Review: Central Ad 4.0 Ad Management Software

I've used Central Ad ad management software since 1997 -- first Central Ad Pro 3.0J (no longer available), and more recently the new Central Ad 4.0.

Central Ad 4.0 is designed especially for commercial banner ad displays on your site. In addition to functions common to most ad management software, some of its special features include:

• Easy set up of multi-banner rotations for a single advertiser.
• Display of real-time reports to advertisers who enter an account name and password.
• Ability to display a wide variety of ads, including HTML ads, rich media, third party served ads, etc.
• A flexible reporting program that allows you to slice and dice ad statistics in a number of helpful ways, including by account, banner, website area, and/or campaign.
• Core programs compiled from C++, which allows them to run quickly and efficiently on the webserver. Central Ad 4.0 offers scalability up to high traffic large sites.

A couple of features that I'd like to see included in CA4 are the ability (1) to count actions (such as searches or form submissions) from within HTML ads, and (2) to display to advertisers on their password-protected page all their banners so they can verify the destination of links, etc.

CA4 seems a little buggy in accurate set up of banners that appear exclusively on a single page. I can't seem to set up all the possibilities: region, campaign, account, AND banner. Only some seem to work in these cases. Other than that very limited instance, however, I haven't found any problems in several months of operation. I paid an extra $50 to have Central Ad's team install the software on my server. This comes in especially handy when upgrades and bug fixes are issued.

Central Ad 4.0 doesn't include some of the sophisticated accounting, management, and tracking capabilities of ad management software costing tens of thousands of dollars. But I've found it quite capable of managing the ad campaigns I run on my site now and for the foreseeable future. I strongly recommend it.

Note as of 6/15/00. Though Central Ad 4.0 is still sold, I get reports that e-mails to support too often go unanswered. I hope that changes, but.... (RFW)