Manage your Blog advertising

Frequently Asked Questions from Adstrip managers

FAQ's for Adstrip Manager To read the FAQ for Viewers, please click here.
To read the FAQ for Advertisers, please click here.

Creating a Blogads account
Setting up and customizing the adstrip

Sponsor bloggers
Accepting and running ads
Traffic, payment and administration
Hive


Creating a Blogads account

What is the minimum daily user number a blog should have before they can consider blogads?
Blogs without a laser-sharp focus on one topic or community AND an audience of 1000 readers a day usually do not attract advertisers. But some blogs with a sharp focus AND an audience of thousands a day do NOT get advertisers. One test: have more than a handful of companies expressed an interest in advertising on your blog?

Can I run Blogads and Google Adsense textads?
No problem for us. Lots of bloggers use the two tactics to compliment each other. In its FAQ, Google bars "competing ads". This would include all content-targeted ads as well as text-based ads. Text-based ads, for this situation, can be loosely defined as ads that mimic AdWords ads or appear to be associated with AdWords ads on your site. We do allow affiliate or limited-text links."

How can I change my password once I have created a blogads account?
Once you have logged into your account click on the 'Logins' link on the left nav bar of the page. Click on your user email address that you use to login to your account with. Now you will be able to add in your new password. Please remember to save the changes.

Setting up and customizing the adstrip

I have lost my blogads welcome email. What is the javascript code I need to insert into my blog to run blogads?
To find your blogads javascript code, log in to your blogads account at web.blogads.com. Click on Adstrips, then on the customize link in the row of your adstrip. The javascript code you need to paste into your site is at the bottom of the page.

OK, I have pasted my javascript into my site and it is not working. Why?
Sometimes it takes a few minutes before a new adstrip goes live. Wait for an hour and then refresh your blog page. If your adstrip is still not showing please drop us a note via http://web.blogads.com/ba_contact_us

I am using Typepad. How can I insert the Blogads code?
Please refer to the following HELP GUIDE about adding the Blogads adstrip code into your Typepad account.

OK, I've got an adstrip. How am I going to get people to look at it, much less advertise in it?
Prime the pump. Put up an ad for friends or products you admire. Give visitors a reason to pay attention.

What is a 'Finite' adstrip?
Finite adstrips can contain only a predefined number of ads. You can set the capacity of your finite adstrip during the adstrip creation process or on the customize adstrip page. When the adstrip is full, any ads that you accept are going to get queued and will run automatically when space frees up. The blogads system automatically calculates the full until date of finite adstrips and displays it to advertisers. When you accept a fixed date ad it will take up a slot in the adstrip until the expiry date of the ad. In other words, no ads can be accepted into the same slot in front of this ad. By way of example, if you have an empty adstrip with a limit of 3 ads, and on Jan. 15 an advertiser submits a two week ad with a start date of Feb. 1, you will have only two slots left in the adstrip until Feb. 14. You could use an finite adstrip on top of your side bar, within your postings or – if you set capacity to 1 – it will even fit into your masthead.

How can I turn a non-exclusive adstrip into finite or vice versa?
You cannot. You need to create a new adstrip and then, once it no longer has ads in it, take down the one you originally wanted to change.

Why am I limited to two thematic categories for my blog?
In the past we had no such limit, and several bloggers added themselves into categories that were only very distantly related to the real focus of their blogs. This made filtering by category meaningless for advertisers, so we introduced this limit. Please select the categories that best describe your blog's focus and your audience's interest. Note that you can join an unlimited number of blog hives – as long as the respective hive managers decide you fit their requirements. A lot of our sales occur via hives, so be sure that you apply to join all the relevant ones. For more info, see this FAQ item.

How should I price my adstrips?
Price hi-rise at 4 times your standard prices and minis at half your standard. Price classifieds at 10% of your standard prices. Alternately, price hi-rise at $4 per thousand impressions, standard at $.80 per CPM, mini at $.40 cent CPM and classifieds at $.10 CPMs.

I've changed my prices and my pitch for the Order a la carte page. How long is it before these take effect?
The order page cache is refreshed every 6 hours. If you made the change earlier than that, please drop us a note at blog-tech AT blogads.com

I have an adstrip that I do not want to appear on the Order and Hive pages. Is this possible?
To make the adstrip "private", click on its "customize adstrip" link.  You will see a checkbox called Public, which is ticked by default. Untick this checkbox and save your changes at the bottom of the page. The javascript code will remain active and your readers will continue to be able to submit ads via the Advertise here... link at the bottom of the adstrip.

I made a mistake and I need to delete one of my adstrips. I do not see a option to do this. What do I do?
Only blogads admins can delete adstrips. (This is to prevent the accidental deletion of adstrips with paid for ads running in them.) Please be sure that the adstrip has no running ads and that you have at least one other adstrip under the same “blog” within your account. Contact us via http://web.blogads.com/ba_contact_us. Before contacting  Blogads please rename the adstrip you want to delete to 'DELETE'.

When do I appear on the Blogads order page?
After your javascript has been running for 2 days and you've exceeded 100 page impressions.

