Windows users can select multiple entries by holding down the SHIFT key for entries right next to each other, or the CONTROL key for entries that aren't next to each other.

Macintosh users can select multiple entries by holding down the SHIFT key for entries right next to each other, or the COMMAND key (the key with the apple on it) for entries that aren't next to each other.

Enter A List Of Page URLs
Entering page URLs allows you to display the selected adbars on specific pages of your web site.  For example, if you wanted to have the adbars displayed on the main page of your site, a news page, and a contact information page within an "about" subdirec
tory, you would enter the relative URLs for those three pages like this:


/index.html
/news.html
/about/contact_information.html


Enter A List Of Rules
There are a few different types of rules that can be entered in this section.  The most common use is to set all of the HTML files in an entire directory (and all of its subdirectories) to display the adbars.  If you wanted to display the same set of adba
rs across your entire site, you could just enter a "/" as the only rule.  Every page within your site (including within any subdirectories) would display whatever adbars and/or groups you have selected with the relation.  (Keep in mind that the HTML pages
 must have an #exec cgi or #exec cmd SSI tag to call AMS).

If you'd like to select specific directories instead of your entire site, simply enter the relative URLs of those directories.  For example:


/press_releases/
/store/specials/
/store/closeouts/


You can also use the command NOT to keep the adbars from being displayed on a specific page or pages within a directory.  For example, if you wanted to display the adbars in every page of your store except for the "specials" section, you could enter the f
ollowing:


/store/
NOT /store/specials/


Or, if your "specials" section was a single HTML page:


/store/
NOT /store/specials.html


The last type of rule is used in conjunction with the shell version of the AMS script.  If you call AMS using the #exec cmd SSI tag within a web page, you can specify a rule within that SSI tag:


<!--#exec cmd="/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl AD=USE_THIS_RELATION"-->


Then when you entered AD=USE_THIS_RELATION into the rules text box, any pages containing that SSI tag would display those adbars.  One common reason for using a rule like this is to serve multiple adbars per page

Note that if there is a page on your website that uses AMS which isn't included in any of your relations, it will display one of the adbars from the --Default-- group.  In fact, a popular strategy is to set the --Default-- group so that it has a number of
 adbars that you want displayed, then set up a relation that includes a few individual adbars, plus the default group.  This will give more exposure to the individual adbars you selected, but will also display the adbars in the default group.



Section XII.

Saving Time With Defaults


When you first install the Adbar Management System and add the appropriate #exec cgi or #exec cmd tag to your web pages, the adbars displayed will all be chosen from the group called "--Default--".  If you don't set up any relations that point to a partic
ular HTML page or directory, those pages will always display whatever adbars are listed in the "--Default--" group.

This makes for an easy way to get adbars up and running everywhere on your site quickly.  Simply add all of your adbars into the "--Default--" group, and only set up relations in special cases.

For example, if you wanted to give a certain advertiser exclusive exposure on the main page of your site, you would set up a relation named "Main_Page_Exclusive" or something similar, select just that one advertiser, then list the relative URL of the main
 page in the "Page URLs" section:

/index.html

Then the main page would show just that adbar, while the rest of the site would pick from everything listed in the "--Default--" group.

Giving Prominence to a Specific Adbar
You could also do something where you give prominence to a specific adbar, but also display the adbars from the "--Default--" group.  Set up a relation and select the adbar that you want to give prominence to from the advertiser list.  Then also select th
e "--Default--" group from the group list.  And, of course, add in a Page URL or Rule:

/index.html

Now the adbar that you are giving prominence to has a 50% chance of being displayed, and there is a 50% chance that the AMS will pick an adbar from the "--Default--" group.


Section XIII.

Giving Advertisers Access To Their Statistics


If you are using AMS to run adbars from other businesses, you can give them access to the ams_stats.cgi statistics panel by assigning them a special password.  By using the name of their advertiser entry as the "user name" and the password that you assign
 them, they can log into the statistics panel and see how well their adbar is doing.  They will not be able to access anyone else's information, or any other part of the AMS system.

To assign an advertiser a password, log into the ams_stats.cgi using the same username/password combination that you use to log into the administration panel (or you can log into the administration panel, then click on the link at the bottom that says "AM
S Statistics System").  The location of the ams_stats.cgi script is in the same directory as your administration panel, which in many cases will be:

/cgi-bin/ams/ams_stats.cgi




Once you've logged into the statistics panel, select the advertiser entry you'd like to assign a password to.  Make a note of the exact spelling of the entry as this is the user name that the advertiser will use when logging in (also note that uppercase a
nd lowercase letters DO matter).  Then click the "Set Access" button.

