Which network is serving which ad?

[Westech]

When running a default chain of CPM networks across your website, how do you track down which network a particular ad is coming from? We've had several situations where inappropriate or PSA ads start showing and have had a very hard time figuring out where they're comming from.

The fact that many advertisers seem to serve their own creatives and that default chains go through several layers of javascript redirects makes it next to impossible to track down who's serving what. So far, if I can't track it down by information from the creative's URL I'm stuck having to go through each network's campaign list to try to find a name that *might* match the ad.

Has anyone found a better way?

[Chris]

Since it is often in an iframe you could try right clicking and view source or details to figure out the location. But like your other ways it isn't 100%.

[Westech]

Thanks, Chris. That works great! I didn't realize that viewing the frame source would show me the actual ad code after being evaluated through all of the layers of Javascript. I was viewing the main page source, which of course just showed me the ad code for the first network in the chain.

If anyone is wondering, in firefox it's right-click on ad, This Frame, view frame source.

I ran into a little trouble when trying to do this with Flash ads since the flash right-click menu comes up. I found that if you click right on the edge you can get the frame menu rather than the Flash menu. Using the FireFox web developer plugin and clicking on Outline -> Outline frames helps with this - Just right-click directly on the outline.

[Dan Morgan]

Multiple solutions here, depending on how the ad is being served.

iFrame works above, but if it is a javascript inplementation, then the web developers toolbar extension with Firefox allows you to Information -> Display Javascript gives valuable information about what a src= is actually doing.

Other methods like switching on live http headers and clicking away on the ads to see which ad network code is pinged to track clicks can help, although this is not always ordered in the way you expect so not 100%, but helps to narrow it down.

[Westech]

Can you elaborate on how to "switch on live http headers?"

[Dan Morgan]

http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/

(shortcut of Alt+L when installed)

[Westech]

All mozdev.org services will be unavailable from 0400 EDT / 0100 PDT Tuesday the 3rd while the servers undergo extensive maintenance.

[ Tuesday 3rd October 2006; 0900 UTC ]


Just my luck.

I'll be sure to check this out when they come back online. Thanks!