Create a new zone whenever a website has a new area where banners should be displayed.
Revive Adserver allows a great deal of flexibility in how you use zones. A zone could simply represent a certain space (e.g. 468 pixels wide, 60 pixels high) but that space could appear anywhere on a website page (or even multiple times per page). Alternatively, a zone might not have any fixed dimensions, but always be displayed in the top-right of all website pages; a zone might be both fixed size, and fixed position on the website pages; a zone could only appear in a certain sub-section of a website.... There are almost limitless ways that you can use zones to define where banners are displayed on a website.
If you are new to Revive Adserver, start off with just a few zones that are used relatively consistently across a website, and see how this works before getting too complex with too many zones. Many complex delivery requirements, where advertisers want to have specific banners targeted and displayed in specific areas of a site can still be achieved without having many zones; and it is generally easier to manage campaign and banner delivery with fewer, rather than more, zones. Keep it simple whenever possible.
If you have not already created the relevant website for the zone, first, create a new website.
To create a new zone, go to Inventory > Zones:
If you need to, use the drop down menu to select the appropriate website.
Click on the Add new zone link. This will take you to the Add new zone screen.
To create the new campaign, enter the campaign's Basic information. All of the Basic information fields are required:
- Name: The name of the campaign. It is recommended that you use a name that uniquely identifies the campaign, and will allow you to recognise the campaign quickly and easily.
- Campaign type: The type of campaign. Revive Adserver supports three campaign types. These are discussed below, along with their related additional options, which will be displayed once you have selected the campaign type.
Contract (Exclusive) campaigns are the highest priority campaign type in Revive Adserver and are designed to try to obtain maximum possible impact. Contract (Exclusive) campaigns will be prioritised above all other campaigns, and will use all possible available inventory (within the campaign and banner restrictions) to display as often as it possibly can, at the expense of all Contract and Remnant campaigns.
When a Contract (Exclusive) campaign type is selected, the Priority in relation to other campaigns fields will contain a single option:
- Set the campaign weight: Set the "weight" of the Contract (Exclusive) campaign in relation to other Contract (Exclusive) campaigns. Campaigns with a higher weight will be prioritised first; so, if there are two Contract (Exclusive) campaigns competing for the same inventory, one with weight 1, and one with weight 2, then the campaign with weight 2 will "win" two out of three times, and take the inventory in preference to the campaign with weight 1; but one in three times, the campaign with weight 1 will win and take inventory in preference to the campaign with weight 2. That is, when there are two Contract (Exclusive) campaigns competing for the same inventory, one campaign with weight 1, and one with weight 2, then the campaign with weight 1 will get 1/3 of the inventory, and the campaign with weight 2 will get 2/3 of the inventory.
- Alternatively, if there were two Contract (Exclusive) campaigns with equal weight competing for the same inventory, then they would share the inventory 50/50.
Contract campaigns are designed to try to deliver an evenly spaced, specified number of impressions, clicks or conversions per day, from the start of the campaign to the end. They are designed to allow advertisers to obtain a nice even delivery pattern over the targeted inventory, to maximise exposure over the campaign run.
When a Contract campaign type is selected, the Priority in relation to other campaigns fields will contain a single option:
- Priority level: This option has one or possibly two parts; a required priority level (between 1 and 10, although this can be configured by the Revive Adserver administrator), and, potentially, a required number of impressions, clicks or conversions to deliver per day.
- The priority level of the Contract campaign sets the priority of the campaign in relation to other Contract campaigns. Campaigns with a higher weight will be prioritised first; so, if there are two Contract campaigns competing for the same inventory, one with weight 1, and one with weight 2, then the campaign with weight 2 will "win" two out of three times, and take the inventory in preference to the campaign with weight 1; but one in three times, the campaign with weight 1 will win and take inventory in preference to the campaign with weight 2. That is, when there are two Contract campaigns competing for the same inventory, one campaign with weight 1, and one with weight 2, then the campaign with weight 1 will get 1/3 of the inventory, and the campaign with weight 2 will get 2/3 of the inventory.
- Alternatively, if there were two Contract campaigns with equal weight competing for the same inventory, then they would share the inventory 50/50.
- As Contract campaigns are designed to try to deliver an evenly spaced, specified number of impressions, clicks or conversions per day, from the start of the campaign to the end, the campaign needs to be configured for the number of impressions, click or conversion to deliver per day. In the event that the campaign has a set end date and at least one of the global impression, click or conversion targets set (see the Pricing field options below), then Revive Adserver can calculate the evenly spaced daily number of impressions required to achieve this target. However, if no end date is set for the campaign, or if the global impression, click and conversion targets are set to unlimited, then you will need to manually specify the number of impressions, clicks or conversions per day that you would like the campaign to deliver.
Please note that because Contract campaigns have a delivery target, competition between differently weighted campaigns may not exist. For example, as stated above, the situation where a Contract campaign with weight 1 which is competing for the same inventory with a Contract campaign of weight 2, where the weight 1 campaign gets 1/3 of the inventory and the campaign with weight 2 gets 2/3 of the inventory will only exist if both campaigns actually need the inventory to achieve their delivery targets.
