I may have made mention of Cameron Mcneeley in another post.

(Verse 1)
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a tool for wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a beta phase
Given many a man some better rates
And I was ’round when other networks
Had their moments of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that all of them
Washed their hands and sealed their fate

(Chorus)
Pleased to meet you
Hope to break your chain
And what’s helping you
Is the nature of the exchange

(Verse 2)
I started out as Yield Manager
When I saw it was a time for a change
Called for openness and transparency
Closed networks screamed in vain
I served some ads
Highly optimized
as creatives learned
And the publishers earned

(Chorus)
Pleased to meet you
Hope you break your chain, oh yeah
Ah, what’s helping you
Is the nature of the exchange, oh yeah
(woo woo, woo woo)

(Verse 3)
I watched in fear
While shady networks
Fought for years
For the scams they made
(woo woo, woo woo)
I shouted out,
“Who killed the Daisy Chain?”
When after all
It was you and me
(who who, who who)
Let me please introduce myself
I’m a tool for wealth and taste
And I laid traps for click frauders
Who got shut down before they could load their page
(woo woo, who who)

(Chorus)
Pleased to meet you
Hope you break your chain, oh yeah
(who who)
Cause what’s helping you
Is the nature of the exchange, oh yeah, pull tags, baby
(who who, who who)
Pleased to meet you
Hope you broke your chain, oh yeah
Cause what’s helping you
Is just the nature of the exchange
(woo woo, who who)

(Verse 4)
Just as every impression should be revenue
devoid of PSA’s
As heads is tails
Just call me RMX
‘Cause the competition drives the rates
(who who, who who)
So if you join me
I’ll show you courtesy
I’ll show you tricks to raise your rates
(woo woo)
Use all your well-learned exchange techniques
to make those CPMs great, um yeah
(woo woo, woo woo)

(Chorus)
Pleased to meet you
Hope you broke your chain, um yeah
(who who)
But what’s helping you
Is the nature of the exchange, um mean it, pull tags baby
(woo woo, woo woo)

(Verse 5)
Woo, who
Oh yeah, get on down
Oh yeah
Oh yeah!
(woo woo)
Ask me baby, break that chain
Ask me honey, join the exchange
Ask me baby, break that chain
I tell you one time, this should be the way
Oh, who
woo, woo
Woo, who
Woo, woo
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Oh, yeah
Break that chain
Tell me, Tauseef, how’s your rates
Tell me, Cheatcodes, how’s your rates
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who
Woo, who, who

Oh, yeah

Woo woo

(Repeat and fade)

For some time now, ‘Daisy-chaining’ has been considered a common way to monetize the inventory on your site. This is when you would set-up a chain of networks where the top network takes all of your inventory, serves what it can or wants to serve, then defaults to the next network in your chain–where the process repeats. When you daisy-chain, you have to set a default network within each network of your chain to catch all default impressions.

As a publisher, it was your responsibility to find the right mix of networks that would fill as much of your inventory as possible, at the highest rates. If your chain of networks was not setup right, inventory went unsold and rates were less than optimal. What’s worse, when a ‘defaulting’ of ads happened, there was no guarantee that all those impressions would get transferred onto the next default network: technology differences and constraints can make them vanish.

Furthermore, you can only do so much work to hook-up with different networks to (more…)

Currently, networks or advertisers sign up publishers, send them ad tags, and watch for impressions to grow. As networks or advertisers, how can you ensure the quality of inventory you get? How do you make sure that your ads only show up on content that you have approved? How do you make sure that publishers will only place ad tags where they say they will? What if you knew the URLs from which ad requests were made so you could track where your inventory was coming from? What if you could analyze how much is coming from each of those URLs? That’s what Right Media’s validated URLs (vURLs) does for our networks and advertisers.

(more…)

Our clients have been asking for this, and with good reason. Loading several creatives in one sitting is an exhausting process:

Currently, for each creative, you need to provide us with the file or tag, enter a description, set the clickthrough URL, decide if you want it to pop up or under, choose a delivery priority, associate the creative with line items, etc. etc. etc… Then, you need to repeat that process for every creative that you’re working with, and try not to think about the fact that all of these properties must be selected for each creative individually.

Creative management should not be so painful.

Recognizing an opportunity to add efficiency to this otherwise tedious process, we’ve spent some time working out what we hope will be an elegant solution.

Enter Creative Manager (beta), a bulk creative uploader and editor that can define common properties for several creatives at once.

This new product goes to beta within the next few weeks. Contact your account manager for more information and to get on the list of beta users.

The RMX Direct Analyze tab tool is the place to find all the reporting functionality for RMX Direct. This is my favorite part of RMX Direct. I like it for the same reason that people love spreadsheets–it gives you the power to understand complex things, to control your environment better, and of course, to control your revenue.

Our RMX Direct team gets the least amount of negative feedback from this area. Our users dig it. And I think that’s because almost everybody understands it the first time they see it.

At first, it was really tough trying to decide between which features and functions to stock there: simplicity vs. power. I think we hit the right combination, though: it works for our uber ad gurus and our online advertising noobs. And we want it that way because we also see this product as a way to educate web users (publishers to be, bloggers, etc.) about how well online advertising can work for them.

So, with this in mind, I had a talk with Cameron McNeeley, our ‘Support’n and Report’n’ person. You may have seen his posts in the RMX Direct internal forum. One of our old timers, Cameron offered to share some of his tricks to get the most out of the ‘Analyze’ Tab.

Cam started out by saying the following:

‘’Vince, I guess it all boils down to each detail for me when trying to ‘analyze’–rather than just checking my totals. So, this being said, don’t forget the details…’

Now, I am guessing that you already know how to check how close you are to hitting your network minimums, right? If not try this out:

1. Select, ‘All Combined’ for URLs, ad sizes, and regions.
2. Select the individual ‘advertising network’ you want to check.
3. Under revenue, select ‘MTD by Day’ (month to date by day).
4. Then check your revenue total.

Cam posed and answered a few more:

Question 1: How do you pinpoint a source of a question you want to answer with your activity in RMX Direct?

Answer: ‘’Looking at an aggregate view of all of your data doesn’t give you a detailed sense of what is going on. Dial it down to the finest details, especially if you are trying to research something that doesn’t seem right. If you are getting PSA’s, try running by size and country and you will usually find out where there is low revenue traffic affecting you.'’

Question 2: Just analyzing your site’s traffic is complex. And your operations occur over time–they aren’t static. How do you get a better picture of all of this?

Answer: ‘’Think over time. Use the details we’ve already alluded to but then tweak the time variables. For example, invoke the ‘by hour’ reports with the other details chosen to see exactly how something is performing at different times of the day.'’

Question 3: Your site touches people all over the world. How do you optimize this?

Answer: ‘’Look at the details of the geography. They can help give you a strategy of what type of ‘manage’ placement you might need to fill the gaps that aren’t being filled. If you notice that you aren’t getting paid well in a certain geography, are there other networks that you can add to boost your placement there? ‘’

Question 4: Your site uses multiple sizes that get variable rates. How does one optimize this kind of variation?

Answer: ‘’Look at the details by size. Looking at things by advertisers will help you determine if you are getting a good balance between your linked networks and placements. Who’s getting most of your inventory? How can you add more competition to that one? Make use of the different sizes.”

If you’re an RMX Direct member and you have more ‘analyze’ questions, don’t hesitate to drop a line about it in our internal forums. And if you aren’t a member yet, you can always request an invite.