Place Ads Page

The Place Ads page is accessed by clicking in the left navigation panel on any page. This is where users place ads in your mall. Placing an ad is as simple as filling out a form. Once the form is completed, the advertiser receives a Confirmation Screen to review all data entered. Once the ad is submitted, the final Thank You Invoice screen displays important ad information, pricing, payment information and image upload instructions.

Below we review all areas of the Place Ads page.

The Right Choice

The first section of the Place Ads screen is shown below. It promotes your ads to potential advertisers and provides a link to your Sample Ads. Sample Ads are placed and edited by you via the Administration Panel. Visitors to your mall can view your Sample Ads before placing an ad of their own. For more information on how to create Sample Ads, including the different ways they can be used, see the Advertising Management section of this manual. No part of the screen below can be customized.

More Information

The More Information section is fully customizable and displays the ad duration and pricing you have selected, as well your own text or HTML. The customizable text or HTML is entered in the More Information field of the General Settings / Administration area of the Admin Panel. This text is useful for providing more information to potential advertisers about placing an ad, as well as simple instructions for doing so.

Place Your Ad Form

Placing an ad is as simple as completing a form. Below we will review each area of the form.

The add Duration and Pricing that you have created for your ad mall will automatically be displayed in the form as shown below. Any changes that you make to the Duration and Pricing will instantly be reflected in the form.

• Select Ad Duration:  One duration must be selected.
  
• Select Up To X Categories:  X is the number that you set in the Set Advertising Settings field of the Admin Settings and represents the number of categories an ad can be submitted to. At least one category must be selected. If more than X categories are selected, the advertiser will be prompted to fix it upon submitting the ad.

The Customer Information fields shown below are all required. If any are not completed a message will be displayed upon submitting the form.

NOTE: The Email Address field is where the Invoice Confirmation Email is delivered to.
NOTE: The text in the Customer Information fields are used for administrative purposes and do not appear in the ad.

• Receive Email Updates: This field enables you to build an opt-in email list that you can send emails to on new products, updates, promotions etc.. When you use the Broadcast Email feature in the Admin Panel, you can choose to send email to ALL advertisers, or OPT-IN advertisers.
  
  
• Enter a Password: The advertiser must enter a password up to 8 case sensitive letters or numbers. The password is used to access the Update Ads Control Panel of your mall. If an advertiser loses their password, you can change it using the Change Customer Password feature of the Admin panel.

The Ad Information section contains all the fields used to create the actual ad. The fields that contain the purple asterisk are required. Each field contains a brief description to help the advertiser understand its use. Each field displays the maximum amount of characters that can be entered.

NOTE: To help you preserve the site design, no HTML tags are accepted in ads.

Website Address fields are optional and contain two different text boxes. The first box is where you enter the complete URL of the website it should link to and must start with http://. The second box is the text message that is displayed as the link. For example, if you had "http://yoursite.com" in the first box and "Visit My Site" in the second box, then this is what would be displayed in your ad:
Visit My Site
and clicking it would take you to: http://yoursite.com.

NOTE: If nothing is entered in the second box, then the website address will be used for both.

The next part of the form is also optional and is a repeat of the first part. Advertisers can use it as additional space to better describe what they are advertising, or use it to promote something different, such as a second item.

The last section of the form is also optional and is where advertisers can add their name, address, phone, fax, email and website.

• Name: It can be anything the advertiser wants, such as a personal or company name.
• Street-Country: Sample text appears in the text box and should be removed if not being used. Each item should appear on a separate line, or however the advertiser wants it displayed.
• Email: A complete address must be entered, such as: name@isp.com. It will automatically appears as a link in the final ad.
• Website Address: Must be a complete URL and include http://.

Once the form is completed, click the Yes submit button above.

 

Confirmation Screen

After submitting the ad form, the user receives the Confirmation Screen in order to review the ad before final submission. Below is the top of the Confirmation Screen and as you can see instructs the user to review the ad and make any changes if necessary before submitting. The rest of the screen that is not shown below contains all of the completed form fields.

Once the ad is reviewed, it is submitted by clicking the Submit button as shown below.

Thank You / Invoice Screen

After submitting the Confirmation Screen, the user receives the Thank You Invoice Screen.

The advertiser is greeted by a thank you message that automatically incorporates his or name, as shown in the screen below.

The next section contains important ad information and the advertiser is prompted to print it for his or her records. This same information is also sent in the Invoice Email.

Aside from including key items from the ad that was placed, it also includes the Ad URL, Ad Number and payment instructions

• Ad URL: The website address that can be used to access the add directly.
• Ad Number: The number of the ad. This is needed to use the Update Ads Control Panel.
• Payment Instructions: This important information is created by you in the Invoice Info Text field of the Admin Settings. It tells advertisers how to send payment and usually includes a link to a secure online order form.

The next section enables advertisers to upload an image to their ad. This can also be done anytime later via the Updates Ads Control Panel.

• All images must be in GIF or JPEG format.
• The maximum size is decided by you in the Admin Settings.
• The maximum width and height can not be changed.
• If an image is uploaded that exceeds any of the maximums, a error message will be displayed.

The last section gives instructions on viewing, updating and renewing an ad. The bottom portion contains your company information as listed in the Set Your Company Information field of the Admin Settings.