How to track down a blank ad…
It’s happened to all of us. The trick is knowing what to do when it does and recognizing that it’s nearly impossible to duplicate a blank ad reliably. Nevertheless, you won’t be able to get to the bottom of it unless you can duplicate it. Here’s what you need to do:
Download and install Firefox and Firebug (firebug is an extension of firefox that allows you to look at the underlying code in a web page easily).
Browse your site or preview your inventory using your ad server, but make sure you’re using Firefox.
When you encounter a blank ad, right click on the ad slot, and click on “Inspect Element” (see below).
Follow your way down the rabbit hole, by expanding each nested ad block, one after another, until you get to the most indented call – it will probably have an error, or be blank, either way, this is where the problem lies (if you’re not familiar with HTML, you may want to get some help with this step):
Save this info and get it to your web developer, ad network or ad server support – this is what they need to help you track down the problem.
Once you get this process down, no blank ad will be safe again.
