Digital Ad Portal Updates
New Social Media Ad Templates: Carousel Ads
Facebook & Instagram Carousel Ad templates are now available alongside our existing TikTok, LinkedIn, Quora, Facebook and Instagram social media templates! Within a media profile, click on the “Ad Units” tab, open the “Actions” menu and select “Import Social Templates”. Select “Facebook Carousel Ad” from the list to import a ready-made ad unit available for use. All specifications such number of slides and image dimensions can be changed according to your specific needs. Both advertiser and publisher can now rest assured each component of the ad will match specifications and appear as expected. The advertiser will be notified if any components do not meet your required specifications.
Please contact us if you’d like to learn more about this feature.
Added Ability to Request Multiple Sizes for One Image Ad Unit
Multiple sizes can now be added to one digital image ad unit. This can be done by navigating to your ad unit editor and clicking “Add Size”. You no longer have to create separate reservations for different sizes of the same ad!
Please contact us if you’d like to learn more about this feature.
More Misc Digital Ad Portal Updates
- General
- “Ad Type” is no longer required for digital ad reservation CSV imports
- Added ability to show/hide materialsID and position tags on the advertiser upload forms
- Updated right preflight panel to call more attention to errors
- New Digital Ad Settings
- “Do not allow advertisers to change the media profile on ad reservations”
- “Do not allow advertisers to change the ad unit on ad reservations”
- Native Ads
- Native ad component errors now also highlight the form input item in red (error) or orange (warning)
- Native ad custom metadata is now included within the final zip download CSV file
- Hovering over native ad form input items will now highlight the component on the preview
- Added ability to preflight native ad images and video by aspect ratio
- Improvements to Native Ad layout manager form
- Added ability to associate a destination URL with an image or text component
User Experience Updates
Updated Look & Feel to Sign In & Advertiser Registration Pages
The Sign In Page now has a cleaner, more modern look while the Advertiser Registration Page has been completely revamped in terms of look and ease of use. It now requires less data from your advertisers, reducing the friction for signup so that you can receive ads quickly.
Since we will continue to respect custom CSS for these pages, publishers who have taken the liberty of adding their own CSS to their ad portals may not notice much of a difference. If you’d like to refresh your branding with our new look and feel, you can click the “Rebuild Default Branding” button within the Company Settings “Look and Feel” section. Below is an example of a publisher using the new sign in and registration pages we provide, with zero custom CSS. They have simply uploaded their own logo and banner image.
Please contact us if you need a hand improving the branding on your site.
Updated Look & Feel to SendMyAd & Virtual Publisher Interface
We’ve taken time to layout and group form elements and datasets across the site in a way that now allows for better recognition of form items and also improves responsiveness (the ability to elegantly scale with your browser).
Here’s an example of how the left info panel within a file details view now visually distinguishes between editable vs uneditable data, as well as the grouping of similar items. Updates to the right preflight panel can also be seen.
Advertiser-Specific Experience Improvements
All New Advertiser Dashboard
The Advertiser Dashboard is now a central hub that contains “Call to Action” buttons informing the advertiser of the things that matter most…outstanding ad requests, rejected ads, and ads awaiting their approval. Clicking on any of these buttons will bring the advertiser directly to the ads list view with the corresponding filter automatically set so that these items can be addressed. The dashboard also provides a new quick start video, a way to manage their team, updated “Ad Sizes” and “FAQs” views, and a link to our knowledge base.
Advertiser Ad Request Alerts
For those of you who allow advertiser submission of ads without requiring reservations, we’ve implemented an alert box that will pop up on the “Send Ad” form any time an advertiser attempts to send an ad but already has existing materials requests that need to be filled. This will help direct the advertiser to fill existing ad requests and alleviate the extra time you, the publisher, put into merging ads with existing requests.
More Advertiser Specific Improvements
- Registration
- Advertiser signup will now take the advertiser directly to the ad request instead of their dashboard
- Email address will already be filled out if user clicks to register from their email
- Updated “Send Ad” form buttons to read as:
- “Print (Publication or Digital Editions)”
- “Digital (Web)”
SmartFile API Updates
- Updated and easier-to-follow API documentation
- New downloadable Postman collection for developers!