Content, Ads & Banners

Introduction

This document outlines the ads, banners, editorial and other promotional material (including examples) required for your affiliate programme. It is recommended that you read through this guide and provide as much creative content as possible to assist Publishers in promoting your programme.

Ads/Banners

Ads/Banners are a great way of getting brand recognition and we recommend that a broad selection of banner sizes and creative treatments are provided to give affiliates the widest possible choice. Having a banner that fits a niche on an affiliate’s page could be the difference between them running your campaign or another merchants.

Supported Sizes

We recommend providing a range of banners that cater to Publisher requirements. The IAB Fixed SIze Ads Spec is a good reference:

https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/IABNewAdPortfolio_LW_FixedSizeSpec.pdf

There is a maximum limit of 300k for the file size – although obviously we recommend keeping them as small and optimised as possible.

Supported Formats

Typical Ads/banner formats are:

• Animated gif (*.gif) - creatives that cycle through a series of static frames.
• HTML5 Ads
• Editorials
• Email

Adding Content

To add Banners/Ads/Links for Publishers click on Campaigns > Banners/Ads and select the type of content to create:

Banners/Ads

Upload files indvidually or in bulk. Select a campaign, confirm the details and click Upload Ads

Once an Ad has been uploaded it can be edited by selecting the Ad. From here it is possible to:

1. Change the status
2. Overwrite the default Landing Page URL (for the Campaign attached to the Ad). This will enable the Ad to be redirected to a different landing page on Click.

Text Links

Brand Logo

You must also supply a brand logo (to be supplied in gif/jpg/png format) for advertising your programme across the Publisher Login & promotional material when we launch your campaign.

Logos will be saved to 400x400 so it is recommended to use a file with at least these dimensions.

Further Information

HTML5 Ads

Requirements

Optimise support HTML5 Ads based on IAB Standards. You should read HTML5 For Digital Advertising before reading this guide.

info

HTML5 Ads supplied to Optimise must be designed to comply with IAB standards. If you supply HTML 5 Ads based on other standards that are not compatible with IAB standards, there may be a setup fee (if we are able to convert them).

Please ensure your zip files contain only one HTML file and don’t contain any unnecessary files of folders, or unsupported image file types (JPG / GIF is preferred).

An HTML5 Ad is contained in an iframe so css properties such as margin could affect the display of the Ad.

Using Bannerflow? Optimise is integrated with Bannerflow.

Dimensions

Where possible we automatically detect the Ad dimensions from the ad.size Meta tag:

<meta name="ad.size" content="width=300,height=250">

If there is not ad.size Meta tag present you will need to supply the associated dimensions so they can be manually updated.

Adding a ClickTag

You will need to include a ClickTag in your HTML so that we correctly send a user via our click tracking URL & redirect to the right destination URL when they click on your Ad.

To do this you should add the following in the head of your document:

<script>
var clickTag = "http://www.yourwebsite.org";
</script>

And wrap the banner or any element you want to click with the following:

<a href="javascript:window.open(window.clickTag,'_blank')">
%CONTENT%
</a>

tip

Remember that JavaScript is Case Sensitive and therefore your clickTag variables must always be in the same case.

caution

Optimise do not provide support for multiple ClickTags in the same Ad.

Links to assets

Any links in the html page or associated css files which link to other assets e.g. images, must either be relative to the html document (example <img src=”images/header.jpg” ) and these assets be included in the zip file, or if they link to external assets, they must be referenced as secure links (example (<img src=”https://someserver/images/header.jpg”)

Example

The following is a simple example of an HTML 5 Ad:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<head>
<title>CSS3 Animated Web Banner | onlyWebPro.com</title>

<meta name="ad.size" content="height=300,width=500">

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.js"></script>

<script>
var clickTag = "http://www.yourwebsite.org";
</script>

</head>

<body>

<a href="javascript:window.open(window.clickTag,'_blank')">

<div id="banner_wrapper">
<div id="content">
</div><!-- END content -->

<div id="moving-clouds">
<ul id="group-1">
<li class="cloud-1"></li>
<li class="cloud-2"></li>
<li class="cloud-3"></li>
<li class="cloud-4"></li>
</ul>
<ul id="group-2">
<li class="cloud-1"></li>
<li class="cloud-2"></li>
<li class="cloud-3"></li>
<li class="cloud-4"></li>
</ul>
</div><!-- END moving-clouds -->

<ul id="flying-man">
<li></li>
</ul><!-- END flying-man -->

<ul id="bottom-cloud">
<li></li>
</ul><!-- END water -->

</div><!-- END banner_wrapper -->

</a>

</body>

Bannerflow

Optimise has integrated with Bannerflow letting you quickly and easily publish your HTML5 Ads to the Optimise platform.

