Account: An account in OpenX is an entity that owns various other entities (such as Campaigns, Creatives, Websites, Zones, Accounts, etc.). The Account’s type, or Realm, defines which entities are ‘owned’ by it, and therefore which entities it can perform various operations on.
An account can have one or more Users linked to it. However, even if a User is linked to more than one Account when logged into OpenX they can only be logged in as one Account-type at any one time. This is the current ‘Account User’.
There are four Account types: Admin, Manager, Advertiser, and Website.
There is only ever one Admin Account per OpenX installation (although more than one User can be linked to it if overall administration of the installation is to be shared).
Although officially a ‘Manager Account’, for ease of use in the User Interface this account type should simply be referred to as an ‘Account’, as this is the account type that users of OpenX will nearly always be using. Therefore, unless otherwise specified always assume references to an Account are referring to a Manager Account.
Account User: Refers to the currently logged-in User.
Beacon: A 1×1 pixel sized image placed on a Website to record activity, for example to track Impressions and to calculate Conversions.
Booked Clicks: The number of Clicks that have been booked to deliver for a Campaign.
Booked Conversions: The number of Conversions that have been booked to deliver for a Campaign.
Booked Impressions: The number of Impressions that have been booked to deliver for a Campaign.
Campaign (previously known as a ‘Placement’): A collection of related Creatives with common advertising purpose and booking requirements.
Campaign Weight: An integer weight value that provides a relative weighting of other Campaigns.
Category: A descriptive that refers to a subject covered by a Website/Creative, i.e. ‘monster trucks’ or ‘ecology’.
Click: The measure of the number of times a Creative has been clicked on after being displayed on a Website.
Conversion (may have sometimes previously been referred to as a Connection): The measure of the number of times that a Tracker has been displayed that has been successfully linked to a previous Creative Impression or Click, according to the Tracker’s rules.
Creative (previously known as ‘ad’, ‘banner’): An ad that should be displayed in a Zone on a Website. There are several types of Creative, which is why this term is used rather than the more specific ‘banner’ or ‘ad’. The description of actions to generate new Creatives in OpenX should be:
Upload Banner (with radio buttons to select Database, Local Directory or External FTP Server stores, as appropriate)
- Link to External Banner
- Insert HTML Creative
- Insert 3rd Party Tag
- Insert Text Creative
Creative Weight (previously known as ‘ad weight’, ‘banner weight’): An integer weight value that provides a relative weighting to other Creatives.
End Date (previously known as ‘expiration date’): The date a Campaign is scheduled to end.
Frequency Capping (previously known as ‘delivery capping’): The rules that define limitations on the number of times a Creative is shown to Viewers.
Impression (previously known as ‘view’): The measure of the number of times a Creative has been successfully displayed on a Website (compare with Request).
Keyword: A descriptive linked to a Creative that affects when and where it will be delivered.
Realm: The region of ‘ownership’ that an Account has.
Request: The measure of the number of times a Creative has been requested to be displayed on a Website (compare withImpression).
Start Date (previously known as ‘activation date’): The date a Campaign is scheduled to start.
Tag (previously known as ‘invocation code’, ‘invocation tag’; the ‘Same Domain Tag’ used to be ‘local mode tag’): The code that should be inserted into a Website to display Creatives. Possible Tag types include:
- Zone Tag
- iFrame Tag
- JavaScript Tag
- Interstitial or Floating DHTML Tag
- Image Tag
- No Cookie Tag
- Same Domain Tag
- Popup Tag
- XML-RPC Tag
- Website Tag
- Direct Selection Tag
Targeting Channel (previously known as Channel): A named collection of Targeting Criteria.
Targeting Criteria (previously known as ‘delivery limitation’, ‘ACL’): The rules that define how a Creative should be targeted for delivery to Viewers.
Tracker: A type of Beacon placed on Websites to determine when a Viewer has performed an action that should be tracked back to a previous Creative Impression or Click for the purpose of generating a Conversion.
User: Any person who uses the interface of an OpenX installation. A User has a username and password with which to logon to their OpenX installation.
A User is linked with one or more Accounts.
A User can only act as one Account User at a time.
If a User’s details are updated so that there are no longer any Account Users for that User, then the User will be deleted from OpenX.
Viewer: A person who views Creatives on Websites; a member of the target audience for Creatives.
Website (previously known as a ‘publisher’): A representation of a website in OpenX, containing all of the Zones for that site.
Zone: A representation of a location on a Website where Creatives should be displayed.
