Publisher Guide

Sign Up and Approval

The Application Submission and Next Steps

After submitting your application, Six Apart Media:

1. Reviews your application and will respond within 10 business days
2. If accepted, you will receive a welcome e-mail from Six Apart Media with instructions on how to create your ad spaces and copy and paste your ad tags in the appropriate space on your blog. (For blog-specific instructions, see Creating And Placing Ad Tags)
3. It may take up to five business days before you are able to display ads on your blog and generate revenue.

Adify vs. Six Apart Media – what’s the difference?

Six Apart Media is an advertising program from the makers of TypePad and Movable Type. Adify is a third party technology platform that powers the Six Apart Media Advertising Program.

If you already have an existing Adify account:

To apply to Six Apart Media’s Advertising Program with your existing Adify account, please follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are logged out of your Adify account.
2. Once you are signed out, follow this site application link -http://app.adify.com/MemberPages/ApplyToNetwork.aspx?networkId=1803410 - which will direct you to the Application page.
3. From the Application page, click the Sign in button at the top right corner and enter your existing User ID and password
4. Click Apply New Site and you will be directed to a new application page; please complete your registration from this page.
5. Once you complete and submit the form, your site will be linked to the Six Apart Network and approved by our content quality team within 48 hours.

Quick Start

Quick Start

There are three key elements to getting your ads up and running:

1. Decide where on your blog you want to place your ads
2. Create your ad spaces and get your ad tags in Adify
3. Place your ad tags on your blog 

Deciding where to place your ads on your blog:  Where you place your ads on your blog will depend on which platform you use and your blog's layout.  For example, if your right column is 200 pixels wide, you should create a 160x600 ad size to insert into your blog design.

See Best Practices for Ad Placement

Creating Ad Spaces

After deciding which ad spaces will fit within the dimensions of your blog, follow these steps:

1. Log in to Adify at https://app.adify.com/SignIn.aspx
2. From your account main page, select Create new ad space
    
    
   
   
3. Create a name and description for the ad that makes sense with your site (ex. Name: Top Right Skyscraper; Description: 160x600 Ad Space)
4. Under Text, make sure that Image and Rich Text Media is selected
5. Under Size, select the ad size that you are creating (Six Apart serves ads ONLY to the following three sizes: 160x600, 728x90, and 300x250).
6. Under Domain Name, put the URL for the page(s) that your ad will be running. (If the ad is running across every page, insert the URL for your homepage.)
7. Set your rate card and minimum pricing. (Your rate card and minimum should be the same, and you should set them both as low as possible in order to access the greatest number of campaigns.)
8. Select Open all clickthroughs in a new window.
9. Select Done and you will automatically be redirected to Get your ad tags

 

Note: Once your ad spaces have been created, you may go back in and retrieve your ad tags at any time by clicking Get Ad Tags from your main Adify account page.

Generating and Placing Your Ad Tags

Now that you’ve created your ad tags, it’s time to place them on your site.    Copy and paste your ad tags from the get ad tags screen.

To Implement:

• TypePad users click here
• Wordpress users click here
• Blogger users click here 

 

Creating Ad Spaces

Before you can place ads on your blog, you must create ad spaces in Adify. 

The difference between creating ad spaces and placing ad tags

In order for an ad to run on your site you need to let Adify know the type of ad you would like to run on your site by “Creating ad space” in Adify. Once you have created the ad space and generated your ad tag, you need to carve out the real estate on your blog’s platform where the ad will run, this is called ”placing the ad tag” on your blog.

Deciding where to place your ads on your blog:  Where you place your ads on your blog will depend on which platform you use and your blog's layout.  For example, if your right column is 200 pixels wide, you should create a 160x600 ad size to insert into your blog design.

