ZestADZ – Mobile Advertising Blog

ZestADZ Analytics is an upcoming mobile analytics solution by ZestADZ targeted at both publishers and advertisers. ZestADZ Analytics enabling them to extract  deep insights enabling them to take better business decisions.

As we put forth in one of our recent blogs,  there are many instances where advertisers and publishers request for more data such as how many unique visitors saw the campaign, what kind of devices are accessing them and so forth. Based on these market requirements we have built an extensive mobile analytics solution that complements our ad network – ZestADZ. ZestADZ Analytics comes at no additional charge to both advertisers and publishers.

A Preview of information and features that ZestADZ Analytics provides -

For Advertisers

ZestADZ Analytics gives information such as

• Visitor tracking
• Popular Handsets
• Popular Handset Supported Properties
• Detailed Ad-wise Performance
• Geo statistics
• Carrier-wise break down of traffic

Using ZestADZ Analytics, advertisers will be able to make better decisions on their campaigns such as

• Tune landing pages to suit incoming traffic
• Optimize campaign and creatives to the amount of incoming visitors
• Optimize campaigns based on handsets / manufacturers and features  that are popular
• Understand what carriers are delivering better quality traffic

Advertisers cannot yet measure download tracking or ROI but these are key features we will be adding in near future.

For Publishers

ZestADZ Analytics gives information such as

• Visitor tracking
• Traffic delivered
• Popular Handset Manufacturers
• Popular Handset Supported Properties
• Geo statistics
• Region wise breakdown of traffic
• Carrier break down of traffic

Using Analytics, publishers will be able to

• Track web / mobile apps in a single interface
• Get important statistics  in a single console
• Optimize / select ads based on available handset / carrier / location data and reject non performing or non relevant ads

Presentations

Online presentations and screenshots are available at the advertiser link and publisher link respectively.

So how can you start using analytics?

ZestADZ Analytics is currently in private beta and if you would like to try it, please get in touch with us by writing an email to analytics [at] zestadz.com or by requesting an invite at http://analytics.zestadz.com

Existing advertisers and publishers – You will get an invite soon to start using mobile analytics.

Thank you and please send us your feedback.

ZestADZ Engineering Team

We have made further upgrades to our site install code and this time there has been key functionality added to enhance user tracking. Though this functionality in the API is still in its early days and there are other ways in which we track users, this upgrade will essentially help deliver better ROI for publishers as advertisers are willing to pay for better metrics and results.

This is an important enhancement  but ZestADZ is completely backward compatible with the previous code. So you can choose to upgrade or choose to remain with your existing site install code.

We would however would strongly recommend you going in for an upgrade of the site install code.

If there are any questions, write to us at support [at] zestadz.com

We have been doing a number of user experience upgrades which we believe will will enhance your mobile advertising experience. A number of them have gone live.

#1 Dashboard

The post login home page has been replaced by a simple dashboard that provides a review of the current campaigns or ad clients. You can directly click on them to go to the reports section

#2 Publisher payments summaries

The top right publisher payments notification was confusing to a few of our publishers who thought their previous amounts vanished at the end of each month. That has been updated with the publisher payments – current and pending payments visible on the top right corner of the screen

#3 Ajax driven search in forms

Simple feature that helps users search in large data sets. This will be extremely useful for advertisers who are managing large number of campaigns.

#4 More usable forms

Most forms have been updated to make them simple and more usable

#5 Improved Approve Ads Screen

This screen has been updated to deliver the list of ads and allow for easy approval or rejection of ads.

Recently AARP launched a campaign countering negative public opinion in the states about the health care reform as proposed by President Obama.  “To be clear: AARP has not endorsed any comprehensive health care reform bill — but we are fighting for a solution that improves health care for our members,” the group’s CEO, Barry Rand, and president, Jennie Chin Hansen, wrote to members on Tuesday.

Subsequently, a few days later President Obama also revealed his clear message with a $900 billion  plan to fix health care.

We think that a mobile advertising component to the AARP’s campaign would be a great medium for AARP and the government to clarify its position to the general public. Though it may not be a tool that can bring drastic change, it can through its reach and ubiquity, educate the general public about the misconceptions about the government’s stand on health care reform.

Here are our suggested set of simple steps for a mobile advertising campaign that can help the tide turn in the government’s favour

a) Launch a simple mobile site with FAQs on the health care bill.

b) Promote the mobile site focusing on unique visitor clicks with maximum coverage

c) Send out SMS Alerts to general public about specific myths to users on regular intervals

d) Enable social media / SMS based sharing of links

e) Enable SMS Alerts campaigns to those registered users

h) Launch a search enabled iPhone App with FAQs. Promote it the same way the Mobile site was promoted.

We have upgraded our campaign screens to enable levels of targeting. Advertisers can now launch mobile  campaigns by additionally targeting

• Specific Device Targeting – Choose a single or multiple devices by device names from one or many manufacturers.
• Device Property and Device OS Level Targeting

With these enhancements it is now possible to reach a specific set of users  you can now execute the following use cases in your mobile advertising campaigns

• Target users of a specific OS such as Symbian.
• Target specific Java platforms
• Launch a campaign that focuses on specific handsets in Nokia [Say E71] and Video capabilities
• Mix all the above scenarios together with Carrier / Country based targeting

If you have any further questions – please contact us at support [at] zestadz.com

Engineering Team

This was on a publisher wish list for quite some time – the ability to get multiple ads from ZestADZ in a single request to speed up their page loading times. This feature has now gone live.

To get multiple ads, go to site install code and select multiple ads. Copy the code and follow the comments to paste different ads in different parts of your mobile site.  

