Most of the improvements in this release are behind the scenes, laying the foundation for bigger things to come. In the next weeks after this update, we will gradually be transitioning to a different file storage technology, so much of this update is related to making that a seamless migration. We will also be introducing a new design for SendMyAd in the months to come, and this release updates libraries that will make that possible.
That being said, there are a few new items you’ll notice after this update:
Print Ad Size Templates
IDML replaces INX files
This is probably the biggest change that will impact your advertiser users. The ability to download Ad Size template files as a starting point for ad layouts in InDesign is a popular feature. Up to now, the generation of these template files has been a slow back-end process and a bit trouble-prone. We are replacing this with a much more efficient and quicker method that produces IDML format files. This is InDesign’s standard interchange format that works well between different versions of the page layout app. As part of the update, we will be converting all your existing ad template files from INX to IDML format. This will have the side benefit of catching any missing template files, which as anyone who has used this feature before, will recognize as a long-standing issue with the older implementation.
For your advertisers, aside from it being a different file extension, there’s not much difference. They will still download the Ad Size template files from the same location to their desktop. Double clicking or opening the file through InDesign will create a new document, which they can then save as a new InDesign format layout file.
NOTE: this feature will be rolling out gradually in the next weeks to all publishers.
Please contact us if you’d like to learn more about this feature.
API Integrations
There have been a lot of under-the-radar small updates to SendMyAd / Virtual Publisher in recent months with various improvements and enhancements to both our own API as well as our integration with other third-party systems. This release consolidates and builds on those features.
API Event Hooks
Just like the ability to configure which workflow events trigger email notifications, we have added a new optional feature to send HTTPS POST messages to third party systems. Currently supported are MagHub, LaunchPad, Naviga, and custom Salesforce APIs. We allow customization of the JSON or text messages delivered for each event.
Please contact us if you would like to discuss how to implement API event hooks into your workflow.
Beta! Deliver files to a REST API Endpoint
This feature is still in development but we want to make it available now to see how your input might shape the final implementation. You’ll see a new method for file delivery destinations in addition to FTP, SFTP, and Dropbox: API Endpoint. This is meant to deliver your files to a third-party API system, along with a configurable JSON data payload. One possible use case for this is to send thumbnails of completed files to your ad inventory system. We’ve tried to make this feature as generic and configurable as possible to accommodate a wide range of API services.
Get in touch if you would like to discuss how we can integrate delivery with your API.
SendMyAd / Virtual Publisher SmartFile API Enhancements
Our own API has been improved and polished to help with your integrations to SendMyAd & Virtual Publisher:
- New Reservation method to change the advertiser contact
- New method to schedule ad materials request emails
- Digital Ad methods to fully manage run dates via API
- Updated documentation
- Updated downloadable Postman collection for developers!
Click here to view our API documentation.
Usability Improvements
Search-driven advertiser assignment for reservations
The interface for assigning advertisers or inviting new ones was crowded already, but we needed to add a much-requested feature, to search for your advertisers by their email address. We rethought this process and have enhanced this experience to be search-driven instead. Watch the video to see it in action:
While this feature has been available for a couple of months, this release brings the same experience to the Virtual Publisher ad reservation form too.
New feature badge
We strive to add new features and fixes frequently, in between these major updates, and for those we rarely make announcements. In order to call attention to these new items, we’ve added a NEW badge that can appear in context in the interface. Hovering over the badge will also give some information about the why of a new feature, in addition to any in-app help text to explain the how.
Goodbye, Tablet Ads. Hello, Multi-size Digital Ads!
Advertising markets and technologies are always changing, and at SendMyAd, we’re increasingly focusing on digital ads. We introduced our Tablet Ad portal way back when iPads were new, but in recent years the usage of that offering gradually waned as advertisers focus their attention on social media and newsletter advertising formats.
Responding to this change, for the past couple of years SendMyAd has quietly been phasing out tablet ads in favor of a new digital ad format that allows for multiple ad sizes within in one digital ad unit. This is the same concept as what tablets ads offered, just in a more generalized way.
We no longer had any publishers actively using tablet ads, but you may still have seen references to tablet ads within our interface. With this new update, those references are removed.
If you would like to learn more about our new Digital Ad Portal features, including multi-size ads and native Facebook and other types of social media advertising, please get in touch.
