What is the Ad Server in MediaOS

The MediaOS Ad Server allows you to have ads run directly through the MediaOS plugin and be able to track metrics such as hovers, clicks, engagements, etc. The ad server integrates fully with the CRM which is beneficial as it allows a data flow between marketing, delivery and customer relationship management, all in one platform.

Running a Product for the Ad Server:

When creating a product for the Ad Server, make sure you using a Time Range/ Start and End Date Product Type. This DOES NOT need to be on the scheduler to utilize the ad server- you can do either or.

• • Slect the toggle for Multiple Ad Units
  • Ad Unit/Size Measurement: Pixels
  • Decide if you want to schedule a calendar or not.

After Product is Created

• Select "Manage" to the right of your product.
  • Recommended ad units:
    • Rectangle: 300x250
    • Leaderboard: 726 x 90
    • Square Box: 100x100
• Go into Edit for your Product:
  • Make sure you "Allow assigning of multiple ads per sold item"- this will allow you to assign multiple pieces of creative to a line item

Connecting the Product to a Website

Go to the Websites tab on the right hand side and add new website. From there, fill out the appropriate fields.

• Definitions:
  • MediaOS Hosted: Select this if your website is hosted by MediaOS and is a part of the MediaOS Network.
  • WordPress Enabled: This will connect to a WordPress site and prompt you to put in your WordPress Login credentials

Assigning a Product to the Ad Server

Under the Websites tab from the previous step, select "Ad Server" on top.

You can see on the Product drop down menu, these are all the products that are currently set up and viable for an ad server. You can now check any of these products to run in the ad server. This will also give you an option to set when to change your ads, under "Change ads every X Seconds". You can also select the toggle to "Display one ad per placement".

Once you select which products you would like to be in the ad sever, navigate back to your product where you set up the ad sizes and now you can grab that piece of embed code to put in your website.

Selling the Ad Server

When selling your ad server, a key advantage of MediaOS is its ability to target audiences more effectively. Unlike traditional ads that are placed in general areas with the hope that someone will engage, MediaOS provides advertisers with valuable insights into their audience. This allows them to tailor their campaigns to the specific people who are reading the content, ensuring a more precise and impactful advertising strategy.

• Examples of how to use this feature include:
  • Selling a sponsorship for authors: any time x author writes a post, you can select a specific ad to be placed on their posts.
  • Tags and Categories: In WordPress, when you assign a post or page to a particular tag or category, you can display ads that are targeted specifically to those tags or categories, ensuring they appear alongside relevant content.
  • Targeting by the Reader (visitor): are they known or unknown? Unknown simply means the reader is not registered. If they are unknown, you can show a specific ad for that.
    • Known: Build audiences within MediaOS for your regestered readers.
      • To do this, navigate to the Members tab on the right hand side and select "audiences" up top.
      • Audiences: ways for us to segment out different viewing habits, characteristics, attributes, etc. of a reader.
        • Example of using Audiences: Political Ads- You can decide "if a reader does this action or reads this specific content, then put them into our left leaning audience group.

This image shows you when you select "+ Audience", how you can customize groups of audiences to your preferences.

Once you have your audience groups set up, you can go back into the ad server contract and customize the readers based upon these specific groups. An example of this would be political ads once again- you can decide if a reader is known and in a certain group and NOT in the other group.

You can also see in this image, there is a "Forecast Inventory" button that will show you ad server specific statistics based upon your market segmentation.

Assigning Assets to the Ad Server Line Item

• When assigning assets to line items, there are a few key steps that must be followed to ensure it works properly.
  • The ad CANNOT be a PDF, it needs to be a JPEG, PNG, or something that is more digital friendly.
  • When uploading an ad, it MUST have a target URL, otherwise it will not work or show up, because there is nothing to click on.

Trouble Shooting if your Ad is not Appearing

The first place you want to look and see why your ad is not showing up on your site, is on the line item. As you hover over the ad in the ad library, click the little "i" to be able to see more information about that specific advertisement.

Regardless of the size specified for the ad unit itself, the key factor is the screen size of the device viewing the ad. Our ad server is designed to display ads based on the viewer's screen size. For example, if you upload a large ad, it may not display on mobile devices due to the limited screen space available.

Another approach to see why the ad is not showing is to go to Delivery, then Line Items, and apply the filter for Line Item, setting the date range to "Running Between" and "Today." This will provide a list of all line items currently active and running today—not just those within the specified date range, but anything that should be displayed. This is a useful step for troubleshooting issues with the ad server.

Using the Ad Server in WordPress

Go to the site and add "wp-admin" at the end of the URL and login to your WordPress. Once you are logged in, selected "Customize" on the top bar of your site, as pictured below.

From there, you will see menu of customizable options. Scroll down and click on "Advertisement Option"

Here you will see all of the advertisement options for the site. You can click in any of these settings and toggle the placements for your advertisement as you wish.

NOTE: For "Article Ads", the site will direct you to an Article Page if you aren'y already on one so you can see the ad placements.

Using MediaOS Ad Blocks with MediaOS theme in WordPress

If you are utilizing the MediaOS theme in WordPress, you have access to the MediaOS ad blocks where you can place specific ads on your site using an embed code from MediaOS. Navigating back to the home page, select "Edit with Elementor" in the top bar as pictured below.

Once you are in Elementor, search MediaOS Ad Block under the Widgets and select the Widget.

With this widget, you can now specify what ad you want to run in this block and place it where you would like. You can choose which kind of ad you would like to run from an image, google ad, or a script ad.

Ad Server in WordPress without having the MediaOS Theme

If your site is not utilizing the MediaOS theme in WordPress, simply search the "HTML" widget and drag and drop that block where ever you please.

Then, you will paste in the embed code for your ad in the HTML code setting of the HTML block.

Ad Server Analytics

Navigate to the "Reports" tab inside MediaOS to see further analytics on your Ad Server. Scroll down to Delivery and select the "+" next to Ad Metrics.

Here, we can run a report based off of the ad server. We can total this by clicks, impressions, hovers, etc. You can customize these settings and then selecting "Run Report".

Additionally, another way to find metrics is going directly to a specific account, and selecting the "Stats" tab.

This will also automatically pull those metrics on the invoice if we have that enabled in settings.To include the ad server report on invoices, navigate to System Settings > General Settings, then search for "Ad Server." From there, enable the toggle for Include Ad Server to automatically include the ad server report on your invoices. When a line item associated with an ad server is invoiced, it will include detailed information such as hovers, clicks, impressions, and other metrics, broken down by device. This ensures that clients receive comprehensive performance data for each ad, directly on the invoice.