Ads Architecture & Technical Specs
A real-time decisioning engine, campaign lifecycle management, AI-driven optimization, an append-only analytics ledger, and creative asset management — working together to run your ad operation on autopilot.
Capability Breakdown & Metrics
Real-time decision engine
— 4-step waterfall, targeting rules, frequency capping, creative selection, background telemetry
Lifecycle & pacing
— Lifecycle (draft→active→paused→completed), budget pacing, line item management, delivery reports
Automated performance tuning
— Waterfall reordering, chi-square A/B testing, auto-pause creatives, smart pacing, placement suggestions
Append-only ledger
— Immutable impressions ledger, hourly/daily buckets, revenue/eCPM/CTR aggregation, page/network metrics
Asset lifecycle
— Upload/approve/reject, format validation, review workflow, impression/click tracking
Ad Network Connections
— 10-network adapter registry, config management, health monitoring
Compliance
— GDPR/CCPA, ad verification, policy enforcement
Revenue
— Invoice generation, billing reconciliation, advertiser statements
Media Kit
— Publisher media kit generation, audience demographics
ads.txt
— Validation, crawler ingestion, SPA/SSR support
1. Real-Time Ad Decisioning (The Brain)
| Source | Priority | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Direct-sold | 1st | Guaranteed delivery from direct advertisers |
| Network waterfall | 2nd | Ordered by real yield performance, falls through on no-fill |
| House ads | 3rd | Internal promotions, PSA campaigns |
| Fallback HTML | 4th | Static HTML from zone config |
2. Campaign Management (Lifecycle & Pacing)
| Mode | Description | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| `even` | Linear — daily budget = total budget ÷ total days | Consistent daily delivery |
| `frontloaded` | Square-root curve — heavier spend early, taper off | Awareness campaigns |
| `asap` | No pacing constraint — deliver as fast as possible | Time-sensitive promotions |
3. Automated Performance Optimization
Aeion automatically reorders your waterfall, tests creatives, and adjusts pacing — so your ad ops don't require daily manual tuning.
Waterfall Auto-Reorder by Real Yield:
Rather than ranking networks by headline eCPM alone, Aeion ranks by real earning potential — a network that pays well but almost never fills your inventory gets automatically demoted below one that pays less per impression but reliably fills.
Example:
- Network A: $5.00 eCPM, 2% fill rate → low real yield (almost no fills)
- Network B: $2.00 eCPM, 80% fill rate → higher real yield (fills far more often)
- Result: Network B ranks first even though its headline rate is lower
Chi-Square A/B Testing for Creatives:
When you run two or more creatives in the same line item, Aeion applies a statistically rigorous chi-square test to compare click-through rates. Once enough impressions have accumulated for a reliable read, it declares a winner with a calculated confidence level and can automatically route more traffic to it — no manual math, no third-party tool, no guessing at "is this enough data yet."
Example A/B Test:
`
Creative A: 15,000 impressions, 300 clicks → CTR = 2.00% Creative B: 14,800 impressions, 222 clicks → CTR = 1.50%
Winner: Creative A (33.3% better CTR) Confidence: 99.88%
`
Auto-Pause Underperforming Creatives:
By default, Aeion evaluates a creative once it has collected at least 1,000 impressions, and automatically pauses any whose click-through rate falls below 0.1% — protecting ad spend without anyone having to babysit a dashboard. The advertiser is notified when this happens.
Smart Pacing Adjustments:
Aeion compares actual spend pace to the expected pace for where a campaign is in its flight. Running more than 15% ahead of schedule triggers a recommendation to reduce daily budget or lower bids; running more than 15% behind triggers a recommendation to increase budget or raise bids to catch up.
Placement Suggestions:
Aeion also recommends new placements and formats based on which positions and sizes have historically performed best for your traffic.
4. Analytics & the Impressions Ledger
Every impression, click, and conversion is recorded to an append-only history — nothing is edited or deleted after the fact, which keeps your reporting (and any advertiser audit) verifiably accurate.
Dashboard Metrics:
- Total impressions, clicks, and revenue
- CTR (clicks ÷ impressions × 100)
- eCPM (revenue ÷ impressions × 1,000)
- Viewability rate and total viewable impressions
Breakdowns Available:
- By zone: impressions, clicks, revenue, eCPM, CTR
- By network: impressions, clicks, revenue, eCPM, fill rate
- By campaign: impressions, clicks, conversions, spend, CTR
Time-Based Views:
- Hourly buckets (0–23) with impressions, clicks, revenue
- Daily buckets with impressions, clicks, revenue, eCPM
Date Range Filtering:
Built-in presets for today, yesterday, last 7 days, last 30 days, this month, last month, or a custom range.
5. Creative Asset Management
| Type | Format | Fields | |
|---|---|---|---|
| `image` | JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP | imageUrl, altText, clickUrl | |
| `video` | MP4, WebM | videoUrl, clickUrl, duration | |
| `html` | Custom HTML | htmlContent, clickUrl | |
| `native` | Structured data | nativeContent (title, image, body, etc.) | |
| Format | Name | Size | Responsive |
| -------- | ------ | ------ | ----------- |
| `medium_rectangle_300x250` | Medium Rectangle | 300×250 | No |
| `leaderboard_728x90` | Leaderboard | 728×90 | No |
| `skyscraper_160x600` | Skyscraper | 160×600 | No |
| `wide_skyscraper_300x600` | Wide Skyscraper | 300×600 | No |
| `billboard_970x250` | Billboard | 970×250 | No |
| `mobile_320x50` | Mobile Banner | 320×50 | No |
| `native` | Native | Fluid | Yes |
6. Fraud Detection
Before an impression is ever billed, Aeion scores it against multiple fraud signals — bot user agents, suspicious/malformed IP addresses, missing referrers, rapid click intervals from the same source, and hidden ad elements — and blocks anything that crosses a safe risk threshold. Blocking happens synchronously, before the impression is recorded, so fraudulent traffic never reaches your billable counts.