NOTE: With the September 2017 Metro Publisher release we've introduced an upgrade to the current integration with Broadstreet! Find out more.
Overview
An ad server is the type of service you will need to use if you plan to have banner ads on your Metro Publisher website.
With v2.9 release there is now a second option for ad serving within your Metro Publisher website. The service is called Broadstreet and is designed especially for independent publishers. While it is a paid service (the basic plan is $10 USD per month), it is very simple to use and the integration with Metro Publisher is quite elegant.
Find out more about Broadstreet
Ad Serving Basics
This video that explains some basic ad server concepts and how to run an ad with Broadstreet.
How does Broadstreet work with Metro Publisher?
In the video above, you learned that you use an ad server to manage your ads. In Broadstreet terminology, advertisers have ads and you use campaigns to place those ads within the proper ad zones on your website. The video also showed you that you must grab some code and put it into your website to create ad zones. With Metro Publisher, you DO NOT need to create your own ad zones or paste any code. Metro Publisher will automatically create the ad zones and synch those with your Broadstreet account based on the structure of your website. You just need to set up the connection from Metro Publisher to your Broadstreet account.
Getting Started
The process to set up Broadstreet for your Metro Publisher site can be done in just a few minutes. It's easy! The first thing you need to do is create a Broadstreet account. Once you have your account set up:
1. Log in to the Broadstreet Ad Manager and go to your user in the upper right hand corner, click on the down arrow, and select "Access Token."
2. Now, copy the Access Token. It is the long sequence of numbers in green. You need to copy the whole thing.
3. Toggle to your role as an Admin and go to Settings > 3rd Party > Broadstreet and paste the Access Token into the field.
4. Once you have pasted in your Access Token, Metro Publisher will automatically connect with Broadstreet to pull in the available Network Codes.
- Network Code: In Broadstreet terminology, a Network is a grouping of ad zones. Say you have two websites and you want to use Broadstreet to run ads on both, you would create two Networks. Here you will need to select the Network that you want to connect to this website.
- Zone Name Prefix: This prefix will appear in the names of the ad zones within Broadstreet. This is useful to distinguish the ad zones from different networks, especially if you have more than one website running ads from the same Broadstreet account. If you are running only one website with Broadstreet ads, you can leave this field blank.
5. Hit "Save."
6. After saving, a table will appear showing the status of the connection to Broadstreet.
- If successful, then you are ready to start setting up your ads. Go back to Broadstreet and set up your advertisers, ads, and campaigns.
- If you receive an error message, check to see that the access token is correct.
Display multiple ads in one ad zone
With Broadstreet Ads you can set up a zone to display more than one ad in a given zone.
This can be done by going to the "Edit Zone" screen and updating the "Advertising Count" value from the default value of 1, to 2 or more.
Read more about this on the Broadstreet Ads article on this feature
Watch the video below for expert knowledge on best banner practices to optimize banner ROI:
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