At the top of the next screen, there is a text entry box where you should enter the access password.  Do that, then click on the "Set Access" button.



Now you can test the username/password combination by logging into the ams_stats.cgi script again, this time using the advertisers username and password instead of your own.  You should see the adbar displayed, along with statistics for the number of expo
sures, click-throughs, and a percentage comparison of the two.


Section XIV.

Examining Traffic Weighting With Exposures


It's a good idea to run a comparison of how many times each adbar is being displayed.  You might find that an adbar isn't being very effective simply because it's not being shown nearly as much as other adbars.

To run this comparison, log into the AMS statistics panel (ams_stats.cgi) using the same username/password combination that you use to log into the administration panel (or you can log into the administration panel, then click on the link at the bottom th
at says "AMS Statistics System").  The location of the ams_stats.cgi script is in the same directory as your administration panel, which in many cases will be:

/cgi-bin/ams/ams_stats.cgi




Once logged in, you will see a panel that says "Advertiser Comparison".  Select "By Exposures" and click the "Show Comparison" button.  This will bring up a list of all advertiser entries, in order of the number of exposures for that month.  The adbar wit
h the most exposures is at the top.

If you have adbars that have been running for over a month, you can also look at the "Total" column to see how many times the adbar has been displayed overall.



If there is an adbar that you want to increase the number of exposures on, there are a few things you can do.  One is to add it into more groups or relations to have it displayed on more pages/sections of your site.  Another is to double or triple-weight 
the adbar.

You can also use the "By Exposures" comparison to weed old adbars out of your AMS system.  Any advertiser entries that show up as having "0" exposures for that month are most likely old ones that have been taken out of all groups and relations.  So, you c
an see which adbars are not being displayed at all and then make a decision on which ones you want to remove.



Section XV.

Examining Effectiveness With Click-Thru Ratios


With the AMS statistics panel, you can examine how effective your adbars are by comparing how many times a banner has been displayed to how many times it has been clicked on.  AMS automatically compares the two for you, with what's called a "click-through
 to exposure ratio".

To run this comparison, log into the ams_stats.cgi using the same username/password combination that you use to log into the administration panel (or you can log into the administration panel, then click on the link at the bottom that says "AMS Statistics
 System").  The location of the ams_stats.cgi script is in the same directory as your administration panel, which in many cases will be:

/cgi-bin/ams/ams_stats.cgi



Once logged in, you will see a panel that says "Advertiser Comparison".  If you select "By Exposures", the adbars will be listed in order of number of exposures.  If you select "By Click-Throughs", the adbars will be listed in order of the number of times
 each has been clicked on.  These statistics are good to know, but don't show the effectiveness of the adbar until you compare the two.  The last option, "By Click-Through to Exposure Ratio" does just that, gives you a comparison in percentages.

Select "By Click-Through to Exposure Ratio" and click on the "Show Comparison" button.  The adbars are displayed in order of percentage for that month, highest being at the top.  Once your adbars have been running for a while, you'll be able to get a good
 idea of how each one is doing.  If you have adbars that have been running for over a month, you can also look at the "Total" column to see how well they've done overall.


Try comparing what's different about the adbars that are doing really well to the ones that aren't.  You might be able to come up with some strategies for making adbars on your site more effective.  Here are some general tips that may help:


Keep banner bars small in file size. If it's too big, the banner might not completely load before the visitor clicks onto another page.

Using the word "Free" in the ad helps A LOT, people like getting free stuff, so if you've got something free to offer, go for it.

Using the phrase "Click Here" seems to help increase effectiveness.

Try making the adbar look like it's part of the site itself.  If it doesn't look like an adbar, and it says something like "Site Tip" on it, you might get more click-throughs.

Keep in mind the type of visitors to your site, and try to gear adbars towards them.  This can vary greatly from one website to another.


Section XVI.

Double- and Triple-Weighting Individual Adbars


Sometimes you might find that you want a certain adbar to be displayed more often than other adbars.  It's fairly simple to set up AMS to do this, and give the adbar either double the weight it had than before, or triple the weight.

Double-Weighting An Adbar
Say you have two advertisements running on the main page of your site, and you want the first adbar (we'll call it "sample_ad.gif" in this example) to be displayed more often than the second.  First, create a new Group using the AMS administration panel. 
 Select the "sample_ad.gif" adbar as the only member of the group, and create the group.  Once that's done, select the Relation that is controlling the two adbars on the main page.  The two adbars in the advertiser list should already be selected, and now
 you can also select the new group that you just created.  After you make those changes, the AMS will randomly pick from the two adbars in the advertiser list and that new group.  Before you double-weighted the adbar, there would have been a 50% chance th
at the first adbar was displayed (since there are only two different adbars in our example) Now, there is a 66% chance.

