Creating a new Ad does not create a new Ad Spot on the site. It allows you to associate an image or Content Block with an Ad Spot and set the campaign criteria.
Before beginning this process, you will have to create and upload appropriately sized Ad images through the CommerceCM Image Manager or Create appropriate Content Blocks in SiteCM.
Note: For image ads, the CommerceCM image manager will scale the images to the appropriate size for the Ad Spot but we recommend that care be taken to create and upload Ad images of the correct size & dimensions for best results.
You should be familiar with how Content Block's will resize and change under different conditions on a responsive site. As always, you can test your work on your staging site.
Using the Create New Ad control at the top right of the landing page, select which Ad Hotspot you want to create a new Ad for and select which type: Image or Content Block
For Image ads, each Hotspot is associated with an image category that contains images that you have previously uploaded. Once you have selected the Hotspot, a list of available images from the corresponding image category is loaded into the Ad Image menu and you can select it here.
For Content Block ads, you will select your Content Block on the next step and the Image selection will disappear.
You can specify either All Currencies or select an individual currency. This is extremely handy if you want to advertise a sale price a currency value.
By default the start date is the current day and the end date is the end of 2099. Don't forget to put a reminder in your calendar for the end date to remind you.
Select Continue to go to Step 2.
This is where configure your ad. This is also where you land when you click through to manage an existing ad.
Step two of the process shows you your selected image. If you selected the wrong image, you can use the control at the top left to change your image selection. This section also shows you the settings from the previous step.
The Languages control allows you to create the ad settings for each language your site is running.
The Weight determines how often the ad is shown in the selected position in comparison to the other ads running in a hotspot. An ad must have a weight in order to show even if it is the only ad configured for the Hotspot. Weights have gotten more complex since we added the ability to set currency and start and end dates for ads. See example on the Ad Weights page.
The Alt Text is displayed in your Ad Manager reports and is used as Alt Text for your ad panels. Alt text shows up in the tool tips when visitors hover their mouse cursor over the Ad, is used by screen readers for the visually impaired and is indexed by the search engines so be descriptive.
The last line of the control allows you to determine what happens after the ad is clicked by a site visitor.
The first menu, - Select Window – lets you determine if you want the ad to open a new browser window or simply take the user to the page using the same browser window. Most customers will use the Same Window option however if you are sponsoring or promoting an event, you might want an ad to take your site visitors to the other site in a new window so they can learn more then return to your store to shop.
The second menu, - Select Type - allows you to select the type of page you want to link to. You have 4 options. Your selection here determines what data is loaded into the final menu. Your options and their characteristics are:
1. Page: This loads your menus from SiteCM into the final drop down menu as shown below
2. Department: Loads the Departments from your Department Manager into the final drop down menu.
3. Product: Loads the Products from your Product Manager into the final drop down menu.
4. URL: Allows you to specify any URL using standard syntax such as http://www.idealever.com
When your campaign is complete you can click Save and you will be returned to the Site Ad Manager landing page.
With Content Block ads, the linking is setup with the Content Block so the process is simpler. You will also notice that you do not get a preview.