Getting Multiple Ads as XML

You can directly use the ad request URL of ZestADZ and get ad responses as XML. This is useful for integrating with mobile apps or in some cases mobile sites. We previewed this feature earlier in the blog for a single XML Ad.

Now you can make a similar request and get more than 1 ads i.e. up to 5 ads in a single request as XML. Here is the sample Request URL

http://a.zestadz.com/multiple_ad?ua=NokiaN70/%205.0741.4.0.1%20Series60/2.8%20Profile/MIDP-2.0%20Configuration/CLDC-.1&ip=122.165.32.211&cid=14131C047A50414347574B574153415E8C&recs=5

Parameters

• recs – this could be a maxiumum of 5
• response_type – could be text or xml
• cid – your mobile site or app client id
• url – URL Encoded url from where the request has been made
• ua – URL Encoded User Agent string of the phone from where the request has been made
• ip – the client ip from where the request has been made

Sample Response

Please note:

The URL in response – must not be URL Encoded again.

We hope that this feature will be useful for you. If there are any questions or comments or issues relating to implementation, please contact us at support [at] zestadz.com

ZestADZ Engineering Team

Qeep – a fast growing mobile community based in Germany and operating globally, especially in key markets like South Africa, US, India etc today signed an exclusive deal with ZestADZ to monetize their mobile inventory.

Qeep was named amongst the top 20 downloaded apps from the getjar app store in July 2009 – http://www.intomobile.com/2009/08/17/top-20-mobile-apps-from-getjar.html

Qeep and ZestADZ have been working together for the past year and our efforts in better results in monetizing their mobile app inventory has lead to this partnership.

Read the press release here – http://www.gomonews.com/qeep-partners-with-zestadz-for-mobile-advertising-signs-an-exclusive-deal-with-zestadz/

We just added a nifty little feature that enables publishers to extract the list of ads as an XML feed. Go to http://www.zestadz.com/static/xml_cpc_feed to read more. Here’s a sample of the generated feed.

In our last blog entry, we had written about new features and upgrades available as a part of the upgraded version of ZestADZ. Based on suggestions received, we have chosen to elaborate on how to use one of the new features – AD Control for Publishers.

AD Approval Policies

One thing which is on the top of the wish list for any publisher is complete control – control over the ads that he serves on his site/app. We have now added this feature to ZestADZ. Given below is a run-through on the use of this feature…

Once a publisher registers and creates his site on ZestADZ, it is taken through an approval process. Although the user can start publishing ads by choosing “Auto approval” mode for ads, they won’t be able to see the ADs in the AD control tool. This is an important option that a publisher has to decide [can be changed later] while registering the site with ZestADZ.

Approval modes

Through the review, if a site has been reviwed and if no objectionable content is found, the Site is approved in about 24 hours. A site that has been “Approved” by the administrator will enable the review of ADs by the publisher in the AD control console. The publisher can then choose to approve or reject ADs based on the creatives that are shown there.

Picture: AD Control Screen with a Site that has not been approved yet.

If you do not want to wait for the Site Approval to start publishing the ADs, choose “Auto Approval” mode so that you can start publishing ADs rightaway but don’t mind the fact that you will not be able to review and reject the ADs.

Filtering ADs in the Auto Approval Mode

Using this feature, all the active ads are automatically allotted to your network unless you chose to explicitly reject the ads.

Choose the ads, you wish to reject, by selecting the ads and clicking on the ‘Reject’ button, in which case they are removed from your site/app.

Picture: Sample AD list screen in the AD Control Tool

Manual Approval Mode

In the manual approval mode, the publisher site will display ADs which have been approved by the publisher. If you have chosen manual approval, please ensure that you have approved ADs to display otherwise your inventory will remain unutilized. Reject ADs which are not suitable for your content.

Email Alerts

For your convenience, we have also added daily email alerts which will send out those list of ADs automatically approved or available for approval for your sites for you to be able to review and decide on a daily basis.

We believe that this feature can be extremely useful for publishers who want to have better control over the ADs. Remember, the ADs you choose influence your earnings, so make sure that you do what is right for your traffic. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact support [at] ZestADZ dot com

We would like to announce the rollout of a major upgrade of ZestADZ (v 1.5). This version contains major functionality and feature enhancements built with feedback from our partners – advertisers and publishers. Access the updated version of  ZestADZ (1.5 ) at http://beta.zestadz.com

Listed below is what you can expect of the new and upgraded version of ZestADZ.

Publisher Upgrades

• Simpler, Better Interface. Easier Integration – Sites/Apps can now be integrated easily through a single copy/paste of the API. There is no need to modify and site ids, as it is taken care of by the platform itself.
  
• The USD ($) has been adopted as a standard currency and all billing and reports would be available in the same, which means, that publishers across the globe can expect their payments and other transactions in USD.
  
• The much awaited ad approval tool is now in place, and publishers can approve/reject ads that they want to serve on their apps/sites.
  
• Better AD Delivery Performance.
  
• Earnings can be transferred in a single click to generate funds for advertising on the ZestADZ ad network.
  
• Our system ensures that publishers receive notification emails during most important events.
• Unified account for advertisers and publishers.
  

Advertiser Upgrades

• Simplified user interface, easier campaign creation.
  
• The USD ($) has been adopted as a standard currency
  
• Channel wise targeting and bidding replaces demographic targeting. You can bid in over 25 different channels individually.
  
• Our system ensures that advertisers receive notification emails on every important issue, such as account balance notification etc.

Advertisers and publishers will receive email communication about the migration of their existing accounts. The transition process will be completed in the next few days. We hope for a better and much more satisfied user experience form our partners, and any feedback / suggestions are welcome at support [at] zestadz.com