Triple-Weighting An Adbar
Triple-weighting an adbar is basically the same process shown in the above example.  Now we'll just need to create a second new Group with the "sample_ad.gif" adbar as the only member.  Then, in our Relation, we'll select both of the adbars in the "advert
iser list", and both of our groups in the "groups list" that contain "sample_ad.gif".  The AMS will now be picking from one of four entries, giving the first adbar a 75% chance of being displayed.



Section XVII.

Serving Multiple Adbars Per Page


If you'd like to display more than one adbar per page, you should use the #exec cmd version of the SSI call so that each produces a unique adbar.  Using the  #exec cgi version won't suffice because there is the possibility that both calls will produce the
 same adbar. There is no way around that using #exec cgi.

However, you can use the shell version to accomplish what you want. To do this you would create two relations, each with a unique set of ads that may be displayed. Each relation should then have a unique rule defined for it, and each AMS call should have 
one of the rules passed. For example suppose you have two relations setup, one using the rule AD=USE_RULE1 and the other using the rule AD=USE_RULE2, each with different adbars selected as shown in the images below:


AD=USE_RULE1


AD=USE_RULE2


Now simply add the following tags to your web pages, and each will display a unique adbar:


<!--#exec cmd="/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl AD=USE_RULE1"-->



<!--#exec cmd="/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl AD=USE_RULE2"-->


Section XVIII.


Building Refreshing Adbars


You can set up your website using frames to have your adbars automatically reload every so often, making it so a new adbar will be displayed on each reload.  Just make one of the frames about the size of an adbar, and in the HTML page for that frame, just
 put the standard AMS #exec cgi or #exec cmd call.  Then to get the frame to automatically reload, you'll need to put in a META refresh tag like this:


<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="60; URL=ad_frame.html">


The CONTENT="60 part of the refresh tag is the time in seconds until the HTML page reloads.  Since this one is set to 60 seconds, the frame would reload once every minute.  The URL=ad_frame.html is the name of the HTML page that you want it to load. In th
is case you want it to reload the same HTML page containing the AMS adbar call.  The full HTML page contained in that adbar frame might be something like this:


<html>
<head>
<title>Ad Frame</title>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="60; URL=ad_frame.html">
</head>

<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">

<center>
<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/ams/ams_ssi.cgi" --><br>
</center>

</body>
</html>


If you've never worked with frames in HTML before, try one of the tutorials on WebMonkey.


Section XIX.

Complex Banners With HTML Fragments


By using an HTML fragment instead of a standard .gif or .jpg image as an adbar entry in AMS, you can create some complex banners consisting of multiple images, tables, forms, Shockwave Flash, Java, or other media types.  Creating an advertiser entry for a
n HTML fragment is similar to creating one for a regular image, with a couple of small exceptions.  In the "Advertiser Controls", you'll need to select the "HTML Fragment" toggle button.  Then enter the relative URL for the HTML fragment file where it say
s "URL For Ad-Bar (or) Relative URL For HTML Fragment:", such as this:

/ads/samplead.htmlf

The sections for "URL For Link:", "Alt Tag:" and "Extra IMG Tag Information:" are only pertinent to regular adbars, so you can leave those blank and fill out the billing information and set a start and end date if you like.


Now that you've got your AMS entry made, you can make the HTML fragment and upload it to your server.  In our simple example ad "samplead.htmlf" we'll have two images like this:


<A HREF="http://www.some_web_site.com/"><img src="http://www.radiation.com/ads/sample_part1.gif" width=78 height=70 border=0><img src="http://www.radiation.com/ads/sample_part2.gif" width=316 height=70 border=0></a>


Of course, that's just a simple example.  Really the HTML fragment could contain just about anything you'd want to put on a web page.


Section XX.

Intelligent And Random Images


The use of HTML fragment files as adbars introduces new possibilities for "smart adbars."  At it's simplest level, you could have the adbar link to a random image .cgi script, so that the adbar was giving out a few different versions of the same ad.  Or y
ou could have a text phrase or a form randomized to create some variety.

You could even create an adbar which links to a .cgi script that determines something about the person clicking on the ad:  what web browser they're using, what computer platform they're using, what country they're connected from, or a number of other thi
ngs.  Then you could base the adbar around that.  For example, if they are a Windows user, you could try to sell them the Windows version of a software product, or if they're a Mac user you could try to sell them the Mac version.  The possibilities are li
mitless.


