How does the smoothing algorithm work?  First, you must set the preferences to define the number of minutes the smoothing algorithm is based on.  Values range from 5 minutes to 60 minutes.  Which value you choose depends on how much traffic your web site experiences and how steady the traffic is.  For high-traffic sites with continuous traffic a small value works great.  For low-volume sites with erratic traffic a higher value will be required.  Here are some suggested values:

Based on the smoothing value you select, Ban Man Pro performs the following tasks.  Each hour Ban Man Pro computes the number of impressions that are expected up to that hour.  This value is then compared to the number of impressions that have been served.  The difference of these two numbers is the available amount.  For example, suppose Ban Man Pro computes 5,000 expected impressions, and 4900 have been served.  100 impressions are now available to be served during the next hour.  

Next, Ban Man Pro records the number of impressions that have been served in each zone during the last XX minutes.  (XX is the value of the smoothing minutes that you have set in your preferences).  Suppose your site is basing the smoothing algorithm on 15 minutes of data.  If 250 impressions were served in the last 15 minutes, Ban Man Pro predicts that 1000 will be served during the next hour.  With 100 impressions available, Ban man Pro will set this campaign to serve 10% of the  time.  Since the smoothing minutes in this example are set to 15, Ban Man Pro will re-evaluate these numbers every 15 minutes and reset the percentages.

During the very last XX period of the campaign, Ban Man Pro will inflate the available impressions by 45% in an attempt to insure that the campaign is fully served.  If you traffic drastically decreases, the campaign may not be fully served.

Important Notes:  

1. When adding a new campaign that is to be evenly distributed, they should always be entered before the start date.  This will ensure the campaign begins immediately at the start date.  Suppose you enter an even campaign at noon and set the start date to today.  Next, suppose you are expecting to serve 1000 impressions/day for this campaign.  Since 1/2 day has already passed, Ban Man Pro will attempt to catch up with the 500 expected impressions and that may be the only banner appearing for some time.

2. Never enter an unrealistic quantity (ie, don't oversell your ad space).  This may cause the smoothing algorithm to break down and not all campaigns will be served.

3. In Ban Man Pro 3 and earlier, the smoothing algorithm uses application variables to store all parameters.  If Ban Man Pro is shared across multiple web sites serving ads using SSI or the ASP Function Call these parameters may not be shared properly due to the way IIS handles application variables.  If this is the case the even distribution algorithm will not work properly.  The Javascript ad tags should be used instead so that all calls are made to one web site and the application variables will work properly.  Version 4 overcomes this limitation by storing all the statistics in the database.

4. Ban Man Pro version 3 and higher includes an option for analyzing evenly distributed campaigns.  When viewing a listing of campaigns, click the button next to the campaign of interest to view an analysis of the distribution for this campaign.  This will also tell you if the campaign is over or under-delivering.

NOTE:  You must be using Ban Man Pro version 2.0 or higher to use this functionality.