Linny (pre alpha)

A light-weight and simple micro ad server

Linny is a light weight and simple micro ad server that is designed to serve one web display ad or campaign. It can measure simple but important statistics, such as views and conversion via click-throughs.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Principles
• Prerequisites
• Getting Started
  • Quick Start
  • Ad Folder Structure
• Linny Commands
• Server Configuration
• Ad Development
  • Internal Resources References
  • Click-through Links with Tracking
  • Conversion Tagging
• Metrics and Data
  • Database Structure
• Display Ad Development Tutorials
  • Building a Single Medium Rectangle (300x250) Display Ad
  • Building a Display Ad Campaign
• Deploying to Production
  • Upstart script
• About
• Copyright and Licence

Features

• Serves one ad or ad campaign
• Measures ad views and click-throughs
• Measures any number of conversions on any number of pages
• Simple click-through link tagging and generation
• Simple link resolution templating

Principles

The following are guiding principles used to design and build this system.

1. It should be light weight (less than 10MB).
2. It should be fast (a response time of less than 200ms).
3. It must be able to serve 1,000 ads per second on a server with 1GB of RAM and 1 Core.
4. It is designed to only serve one web display ad or ad campaign (a group of ads of related ads).
5. It should be quick to configure and deploy (~10 minuites)

Prerequisites

1. A server with a recent copy of Linux installed
2. GoLang installed and configured

Getting Started

When you have the perquisites in place you can follow the steps below to get the ad server running.

1. Download the latest copy of Linny
   • go get github.com/SimonChong/Linny
2. Run Linny
   • linny -serve

Quick Start

1. Create a new directory mkdir adServer
2. Run the linny initialization command linny -init (this will create all the necessary files)
3. Run the linny server linny -serve
4. Open your browser and go to localhost:8000
5. Modify and add files until your creative is ready

Ad Folder Structure

• Server Config

  • configLinny.json (configures the server and where the ad directory)

• Ad Directory

  • configAd.json (the ad configuration)
  • assets (directory for all creative code)
    • index.html (default html file)
  • header.frag (the header prepended to all HTML files)
  • footer.frag (the footer appended to all HTML files)

Linny Commands

Ad server

Start the linny ad server:

linny -serve

linny -serve -bind=":8000"

Development

Create a new server directory with example ad directory

linny -init

Packaging your Ad

Your can package your ad so that you can send it via email or sftp

linny -pack

To unpack your ad just use the following command

linny -unpack

Server Configuration

There are two configurations required to serve ads, a server configuration and an ad configuration.

Server Configuration

The file name configLinny.json in the current working directory configures the server.

{
    "ContentRoot": "./exampleCampaign"
}

• ContentRoot is the directory of the ad or campaign exists

Ad Configuration

This configuration file is specific to the ad or campaign itself.

{
	"Id" : "ABC123",
	"Name": "Example Campaign",
	"HeaderFrag" : "header.frag",
	"FooterFrag" : "footer.frag"
}

• Id is a string that uniquely identifying the ad or campaign
• Name the name of the ad or campaign (should not be longer than 255 characters)
• HeaderFrag location of the header html fragment that wraps all HTML files
• FooterFrag location of the footer html fragment that wraps all HTML files

Ad Development

The following tools are available only within HTML files.

Internal Resources References

Ad creatives usually rely on loading a number of assets and resources. To ensure they resolve to the correct address, absolute urls are generated using the following syntax.

• Single quotes and double quotes are supported.
• "ilk" stands for Internal Link

{{ilk "someAsset.png" }}

Example usage inside your HTML ad:

<script src="{{ilk 'someAsset.js'}}"></script>

Click-through Links with Tracking

To track when users click on an ad you can use the following code to track the clicks. Appropriate conversion attribution can be tracked as per the conversion tagging section.

• Single quotes and double quotes are supported.
• "mlk" stands for Metrics Link

{{mlk "http://www.testURL.com" tag="testTAG"}}

Example usage inside you HTML ad:

<a href='{{mlk "http://www.testURL.com" tag="testTAG"}}'>Link</a>

Conversion Tagging

This helps you track the effectiveness of your ad. After a user clicks on the ad (using an MLK link), you can track if user bought something or did something by adding or triggering the following script on a page.

<script>
var s = document.createElement("script");
s.src = "//localhost:8000/m/c.js?t=YOURTAG";
document.body.appendChild(s);
</script>

• Replace "YOURTAG" with a label describing the conversion
  • Tags are limited to 64 characters in length
• Replace "localhost:8000" with the domain of your ad server
• Using different tags will allow you to track multiple conversions

Example:

If you host an ad to sell something, putting this script on the thank you page after someone buys something will allow you to see how many people bought something after clicking on the ad i.e the conversion rate.

Metrics and Data

All data is inserted into an SQLLite database file called "insights.db". The file is located in your AdServer directory, the same directory as the configLinny.json file.

To access it you will need a program to read SQLLite database files such as "SQLLite Manager" for Firefox.

Database Structure

There are 4 database tables:

• AdViews - Contains all occurrences of when an Ad was viewed. Measured using a standard analytics pixel.
• AdDownloads - Contains all occurrences of when an Ad was downloaded. Measured from the server and is counted when an asset is downloaded.
• AdConversion - Contains all occurrences of a conversion. Measured using a pixel and a cookie.
• AdClickThroughs - Contains all occurrences of when a user clicks on a tracked link. Measured using a server side redirect.