Simply log in to your Bannerflow account and Publish your Ads. Then copy and paste them into the Optimise Dashboard.

Editorials

Editorial is also a powerful tool for marketing your site and products online. By complementing your banners, editorial content widens the range of promotional options available for affiliates to present to potential online customers.

Editorial content is dynamically served by Optimise ensuring that affiliates are kept up to date.

Affiliates are given access to content provided by you within their account logins. We are able to host and distribute the content you provide dynamically to affiliate websites ensuring we are in control and that content is kept fresh and up to date.

Examples

Editorial can be supplied in any format. Popular options that work well include:

• Simple, short company/product description, used mainly with a banner or as stand alone listing text (approx 75 – 100 characters in length).

  • Example – One line: "Low interest rates, 3 month repayment holiday, click here for further information" A summary editorial, normally one paragraph, used by affiliates with more content on their site. (approx 150 – 200 characters in length)

  • Example – Summary editorial: "Quick decisions on loans from £1,000 to £25,000, low interest rates and a 3 month repayment holiday from a name you can trust. Click here for an online quote."

• Full product editorial description, normally used by affiliates who are dedicating an entire page to your product.

  • Example – Full editorial: Your product puts all your money in one place – from your mortgages and loans to your savings and current account – saving you thousands of pounds in interest charges and giving you the flexibility to live your life differently. The right way to manage your money is to put it all in one place. This gives you one balance that reflects your overall financial picture. But that might not always be how you want to look at your money. That’s why not only can you look at the product as a whole – you can break down your account balance in any way you like. That way you can see your savings, borrowings and other money as individual balances – just like you would with a normal mortgage, current account and savings account. So you get the best of both worlds. You’ve got everything in one place – giving you total flexibility and saving you money. And you’re still able to see your finances in a way you’re used to.

• Launch Editorial. We will also need a small amount of editorial to post on promotional material to promote your programme when it launches, for example: Your product for the customer lifestyle. “A product for individuals, excellent service for all. A flexible approach to the customer needs, products and services styled for the client. Great conversion rates make this an excellent affiliate programme.”

Email

Email is a powerful promotional tool used by a variety of specialist affiliates. Affiliates are able to send out solus emails promoting a particular product or programme for the merchant to consented databases of targeted email addresses. In order to take advantage of email affiliates it is necessary to put some guidelines in place over affiliate’s use of branding and content.

In addition, it is recommended that you provide some HTML templates that affiliates can use for sending out solus emails to consumers.

Guidelines

• The email should contain your brand in prominent position but should be clearly noticeable that it has not come directly from you and mislead consumers.
• Provide a header and footer area for Affiliates to add custom content.
• Ensure that important information is clearly visible within the email
• Use simple HTML when building an email to ensure compatibility with all email software. Eg. Hotmail, Outlook. Do not use complex CSS or JavaScript as this may not be compatible.
• Ensure you prefix all your click-out URLs with Optimise Tracking Macros to ensure your emails will track correctly. eg: https://track.omguk.com/?AID={AID}&PID={PID}&CRID={CRID}&r=

Sign-off Guidelines

If you require that each email is approved prior to an Affiliate sending, please ensure that your account manager is provided with some appropriate guidelines to assist Affiliates with the development.

Example Solus Email

The following is an example of a solus email that would be widely accepted by Affiliates:

Vouchers/Discount Codes

We recommend adding vouchers, coupons and offers for your Publishers to use in their promotions. Affiliates, can download an aggregated feed of all Merchant promotions making it easy for them to integrate your offers into their site.

You can provide Optimise with details of all offers, vouchers and discounts.

Product Feeds

See the dedicated Product Feeds article.