If, for example, the Contract campaign with weight 2 only needs 100 impressions per day for its target, while the campaign with weight 2 needs 1,000,000 impressions per day, then although the campaign with weight two will have "priority" over the campaign with weight 1, the campaign with weight 2 will only very rarely actually be in competition for inventory with the campaign with weight 1, because the weight 2 campaign only "wants" a very small number of impressions over a day. As a result, although the weights would suggest a 1/3 vs. 2/3 split of inventory, because of the delivery targets, Contract campaigns may end up having very different ratios of available inventory than the weights would immediately suggest. In effect, the weights for Contract campaigns (unlike for Contract (Exclusive) and Remnant campaigns) only exist as a backup mechanism to resolve conflicts in desired inventory, when there is insufficient inventory available to meet their delivery targets.
You may want to consider leaving all Contract campaigns with the default weight, and simply ensuring that you do not over-commit by setting Contract campaign delivery targets that exceed the available inventory; this way, weights should not matter, as every Contract campaign will have enough inventory to meet its targets.
Remnant campaigns are designed to use up any remaining inventory that has not been taken by Contract (Exclusive) or Contract.
When a Remnant campaign type is selected, the Priority in relation to other campaigns fields will contain a single option:
- Set the campaign weight: Set the "weight" of the Remnant campaign in relation to other Remnant campaigns. Campaigns with a higher weight will be prioritised first; so, if there are two Remnant campaigns competing for the same inventory, one with weight 1, and one with weight 2, then the campaign with weight 2 will "win" two out of three times, and take the inventory in preference to the campaign with weight 1; but one in three times, the campaign with weight 1 will win and take inventory in preference to the campaign with weight 2. That is, when there are two Remnant campaigns competing for the same inventory, one campaign with weight 1, and one with weight 2, then the campaign with weight 1 will get 1/3 of the inventory, and the campaign with weight 2 will get 2/3 of the inventory.
- Alternatively, if there were two Remnant campaigns with equal weight competing for the same inventory, then they would share the inventory 50/50.
Please note that the campaign weight for a Remnant campaign is different from the campaign weight for a Contract (Exclusive) campaign. Although the fields are named and appear the same, Contract (Exclusive) campaigns, by their nature, always take priority over Remnant campaigns; so, a Contract (Exclusive) campaign with weight 1 would always take precedence over a Remnant campaign with weight 2 (even though the Remnant campaign has a higher weight number, because the Contract (Exclusive) campaign type is more important than the Remnant campaign type).
Regardless of the campaign type selected, all campaigns share the following additional information sections.
The campaign Date fields are required, and define when the campaign should "run" (that is, when the banners in the campaign should start being show, and when they should stop):
- Start date: Either the date on which the campaign should start to run, or, the campaign should start immediately.
- End date: Either the date on which the campaign should stop running, or, the campaign should never end.
There is one key required Pricing field, while the remainder are optional:
- Pricing model: How the campaign is being charged. This can be either CPM, CPC, CPA or Tenancy. Revive Adserver needs to know how you are charging for the campaign so that it can correctly calculate the various banner priorities to ensure correct delivery of campaigns.
- Rate / Price: If you wish to enter the rate or price that is being charged for the campaign (e.g. $0.05 CPM, or £40.00 per month, etc.) then Revive Adserver can display revenue information in reports.
- Conversions: If you have selected the CPA pricing model, then you can optionally set a maximum number of conversions. Once this number of conversions for the campaign has been passed, Revive Adserver will disable the campaign.
- Clicks: If you have selected the CPA or CPC pricing models, then you can optionally set a maximum number of clicks. Once this number of clicks for the campaign has been passed, Revive Adserver will disable the campaign.
- Impressions: If you have selected the CPA, CPC or CPM pricing models, then you can optionally set a maximum number of impressions. Once this number of impressions for the campaign has been passed, Revive Adserver will disable the campaign.
The optional Delivery capping per visitor fields for a campaign allow global, campaign-wide delivery caps to be set:
- Limit campaign views to (in total): If set, then Revive Adserver will not show more than then specified number of banner impressions (across all campaign banners) to a given visitor, across all sessions.
- Limit campaign views to (per session): If set, then Revive Adserver will not show more than then specified number of banner impressions (across all campaign banners) to a given visitor, across a single session.
- Reset view counters after: If set, then the limitation counters for the above options will be reset after the specified time. This allows campaigns to be limited to (for example) no more than 25 views per day, by setting a campaign view limit (in total) of 25, and setting the reset view counters to 24 hours.
- Cookies: Revive Adserver uses cookies to track delivery caps. By default, campaigns with delivery capping options set will not be displayed to a visitor on the first impression (as it will not be known if a cookie can be set), and thus campaigns with delivery capping options set will not be displayed at all to visitors with cookies disabled. Setting this option to allow showing capped ads if cookies are disabled will allow campaigns with delivery capping options set to be shown to such users - but will, as a consequence, allow unlimited views.
The optional Miscellaneous fields:
- Hide the advertiser and websites of this campaign: ???
- Companion positioning: When enabled, Revive Adserver attempts to display banners from this campaign together in all zones on a given web page, whenever possible, rather than showing just one banner from the campaign in a zone on a web page along with a banner from a different campaign in a different zone.
- Comments: A free-form text area to record notes that may be relevant about the campaign.
Once you have filled out the required fields and set any optional values, click on Save Changes to create the new campaign. You will be returned to the Inventory > Campaigns page, where you will be able to see your newly created campaign.
