Frequently Asked Questions

ObservePoint began in earnest in December, 2007 with one goal in mind: to build the best Key URL and Pixel Monitoring solution in the world. Staying true to our goal, the ObservePoint Suite has become the easiest to set up, use, and understand monitoring system, period. Straightforward, yet powerful, the ObservePoint Suite is suitable for use by media managers, affiliate advertisers, engineers and IT pros alike. One-click dashboards and in-depth reports provide you with all of the information you need to reach your goals and avoid losing money due to down sites.

Built from the ground up, The ObservePoint Suite is solely dedicated to monitoring, unlike other services, which were built as an afterthought to a larger product. This means we truly listen and integrate the needs of our clients into our regular improvement cycles.

We understand the pressure that engineers, IT pros, designers, employees and management feel to maximize web performance. Companies today understand that their customers are online, and that the performance of their site is critical to their business. That’s why more and more companies are turning to ObservePoint. Because at ObservePoint, Downtime is Not an Option!

Our Mission is simple: Provide the best monitoring solution, period. At ObservePoint, we don’t have to meet yearly to re-analyze and refine our mission because it’s the same as the day we opened our doors: Provide the best monitoring solution, period.

Our vision is to provide the best URL and Transaction Monitoring service available. Our technology was built from the ground up specifically for the purpose of measuring the availability and performance of web apps, pages, and tracking pixels. Because our Monitoring system was built for this purpose, our products are more stable, more customizable and more scalable than any internal IT tool or other competing web-based product.

We monitor URLs, redirects, and key objects that you choose from seven worldwide locations. Sometimes IT people will tell you that your pages are up on the server and “should be up on the internet,” when in fact, your pages could be unavailable. Worldwide monitoring ensures your pages are accessible and responsive to any internet user who accesses them.

The ObservePoint Suite is built to be easy to configure, use, and understand. IT’s ideas of what’s important are different than yours, and ObservePoint allows you to cut the rope and free yourself from IT. The ObservePoint suite is easy to use, and if you ever need assistance, your Account Manager is happy to help in plain, non-techie English.

A third-party objective view of your URLs enables you to:

• Increase the synergy of your departments. Chances are, your business is diversified. You have data centers in multiple locations, and your affiliates are scattered around the country or the world. Third-party monitoring from ObservePoint confirms that each component of your site is firing, transitions are working, then measures how long it takes for each piece to load to each location around the world.
• Devote development time to the core nature of your business. If you are involved with web or application developers, you want them spending their time doing what they do best - building the applications and websites that your customers want, and doing what it takes to make money. The ObservePoint Suite removes the burden of continuous monitoring of what’s up, what’s down, and what’s slow. When something goes down, we alert you and provide you with the analytics that quickly get you back up.
• Provide checks and balances for your technology. Savvy businesspeople love numbers because they don’t embellish - unlike some people. The ObservePoint suite helps you keep from getting ripped off. Monitor each page or pixel that you rely on - yours, your partner’s, your affiliate’s, even your competitor’s. If your partner’s redirects don’t work, or if tracking pixels fail to fire or disappear, this means you are losing revenue. Plug the leaks in your revenue stream by measuring the uptime and performance of each key URL.

The ObservePoint Suite is purpose-built to be the best solution for key URL and website monitoring available. This means that unlike other IT tools or online services, our suite is completely scalable - which means what we can address your basic needs today, and the foundation is in place to grow with your business. We continually add new features while maintaining the same overall simplicity and ease of use.

The ObservePoint Suite is built to be both easy to use and understand for marketing, sales, and media managers, as well as having all of the advanced features an IT professional demands. Setting up monitoring is a simple 3-step process: paste or type in a URL, add an alert email address or phone number, click “add,” then relax – we’re monitoring! Our Advanced menu allows you to customize the timeout threshold, Success Keyword, Error Keyword, Pixel Code, Number of Retries, Retry Pause Time, and reporting settings. We are constantly adding functionality, so let us know if you have an idea for a killer feature.

Managing your account is a snap. You can even set up multiple account levels, and add or remove advanced features as needed. ObservePoint is the best solution for all levels of technical (or non-technical) use, from business owners to engineers and development pros with complex needs.

After logging in, we present you with a summary of key URL performance and any critical issues. Quick links allow you to access the following one-click reports:

• URL Uptime
• Tracking Pixel Performance and trends
• URL loading speed and trends
• Average Load Time
• Number of URLs monitored
• Number of key objects monitored
• Date and time of monitoring
• Object List
• Object historical reporting
• In addition, you can create custom reports - too many to talk about here. Ask your ObservePoint Account Manager to learn more.

