Understanding The Ad Manager

Applies to: News Pro 1.0 - Advertising Manager

Introduction

This article discusses the basics of banner ads in a web site setting using the News Pro Ad Manager. It will help orient you on how the manager works and the best practices when approaching the use of the manager in conjunction with your sales practices.

Ad Banner Placements In News Pro

Adding a banner to your web site is the single most difficult task you will face in managing your web site. This is because you have to plan how long an ad will run, where it will be and what order it will display. To help you accomplish this task, your site has pre-determined placement of banner ads; this helps eliminate any layout challenges you would normally face in a print edition.

These "placements" use standard height and width dimensions to allow you to sell ads without worrying about where to put them and how it will impact the display of your site. For example, the standard header banner size is 728w x 90h. This size covers the full top portion of your site and is the first and most valuable place on your web site. As long as you adhere to these dimensions, you will find that any banner you place will display just as it was intended and conform to the layout of your site without any need to alter anything else.

Creating A Publishing Standard

One of the first challenges you will encounter when selling an ad on your web site will be, "How much do I charge?" and "How long should be ad run?" To answer these questions, it helps to consider the differences between online ads and print ads. Print ads typically have a standard lifetime, that is, they are only printed every edition. With online ads, the lifetime is completely up to you. Therefore, if you think of the online edition in these same terms, it will help you set goals for selling ads and managing content.

For example: let's say you decide to sell/publish ads on a monthly basis for your web site. In doing so, you establish that every ad will have an "open date" of the first of the month and a "closing date" of the end of the month. These two terms are the terms News Pro uses to describe the dates you establish when an ad will be viewed on your site. Establishing a standard makes it easier for you to upload ads and look like a pro! Here is a table that outlines a sample way to approach your ad sales and posting.

Publishing your banners in a standard time frame eliminates the problem of always knowing what banners you currently have in the system, so you can add another banner. If you pre-sell your banners, you will always ensure that your site is full of ads and looks great.

How much you should charge is based on your local market and how you communicate the value of your ads. No one can tell you what to charge. However, you may consider a volume discount with your print ads. Typically, your most visible banners are the most expensive. Additionally, those that display first are more valuable than those that display second. In any case, it is completely up to you. Your pricing structure can be as simple or complex as you determine.

Ad Banner Positions

When you add a banner, you set a "Position" value, as demonstrated in the preceding table. This value is how you set the order each banner is displayed on your web site. Why do you set an order of display? As described earlier, News Pro uses pre-determined placements for your ads, sometimes referred to as "ad rotators".

These rotators allow for a uniform, attractive appearance for your web site. Think of these placements as slots where you drop multiple banners that will rotate in the order you assign. When a user comes to your web site, the first banner they see is Position 1, the second is Position 2 and so forth. In other words, when you assign number values to the position of a banner, you are determining the order of display.

As the following diagram attempts to demonstrate, you publish multiple ads for a select location in a pre-determined order. As your web site visitors move through your site from page to page, the next banner is displayed in the slot. This makes one slot serve as a frame to display many banners. This is how News Pro helps you perform a dynamic task with little effort.

Acceptable File Types And Sizes

On the web, there are only two acceptable file types that you can use for banners. Only JPG/JPEG and GIF files can be viewed in a browser. This is not entirely true, because some browsers can view BMP or PNG files. However, these two files are the accepted file types.(This, of course, does not pertain to Flash files that are animated, but to static images that have no animation. Flash is an application, not an image.)

When you create a JPG or GIF ad for your site, you should make the file as small as possible to ensure the fastest loading time for your users. The ideal file size should be less than 35KB at a resolution of 72 dpi. Not including newer high-definition computer screens, standard computer screen resolution cannot render high resolution images excess of 72 dpi. In other words, it is pointless to upload a print quality image of 300 dpi as it will only increase download time, bog your server and annoy your users.