See Best Practices for Ad Placement

Creating Ad Spaces

After deciding which ad spaces will fit within the dimensions of your blog, follow these steps:

1. Log in to Adify at https://app.adify.com/SignIn.aspx
2. From your account main page, select Create new ad space
    
    
   
   
3. Create a name and description for the ad that makes sense with your site (ex. Name: Top Right Skyscraper; Description: 160x600 Ad Space)
4. Under Text, make sure that Image and Rich Text Media is selected
5. Under Size, select the ad size that you are creating (Six Apart serves ads ONLY to the following three sizes: 160x600, 728x90, and 300x250).
6. Under Domain Name, put the URL for the page(s) that your ad will be running. (If the ad is running across every page, insert the URL for your homepage.)
7. Set your rate card and minimum pricing. (Your rate card and minimum should be the same, and you should set them both as low as possible in order to access the greatest number of campaigns.)
8. Select Open all clickthroughs in a new window.
9. Select Done and you will automatically be redirected to Get your ad tags

 

Note: Once your ad spaces have been created, you may go back in and retrieve your ad tags at any time by clicking Get Ad Tags from your main Adify account page.

Generating and Placing Your Ad Tags

Now that you’ve created your ad tags, it’s time to place them on your site. Copy and paste your ad tags from the get ad tags screen (located in the center of the screen).

 

Selecting create new ad space will take you to the following screen:

 

Introduction

Six Apart Media – Not your average ad network

Six Apart Media provides a blogger-friendly alternative to existing ad networks and creates compelling and profitable advertising opportunities for our bloggers.  An advertising program developed by bloggers, for bloggers, Six Apart Media offers a full suite of services and technical support to help make you a better blogger, including:

• Custom advertising promotions and sponsorships
• Educational opportunities, webinars and insights from leading blogging professionals
• Increased traffic to your blog by promotion across Six Apart properties
• Insight into upcoming product features 

Ad Sizes Employed by Six Apart Media

Six Apart Media uses only the following three standard ad sizes:

300 x 250 Ad Unit

 

728 x 90 Ad Unit

  

160 x 600 Ad Unit

Campaign Review

Adify allows you to review and approve campaigns that run on your blog.

Use the Media Buy Review tab to manage these settings.

By choosing to review ads based on your review preferences, you will be able to look at an ad before letting it run on your site. If a media buy is sitting in the queue for 24 hours it will automatically be accepted.

Ad Review Preferences

You can modify your default campaign review preferences by clicking Edit Site > Edit Site Options on your Adify homepage:

Each ad space in your account has a minimum price associated with it.  Six Apart Media recommends you set your minimums at $.01 to start so that your blog participates in all Six Apart Media campaigns.

From the Media Buy Review tab you can review and either accept or reject any campaign from the Pending, Accepted, Rejected and Potential tabs.  To review the creative for the ad in question, click on show under the Media buy column.  The preview feature will display the ads running for that campaign. 

Six Apart Media Creative Standards

Six Apart Media has a thorough screening process to ensure the highest creative standards are met. On rare occasions, due to creative adjustments by the advertiser, an ad that fails to meet our quality criteria will show. If you happen to see a questionable ad, please take a screenshot and send it to us so we can remove it as quickly as possible.

Media Buy Review – Potential vs. Pending Tab

Pending:  New campaigns that you have indicated you wish to review prior to their acceptance. After 24 hours, these campaigns will be automatically accepted.

Potential: Ads will go into this category when your site is not set up to run 1 or more ad sizes for a particular campaign. To participate in these campaigns, you will need to format your site to accommodate additional ad sizes. Keep in mind, most campaigns run several ad sizes, so even if a campaign shows up in your potential tab, you are most likely running one of the 3 ad sizes.

If no ads are displaying and everything is showing up in the potential tab, you have probably set up your ad tags incorrectly. Please refer to the instructions for creating and placing ads or contact [email protected].

Adding Additional Sites

Adding a Second Blog to Your Existing Adify Account

From the logged in homepage of your Adify account, select the green button, “Create New Site”. You will then be prompted to add the information for the additional site.  Do not re-apply if you are adding a new site. You should only have one log-in and password for all of your sites with Six Apart Media.

Find the create new site button on your homepage.

 

Complete the information for the new site.

Placing Ads on Your TypePad Blog

TypePad users should use the Ads by Six Apart Media widget to implement ads on their sidebar. 

Go to the Design tab, click Content and choose the following:
Category: Ads by Six Apart Media
Module: Ad Tags

 Click Add this Module and choose the ad space you would like to add to your sidebar from the drop down.  Then, paste your ad tag code from your Adify account into the text box and click Save.  Please note:  You must first create ad spaces in your Adify account in order to generate the ad code necessary to implement this module. 