Display Ad Development Tutorials

Building a Single Medium Rectangle (300x250) Display Ad

1. Install Linny
2. Create a folder called "MedRecAdServer"
3. Run "linny -init" this will initialize and create a blank ad
4. Edit the "index.html" file in MedRecAdServer/newAdDir/assets with your favorite text editor.
5. Add code until it looks like the following

<style type="text/css">
body {
    font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
}

#mr {
    display: block;
    width: 300px;
    height: 250px;
    color: white;
    background-color: black;
    margin: 0 auto;
}

.title {
    text-align: center;
    font-size: 40px;
    padding: 15px;
}
</style>
<div id="mr">
    <div class="title">
        Medium Rectangle 300x250
    </div>
</div>

6. Run linny -serve

7. Open our browser and go to localhost:8000

8. Embedding it into a publisher's site can be done using an iframe as per the below code. This also works with other Ad Servers such as Double Click for Publishers.

<iframe src="//YOUR_DOMAIN/"></iframe>

Building a Display Ad Campaign

1. Install Linny
2. Create a folder called "AdCampaign"
3. Run "linny -init" this will initialize and create a blank ad

Medium Rectangle Ad 300x250

Please refer to the the section above.

Half Page Ad 300x600

1. Create a file named half_page.html in the AdCampaign/newAdDir/assets directory.
2. Edit half_page.html with your favorite text editor and add code until it looks like the following:

<style type="text/css">
body {
    font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
}

#halfpage {
    display: block;
    width: 300px;
    height: 600px;
    color: white;
    background-color: black;
    margin: 0 auto;
}

.title {
    text-align: center;
    font-size: 40px;
    padding: 15px;
}
</style>
<div id="halfpage">
    <div class="title">
        Half Page 300x600
    </div>
</div>

3. Embedding it into a publisher's site can be done using an iframe as per the below code. This also works with other Ad Servers such as Double Click for Publishers.

<iframe src="//YOUR_DOMAIN/half_page.html"></iframe>

Banner Ad 728x90

1. Create a file named banner.html in the AdCampaign/newAdDir/assets directory.
2. Edit banner.html with your favorite text editor and add code until it looks like the following:

<style type="text/css">
body {
    font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
}

#banner {
    display: block;
    width: 728px;
    height: 90px;
    color: white;
    background-color: black;
    margin: 0 auto;
}

.title {
    text-align: center;
    font-size: 40px;
    padding: 15px;
}
</style>
<div id="banner">
    <div class="title">
        Banner Ad 728x90
    </div>
</div>

3. Embedding it into a publisher's site can be done using an iframe as per the below code. This also works with other Ad Servers such as Double Click for Publishers.

<iframe src="//YOUR_DOMAIN/banner.html"></iframe>

Mobile Banner Ad 320x50

1. Create a file named banner.html in the AdCampaign/newAdDir/assets directory.
2. Edit banner.html with your favorite text editor and add code until it looks like the following:

<style type="text/css">
body {
    font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
}

#banner {
    display: block;
    width: 728px;
    height: 90px;
    color: white;
    background-color: black;
    margin: 0 auto;
}

.title {
    text-align: center;
    font-size: 40px;
    padding: 15px;
}
</style>
<div id="banner">
    <div class="title">
        Banner Ad 728x90
    </div>
</div>

3. Embedding it into a publisher's site can be done using an iframe as per the below code. This also works with other Ad Servers such as Double Click for Publishers.

<iframe src="//YOUR_DOMAIN/banner.html"></iframe>

Wallpaper Ad (Advanced)

1. Before creating a wallpaper ad its best to ask the publisher how this can be best achieved using their styles. It's more than likely that there is a JavaScript function that you can use to "hook" into to set the wallpaper / background image.

2. Create a wallpaper image called wallpaper.jpg and put it in the AdCampaign/newAdDir/assets directory.

   • A jpeg ".jpg" image is usually best.
   • It should have a width of 1024 and wider depending on the publisher's site.

3. Create a JavaScript file called wallpaper.js in AdCampaign/newAdDir/assets directory.

4. Edit wallpaper.js with your favorite text editor and add code until it looks like the following:

(function(){
	var top = window.top || window, doc = top.document, body = doc.getElementsByTagName("body")[0];

	body..style.backgroundImage = "//YOUR_DOMAIN/wallpaper.jpg"

})();

Deploying to Production

Upstart script

To keep the server up, even after restarting add the following upstart script.

• Create a file called "linny.conf" in the /etc/init/ directory. Paste the following into your terminal to create it.
• Edit the paths to ensure that they are correct based upon your configuration.

cat >/etc/init/linny.conf <<EOL
description "Linny Ad Server"
author      "Simon Chong"

start on filesystem or runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [!2345]

# Automatically Respawn:
respawn
respawn limit 99 5

# Max open files are @ 1024 by default. Bit few.
limit nofile 32768 32768

script
    export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin
    export GOPATH=/go
    export PATH=$PATH:/go/bin

    cd /PATH_TO_YOUR_LINNY_BASE_DIR
    exec linny -serve >> /var/log/linny.log 2>&1
end script
EOL

About

Linny was built to make it easy and accessible for developers and businesses alike to build, host and measure the performance of their web display ads.

Copyright and Licence

Copyright 2015, Simon Chong. Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 .