• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 2, 2012

Visibility to actually view where ads serve up on Web sites has been an issue for publishers and advertisers trying to keep track of performance. GeoEdge has developed an analytics platform giving publishers, ad networks and media buyers a tool to capture and analyze any ad displayed on Web sites around the world. It provides a thumbnail image, regardless of location.

The platform, GeoEdge Analytics, captures images of ads as users view them and sends to advertisers. It also analyzes the same Web page from many different locations and tracks changes of how the page and ads appear for various viewers. Any banner ad automatically gets categorized to ensure quality. Once a malicious ad is identified, an alert is  generated with the ad's data and screenshots.

Also, American advertisers running spots on publisher sites in Europe can capture a view of how campaigns perform to ensure compliance, explains Amnon Siev, vice president of products at GeoEdge, which manages a network of servers in more than 100 locations.

Siev said the platform collects information about the advertiser, ad network, placement on the page, and performance and vertical segmentation of the ad. For example, the ad served up about 20% of the time in a specific geographic location, he said.

Advertisers and publishers can link visibility to ROI, as well as monitor competitor strategies, according to Siev. Publishers also can run analysis on their competition. For example, The Wall Street Journal can run analysis on ads appearing on The New York Times to identify the top performing ads in specific segments.

"U.S. companies can run analysis on sites running ads for online gambling, which is all about acquiring users," he said. "Let's say you're a big online casino and your competition launched a campaign for poker in the Philippines. Typically, companies in the U.S. or Europe cannot see the creatives, but through GeoEdge Analytics they can."