You may now drag and drop the sidebar modules to arrange them in the order you prefer.  Please refer to our Best Practices for Ad Placement if you have any questions.

To set up the 728x90 or 300x250 ad size, you will need to use Advanced Templates and set up a custom module for the corresponding ad space. You will then insert the ad tag into the module.

To recap:

For 160x600 Ad Size in TypePad

• Go to Design tab
• Click Content
• Category: Ads by Six Apart Media
• Module: Ad Tags 
• Choose ad space
• Copy and paste ad tag into the text box

300x250 and 728x90 ad sizes on TypePad 

Most available Pre-Defined Themes in TypePad will only let you run the 160x600 ad size on your sidebar. To run the 300x250 ad size you will need to select the ‘Asterisk White/Black (Wide)’ theme with one of the Classic layouts. If you are using Custom Themes you need to ensure that your General Page Settings for columns are set to 300 pixels wide and you are using a Classic Layout (not a Mixed Media Layout).

For Advanced Template Users

To set up the 728x90 ad size or custom placements of the other ad sizes, you will need to use Advanced Templates and set up a custom module for the corresponding ad space. Here's how:

1. After converting your templates to advanced templates go to Design.
2. Since we want to have the ad tags as a module we can put in any template click Create new template module.
3. Name your module something obvious like 728x90.
4. Copy and paste your ad tags into the Module Body and then Save. You should now see the 728x90 template module in your list of Template Modules. Now let’s add it to the design.
5. Go to the Main Index template: Design > Content > Main Index template. Look for the code for the beginning of the banner.
   
   <!-- banner -->
   <div id="banner">
   <div id="banner-inner" class="pkg">
   
   We’re using the MTInclude tag to tell TypePad to include one of our template modules.
6. Add the code right above the<!-- banner --> tag. Here’s an example:
   
   <MTInclude module=”728x90”>
   
   <!-- banner -->
   <div id="banner">
   <div id="banner-inner" class="pkg">
   
   
7. Save the template and then View weblog. Verify that the ad tags are now showing properly.

Now, go make the change to the Archive Index, DateBased Archive, Category Archive, Individual Archive and Pages templates.

Placing Ads on Your WordPress.org Blog

(Please note that those with Wordpress.com will not be able to run ads with SAM.)

Log into your blog. Click on the Design tab.

For a banner ad (728x90)

• Go to Themes
• Click Theme Editor
• Click Header

Scroll down to <div id = “page”> and place the ad tag under that line

For a skyscraper (160x600) or a rectangle (300x250)

• Go to Widgets
• Click Add text
• Save Changes
• Click Edit Text
• Copy and paste Ad Tag into text box

Placing Ads on Your Blogger Blog

For all three ad sizes (Blogger has a custom format with a wide sidebar and bottom of the page leaderboard)

• Go to Layout tab
• Click Add a Gadget (either on the side bar or bottom of the page)
• Select HTML/Javascript from the list of Gadgets.
• Gadget Name: Choose a name for your list (ex. Sponsor ads)
• Copy and paste the ad tag into the HTML/Javascript box

Ad Tag Troubleshooting

Ad Tag Content

When you first get accepted into Adify and you generate and place your ad tags, you will see ads appearing on your site within 24 hours. Also, please allow up to 72 hours to see campaigns come into the pending and potential folder.

During the initial ramp up, we’ll begin adding your site to existing campaigns. During the first 30 days, sell-through will steadily improve, as will your eCPM, and you’ll have an increasing number of media buys to review and approve.

Troubleshooting Ad Tags

If your ads are displaying partial content, the most likely cause is you’ve created an ad size that is larger than the space allows on your site. Make sure that you are only running an ad size that you can accommodate into your blog’s layout, by first checking the pixel width of the column or side bar and comparing it to your ad sizes. Ad sizes are defined by pixel width by pixel height – i.e. a 300x250 is 300 pixels wide and 250 pixels high. For example, if your right column is 200 pixels in width, you may not run the 300x250. Instead, you should display a 160x600.