Open X Adserver Integration
Like many of the innovations that we have developed we were looking for a more robust and powerful method to display and rotate product on our home pages and interior store pages.
Volusion does have editable section on the homepage unfortunately these display section are limited in the type of information that can be displayed. While it is possible to create rotating product displays using java script, jquery or other complicated measures these solutions also fall short in that they are limited to the specific banners that are part of render version of the script.
In other words if you compile a script to rotate through 10-15 images or products the problem becomes that once compiled and running these are the only product that will be displayed. When changes are required including simply removing a single item the entire script has to be edited, recompiled and re-installed.
This level of work prevents most store operators from making changes quickly. We new there had to be a better way! We found an elegant solution in using the free and open source OpenX Ad Server integrated into our custom made templates. Through a simple back end control panel store operators are able to easily change, edit, add and remove specific product banners and images.
The graphics are automatically rotated throughout a Volusion site in specific zones, the rotation goes beyond simple numerical rotation, on the contrary the Open X Server is able to display specific images based on keywords and or specific categories within a site.
As an example in a jewelry store…a customer is browsing in a “women rings” category. On the category pages adjacent to the products the visitor is already viewing will be displayed images and or information of similar types of “women rings”.
This has a great impact on improving conversions a directing visitor to look at and buy products that you as the store owner want to sell or showcase.