We’ve created this Getting Started guide to answer common questions and help you be an effective advertiser in the AdBrite marketplace.

Topics:

• Building the Perfect Ad
• Targeting the Right Audience
• Winning the Auction
• Tracking Your Bottom Line
• Optimizing Your Campaign
• Troubleshooting

Download Getting Started Guide for Advertisers (PDF | 1.17mb)

Building the Perfect Ad

AdBrite offers a full range of ad types, each of which can be customized to fit your campaign and the look and feel you want for your ad. But it’s not only style that counts—a compelling message with clear language will lead to a lot more clicks on your ad.

Try at least 5-10 different versions of your ad—AdBrite supports up to 100 per campaign—even if the differences are as small as changing a word in the headline.

AdBrite will automatically try each variation and show you the results, enabling you to decide which versions to run more often. You'll notice the difference in click-through rate (CTR)—the higher that number is for a given ad, the more effectively you’re engaging your audience.

AdBrite offers three basic options for advertisers: text, banner, and Full Page ad. Here’s a quick breakdown of how each one works and how to select the right format(s) for your campaign:

Text ads are the easiest, most basic form of online advertising. You’ve only got 70 characters to work with, so you need clear language and an engaging headline to get people to your URL. Text ads also have the advantage of appearing within the photos, videos, and text content of the sites you select, thanks to AdBrite’s BritePic, and Inline products. Learn more »

Banner ads come in five familiar shapes and sizes—all IAB standard. Visual impact is key, since you have a lot of space to work with. Use a powerful, relevant image and just a few crucial words. Learn more »

Full Page Ads are an interactive, high-impact way to get your message out. The ad appears during the user’s browsing experience, without a click, and takes up the user’s entire screen. All you need for a Full Page Ad is the URL of your homepage, but it’s even better to point users to a landing page that’s straightforward, contains one call to action, and enhances your brand. Learn more »

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Targeting the Right Audience

The AdBrite marketplace allows advertisers to communicate directly with your target audience, whether it’s the entire network or one focused segment of it. Experiment by targeting different audiences by content category and keyword, as well as more specialized options.

Unless you’re already sure of your target audience, we recommend beginning with full-network targeting. That’s why it’s the default option when you create a campaign. Later you can narrow down to the types of site that are converting for your campaign.

To try full network targeting for a new campaign, create a new campaign, choose your ad type and use the other pre-selected options.

With an existing campaign, you can edit your targeting at any time by logging in to Manage campaign, select your campaign and then using the “Edit Targeting” option.

Targeting capabilities

Targeting by content category lets you choose the types of website where you want your ads to appear. Learn more »

Targeting by keyword works like a search engine, matching the terms you use to describe your site or product to sites in the AdBrite network. Learn more »

Targeting by location allows you to target worldwide by country, and for over 100 metropolitan areas in the US. Learn more »

Targeting by demographic info allows you to target by age and gender. Learn more »

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Winning the Auction

The AdBrite marketplace brings together thousands of advertisers and publishers in a real-time auction for ad space on websites—with nearly 1 billion transactions processed every day.

All ads are automatically entered into the auction, but whether you win the premium ad space depends on your bid and daily budget for each campaign.

After choosing your ad type and setting any targeting parameters, you’ll be asked to enter your maximum bid and daily budget. The pre-selected options reflect overall marketplace conditions and may be a good choice for your first time.

For text ads, the bid will be CPC (cost-per-click); for banner ads, CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions); and for Full Page Ads, CPV (cost-per-view).

You can always change your bid or your daily budget mid-campaign by clicking on the campaign name on your Manage Campaigns page.

Here are a few situations where editing these options might be the best thing for your campaign:

1. If you like the performance of your campaign and want more traffic, you should raise your daily budget to gain more exposure.
2. If your want your ads to appear on higher-quality sites, raise your max bid for the entire campaign to win the auction on more sites.
3. If you’ve consistently been able to get the results you want, but want to pay a lower price, consider lowering your max bid.
4. If you’re noticing on the “Sites” tab that particular sites have been especially effective or ineffective for your campaign over time, raise or lower your bid on individual sites to win those particular auctions.

Optimization Strategies has more detail about how to use these advanced options to maximize campaign conversions.

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Tracking your Bottom Line

AdBrite offers a full set of metrics to help you understand and improve the performance of your campaigns. The most successful advertisers in the marketplace leverage AdBrite’s free conversion code—useful not only for tracking purchases that result from your ad campaign, but also for gathering detailed information about how users engage with your site.

