Working with ad space and advertiser categories

Why set up ad space categories?

Categorizing the ad spaces of your partners is essential for the maintenance and success of your platform. First of all, ad space categories are needed to manage your attribution. The categories you use for the ad spaces of your partners are directly connected with a tracking channel. By giving priorities to channels, you can make sure that conversions are attributed to your ad spaces in an effective and transparent way.

Furthermore, categorizing your ad spaces allows you to map in what areas you are potentially able to generate a huge output and in what areas you need to expand. It enables you to develop an output strategy for your advertisers as well. For example, if an advertiser needs huge traffic impulses, categorization will allow you to activate the display, social media and SEM ad spaces of your partners rapidly; if the advertiser is looking for sales, you could do the same with partners working with incentives.

Why set up advertiser categories?

Categorizing your advertisers is only relevant when you have multiple advertiser programs in your platform – say, more than twenty. It is also recommendable when you use advertiser programs to set up temporary campaigns. Having your advertiser programs categorized will help you maintain overview and allow you to connect the partners in your platform to your advertisers more effectively.

Before you start

Before you start creating categories, make sure that you create a category tree. Ad space categories in particular should be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, i.e. ad spaces should not fit in two categories at the same time and every ad space should fit in a category. To help you on the way, the platform offers you a set of category and subcategory types:

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For the advertiser categories, the following types are available:

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When you create an ad space or advertiser category, basically all you need to do is activate a category type and add your own label to it.

Creating a new category

Getting started

To create both ad space and advertiser categories, make sure you are logged in to your admin UI , click on ‘configuration’ in administration section of the menu and proceed to click on ‘categories’. If you do so, you will see a page containing all existing ad space categories and, further below, your advertiser categories.

Category properties

To create a new category, click on the button ‘create new category‘ in the right top corner of the category page. When you do so, a panel will open up at the top of the page looking more or less like this:

To create a new category, you need to define four settings in the panel:

1. First, you have to decide whether you want to create an ad space category or an advertiser category, under category group.

2. Proceed to select a category type from the options mentioned above. Please note that you can create multiple categories from the same category type.

3. Then, you need to add a label. The label can be identical with the type, but you can also use the option to further differ ad spaces, for example thematically (for content) or by medium (for social media).

4. The status of the category is set to active by default. Only switch the status to inactive when you are really sure you want to use your category in a later phase.

When you are done, click on ‘save’ in the right lower corner of the page. After the page has been reloaded, you will find your new category added to the overview. Along with it, you will find the related tracking channel, the allocation (the number of ad spaces allocated to this category), an icon indicating the status and a couple of icons which are used to create a new sub category, to view the partners with ad spaces allocated to this category, to edit the category and finally to delete the category. These icons are discussed in more detail below.

Creating a sub category

A subcategory is always related to a specific category. So if you want to create a subcategory, make sure you find the related category on the overview page. Go to the icons on the right and click on the  icon. If you do so, a panel will open up below the category looking more or less like this:

To create a new subcategory, you need to define the following settings:

1. Select the type of the subcategory from the options mentioned above. Please note that you can create multiple subcategories from the same subcategory type.

2. Add a label. As with the categories, the label can be identical with the type, but you can also use the option to further differ ad spaces.

3. The status of the subcategory is set to active by default. Only switch the status to inactive when you are really sure you want to use your subcategory in a later phase.

When you are done, click on the save button in the right lower corner of the page. After the page has been reloaded, you will see the subcategory is added to the category overview.

Editing categories and subcategories

To edit a category and a subcategory, click on the  icon in the category overview in the relevant row. If you do so, the panel you used to create the category will be loaded on top of the page again. Edit the settings you want and don’t forget to hit the save button when you are done.

Deleting categories and subcategories

To edit a category and a subcategory, click on the  icon in the category overview in the relevant row. Conform your action in the system window. After you have confirmed your action, you will be taken back to the overview page. The deleted category or subcategory will no longer be displayed. To find deleted categories back, select the option ‘show deleted’ next to the create new category button at the top of the page.