The default settings for a new URL are set to send an email, phone or SMS alert if the status becomes critical, and alert you again when the status returns to normal. Any of these settings can easily be changed by clicking on Advanced Settings for your URL.

• Up status means we are monitoring from all your selected locations and the URL is responding normally.
• Warning means our monitoring had detected that the URL is taking between 20 and 30 seconds to respond. These are default settings and can easily be changed per URL.
• Critical means our monitoring has detected that the URL is taking between 30 and 60 seconds to respond, and an outage seems imminent. These are default settings and can easily be changed per URL.
• Down means the URL is not responding or took longer than 60 seconds to respond.

All of these settings are customizable in the Advanced section for each URL.

Under the Add/Edit tab, click on “Edit URL.” For the URL that you wish to edit, click “Edit” in the right hand column. On the next screen, click “Advanced” in the lower right hand corner. Adjust the settings as desired, then click Update.

For many other providers, server monitoring was designed as a secondary, added-feature service. ObservePoint was founded for the sole purpose of providing the best monitoring solution, period. While other companies devote their resources to a very diverse set of products, we specialize in Key URL Monitoring, we give Key URL Monitoring 100% of our attention, and we are dedicated to providing your company with the best Key URL Monitoring on the market.

Our reports rely on many variables and data sources in order to provide the most accurate information possible. Our Account Managers on call to answer any questions or help configure your reports.

Each piece of software we release has been extensively tested on many browsers and operating systems. We take pride in our quality control. However, once in a while, some bugs might slip through. If you believe you’ve found a bug, we’d like to know so we can squash it. To report a bug, send an email to bugs@observepoint.com.

Yes. At ObservePoint, we’ve got Mac people and PC people, and we’re proud to say our software runs on both. We’ve tested our products on MacOS and Windows, and we fully support running it on the latest Firefox browser.

A tracking Pixel is used to indicate the path a customer takes to arrive at a specific web page. Tracking Pixels are used so that commissions are paid out to the affiliates who helped direct that customer to the website. When tracking pixels don’t fire or the code isn’t on the page, affiliates don’t receive compensation for their work. This isn’t good for the affiliate or the retailer, because many e-retailers depend on the efforts of affiliates to drive sales, and if an affiliate doesn’t make money on an offer, they will discontinue their efforts.

The ObservePoint Suite includes tools to verify whether tracking pixel code is on a page and functioning correctly, as well as the status of the URL. Just like URLs, we monitor tracking pixel code from our five worldwide locations, and we notify you of a change in status.

Our defaults send you an alert when a URL becomes critical, meaning it is about to go down. We send another alert when the URL comes back online. Reports are sent out the instant a status change is detected.

ObservePoint can send alerts to you via SMS Text, phone, or email. It is possible that some spam filters or your email system could misdirect or drop our system alerts, so if you choose email notification, please make sure to add observepoint.com to your email white list. As a best practice, we recommend using our alert testing feature when you set up a new contact.

We’ve built in a feature that allows you to select which contact gets alerted when alerts are triggered. For example, an alert can be sent to one person for a group of URLs, and to others for a different set of URLs. Just another great feature that will put money back into your pocket.

We work hard every day to make sure our product is exactly what our customers want and need in a Key URL Monitoring system. If we haven’t met your expectations, we’d like a chance to make you a completely satisfied customer. If you must leave us, you can deactivate your account when you are logged in.

If you cancel your monitoring plan, we will not charge you for any services after your current month is over. Please note that any unused portion of the billing cycle will not be refunded. If you downgrade between plans the new amount will be charged at the beginning of the next billing cycle. If you upgrade, you pay a prorated amount for the additional cost of the upgraded plan, and your new monthly fees will begin in the next billing cycle.

Our monitoring plans are straightforward and easy to understand, and we won’t try to up-sell you on unwanted services. Our Key URL Monitoring plans are based on the number of URLs you need to monitor in order to support your business. To upgrade your monitoring plan at any time, log in to your account. Under the Account tab, click Billing Information. Toward the bottom of the page, you will find a drop-down menu with the various account levels. Select the level you want, accept our Terms of Service, and click Update. Your account will be automatically adjusted and you can add more URLs immediately, and your next monthly charge will be for the new amount. What is the

All of us at ObservePoint are committed to providing the best Key URL Monitoring suite in the industry. We also want you to be completely satisfied with our products and services. While we don’t offer refunds, we urge you to contact your Account Manager if you are experiencing problems with your service or billing.

Our contact information is found on your Account and Billing Support link under the Account tab. Your Account Manager is available to help you with any issues that you may experience, as well as take comments or compliments.