Section XXI.

Remote serving of banners


The Basic Concept Of Remote Serving
AMS is capable of serving adbars on remote web sites.  If you run two or three (or more) web sites on different servers, you can use AMS to control the displaying of adbars on all of them.  It will also keep track of the exposures and click-throughs of th
e banner bars from any of those sites.

Please note that this is an advanced technique, and you should be familiar with the AMS system before attempting to implement this feature.


How To Implement Remote Serving

Setting up the other web servers:
There are two scripts that must be installed on the other servers (the servers that don't have AMS):

ams_remote.pl and spider.pl

If you're using the UNIX version of AMS (not WindowsNT), make sure that the permissions of these two files are set to executable.  You can do so by typing the following in your command line:

chmod 755 ams_remote.pl
chmod 755 spider.pl

In your web pages, there is a special tag to use instead of the usual AMS SSI call.  This tag calls the "ams_remote.pl" script installed on that server:

<!--#exec cmd="/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_remote.pl RULE=USE_THIS_RELATION"-->

The "USE_THIS_RELATION" can be changed to whatever text you want to use.  When the script is executed it passes that rule to the second script "spider.pl", which in turn contacts the server that has the AMS software installed.  The AMS system then decides
 which banner bar should be displayed based upon the rule it was given, and sends that information back to the originating web server.

Of course, before this can work, you must set it up in your AMS Admin Panel:

Setting up remote serving in your AMS Admin Panel:
To serve adbars on a remote website, you'll need to create a new relation in the AMS Admin panel.  In this relation, you'll put the same text you added to your <font face="Courier">exec cmd</font> tags like "RULE=USE_THIS_RELATION".  This text should go i
nto the "Rules" box exactly as it is in your tag "RULE=USE_THIS_RELATION".

Keep in mind that AMS is very flexible.  You could set up different relations for each of the web sites that you're running banners on by setting up different rules for each of the web sites.  You could get even more specific and create relations for part
icular pages/directories on each web site.



Section XXII.

Advanced Techniques

Utilizing the shell version
Integrating with CGI applications
Integrating with HyperThread

Like any program existing on our website, the AMS can be used within other Perl-based CGI scripts via backtick execution.

Utilizing the shell version
Integrating the AMS with other CGI scripts involves the use of the shell-based AMS (ams_shell.pl), the ams_ssi.cgi program will not work in most cases, and  it is generally advised to use the shell version only.

Integrating with CGI applications
Suppose you have your AMS installed in the same absolute pathname used
in the above examples (/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl) and
also assume your Perl interpreter is installed as /usr/local/bin/perl.

The following Perl code excerpt will call your AMS and return the html containing the adbar and its associated website link, then print it back to the web browser.


$perl = "/usr/local/bin/perl";
$ams = "/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl";

$ams_html = `$perl $ams`;

print $ams_html;


Using the AMS in this fashion allows your script to be easily modified, simply substitute the proper perl location and AMS location in the defined variables. As with the SSI based version, you can display the returned adbar html source displayed as you li
ke. Just add the necessary html tags to the text you print to the web browser.

Explicit rules can also be used with this implementation exactly as they were used with the #exec cmd examples above. For example, to use the rule AD=USE_THIS_RELATION use the following:


$perl = "/usr/local/bin/perl";
$ams = "/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell.pl";
$rule = "AD=USE_THIS_RELATION";

$ams_html = `$perl $ams $rule`;

print $ams_html;


Integrating with HyperThread
Your AMS system may also be integrated with the latest version of
the Radiation Hyperthread.  A special "CALL" tag has been created for accomplishing this.

To use the CALL tag you simply add it to your template.html
Hyperhread template file (See your Hyperthread Documentation). The CALL tag is formated as follows (assuming the perl and AMS locations used in above examples hold true):


<!--CALL shell="/usr/local/bin/perl /usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell"-->


As with the #exec cmd SSI tag illustrated above, you may also pass specific rules to the AMS using the CALL tag. Suppose, for example, that you have a relation defined for use with your Hyperthread, and that this relation uses the rule AD=USE_DISCUSS. The
 following CALL tag will invoke your AMS to produce the desired adbar for the discussion system:


<!--CALL shell="/usr/local/bin/perl /usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/ams_shell AD=USE_DISCUSS"-->


Notes: (1) Be sure to construct the CALL tag so that the whole tag is placed on just one line. Your web browser might be displaying the above CALL tag examples wth line breaks; however, the entire tag must be placed on a single line. (2) You can use any r
ule names you like with your system. For consistency we have used all rules with the 'AD=etc' format, but you need not stick to this convention.