Log on to For advertisers and you’ll see the following:

Manage Campaigns tab—Displays a list of campaigns you’re running, and summary metrics for each campaign. Click on each campaign to view more detail on the “Sites” and “Ad Variations” tabs.

Sites tab—Includes performance metrics for each site on which your ad has run. Change bids and track performance for each site. See Example below.

Ad variations tab—Provides details for each ad variation you’ve entered. Try different ad variations, select the most effective ones, and pause those that don’t work as well.

For each of the above reports, you can view more or less data by selecting the dates, ad types, and campaign status for your reports.

You can also track the effectiveness of your AdBrite campaigns all the way through to conversions that happen on your site. Just add a free AdBrite conversion code and you’ll see conversions and cost-per-conversion for each individual site and ad variation in your campaign.

To add the code, visit Conversion Tracking, where you’ll see the screen below:

To view conversion data, visit Manage campaigns and click on an individual campaign. Go to the bottom-right portion of the page and set the “Show Conversions?” pull-down to “Yes”. You’ll now see conversion (“conv”) and cost-per-action (“CPA”) data on every key page—results for individual sites are available from the “Sites tab”.

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Optimizing Your Campaign

Once your campaign has been running for a few days, you can start optimizing to get the results you want. Below is a breakdown of the most common and effective strategies that successful advertisers use to optimize campaigns in the AdBrite marketplace.

As you’re optimizing, it’s crucial to monitor your campaign statistics closely to see what’s working and what’s not.

As discussed in Building the Perfect Ad, make sure that you’ve tested multiple variations of your ad creative and that you’re using the most effective ones. Experiment with variations on the core message, call to action, and design of your ad.

Many campaigns get off to a slow start because they’ve targeted too narrow a segment of the AdBrite network. If you’re not getting as many clicks or impressions as you’d like, or you’d like to try a different set of sites, edit your targeting options for full-network targeting or a broader segment of the network.

Optimizing Site by Site

After your conversion code is live, you can optimize bids on a site-by-site basis to maximize conversions at your target price. Although this involves a little work, it can be the most effective way to hone your campaign over time.

As in the screenshot above, your first use of this rich site-level data should be to pause all non-converting sites and then, if necessary, reduce bids on sites converting above your target CPA.

On sites that are inexpensive for your campaign, converting below your target CPA, you should increase your bid, since there are probably more conversions to be had at or below your target.

With all this in place, you should be able to increase your daily budget to drive as many conversions as possible.

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Troubleshooting

AdBrite gives advertisers a huge range of options—from the details of how a banner can look to what age group a campaign should target. You’ll find a lot of info about the marketplace by exploring more topics in “How AdBrite Works”, and our Help section covers more detailed questions.

Here’s a short FAQ on a few of the subjects that are most crucial for new advertisers:

Q: Why aren't my ads showing up on any sites yet?

All new ads are reviewed by our editorial team, typically with 24 hours of being submitted. Go to the “Manage Campaigns” page to confirm that your had is no longer “Pending” and shows “Approved” status. If your ad has been approved, but is not running, your targeting may be too narrow, or your bids may be too low. Consider expanding your targeting and/or raising bids to win more auctions and gain more exposure.

Q: My ads are displaying, but they’re not receiving many clicks.

To improve your campaign’s CTR (click-through rate), check out Building the Perfect Ad and try running a number of variations on your ad. You can also try targeting a different audience to see if they”ll be more responsive to your message.

Q: Can I change the sites that my ads are running on?

You can change the sites for your campaign at any time. You can pause individual sites that are not working well and simultaneously raise your bid to get more exposure on the top-performing sites. See Targeting the Right Audience to learn about editing all of your targeting options mid-campaign—which is the way to appear on an entirely different set of sites.

Q: How can I see conversion data in my online reports?

First, make sure you’ve followed all the instructions in Tracking Your Bottom Line for adding AdBrite’s conversion code. Sometimes it makes a difference to place the code snippet at the top of your page; also note that the tracking code is “http” by default. If you are placing the code on a secure page, please replace “http” with “https”.

Q: I want to change the amount I’m spending on my campaigns.

You can do this at any time. The two amounts you can adjust are your daily budget and maximum bid. You can edit these two numbers on the same screen directly in your Manage Campaigns page.

Q: Will AdBrite keep me up to date about my campaigns?

We will send your emails with relevant updates about the progress of your campaigns. For instance, you’ll know that a campaign purchase went through when you receive an email confirming your order. Similarly, we’ll let you know if there’s a problem like your ad not displaying or your budget not being spent. And you can always log-on to our website to view relevant statistics at any time.

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