How can I make sure that my adstrip shows up on every page of my Blogger-hosted site?
Insert the javascript unbracketed into the template. Take out all bracketed information that may get gerenated by Blogger as default around the code.

How do I set my offer code?
Click on the 'Customize adstrip' link in the adstrips row. Enter a new offer code into the 'Offer Code' text box.

How do I post ads on my own site without paying?
When inputting your ad, use the “create ad w/ offer code” link in the row of the adstrip. After uploading your ad, you will be able to enter your offer code via the “Advanced details” link at the bottom of the ad creation page. When proceeding to checkout, you will see that the price is $0.

Can I use special characters, symbols in my "pitch"?
Yes you can. In order to include characters such as &,@,® etc. please use the HTML code of the character.

How can I change the pitch on the Blogads order page?
Log in to your Blogads account, then click on the "Adstrips" link on the left nav bar. Now click on the link called 'Blog description' to the right of your blogs name. Now you can enter your pitch in the 'Order page summary' text box. Don't forget to save your changes.

How can I change my prices?
Log in to your Blogads account, then click on the "Adstrip" link on the left. At the end of your adstrip's row there is a customize link. Click on it. You will be able to edit your prices here. Note that the minimum price for any time period or ad format is $10. Be sure to save your changes.

How can I create a second adstrip, for example for premium orders or for another blog I run?
Click on "Adstrips" in the nav bar. Click on the "Create Adstrip" link in the row of the blog's name. You can specify the location or type of the adstrip (e.g. Top right), select ad formats and set prices. (See [this] FAQ item for tips on pricing.) If you are creating an finite adstrip, select it under 'Adstrip type'. If you want the adstrip to display its name on the blog then please fill in the 'Header text' box. If you have more than two adstrips posted in your blog's HTML, the quantity of adstrips should be noted in the description for each adstrip you provide for the Blogads order page; something like "the first of three adstrips" or "third of five adstrips" or "middle left of six adstrips" or "one of many." (From Blogads perspective, two or three adstrips per blog are the easiest to understand and sell.) Labels like "Premium" should be used sparingly, either denoting exclusivity and/or for adstrips priced at some multiple to the normal adstrip on the same blog.

Can I use my blogads account to create adstrips for another blog?
Yes, as long as that second blog is also yours. Click on "Adstrips" in the nav bar. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and press the “Set up ad space for another blog” button. Follow the steps on the screen.

What are the different ad formats that I can setup in my adstrip?
There are 4 different kinds ad formats. All of these with the exception of he Classie ad format can also be setup to accept flash ads. To view these different examples of ad formats please go to this link. By default all are selected when you first create your adstrip. This will allow a advertiser to submit ad to any of the 4 ad formats into your adstrip. If you do not want to run certain ad formats you will need to deselect them.

What does the last column called 'accept flash price multiplier' in the 'Ad format' pricing structure box do?
If 'accept flash price multiplier' is enabled in the pricing structure box then by default any flash ad submitted at the normal price of the ad format will be multiplied by the price multiplier to calculate the final cost of the ad. The default mutiplier is 1.2 but this can be set higher if needed but not lower.

I do not want flash ads on my blog. How do I turn them off?
On your 'adstrips' page click on the 'customize adstrip' link to the right of the adstrips name. Under the 'Ad format' heading you will see your adstrip pricing structure. At the end of each of these ad format is a column called 'accept flash price multiplier'. Please remove the tag if you do not want to run flash ads. To save your changes click on the 'Proceed' button on the current and the next page till you get back to your adstrip page.

How do I indicate that a adstrip is full?
Unlike in blogads2, the "full until" dates are now automatically calculated for finite adstrips. When you accept a one-month ad into an empty adstrip, for instance, the ad will immediately appear on your blog. The next advertiser will see the automatic full until date. If another ad is submitted, you can accept it immediately: the ad will be queued until the previous ad expires. When you accept this second ad, the "full until" date will be immeidately recalculated to take into consideration the queued ad.

When viewing blogads on my site through Firefox, the adstrip occasionally displays improperly. The ad appears to be taking over the page. Is there anything that can be done about this?
Mozilla/Netscape 7 and above has a bug that is related to javascript serving on pages with certain HTML. This problem is not specific to blogads: bugzilla.mozilla.org
The problem occurs only once on a browser: if the user hits the back button or goes back to your page, everything will display as normal. Not all users are effected, but we have not been able to identify what exactly determines this.
A blogads user suggested that by moving all .css style sheets into the Head part of the .html, the problem disappears.
Another blogads user suggested that you insert the blogads javascript into your HTML the following way:
<div class="side">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="PUT_YOUR_BLOGADS_CSS_URL_HERE" />
<script language="javascript" src="PUT_YOUR_BLOGADS_JAVASCRIPT_URL_HERE"></script>
<script language="javascript">var juryrig = 'hopethisfixesit';</script>
</div>
If you encounter this problem yourself on another blog, you should just set the style in your Firefox browser (view/style) to "no style".

In IE there is a bullet point in front of the headline of my ads. How can I get rid off it?
This is caused by the interaction between your CSS and that of blogads. You need to insert the following tag in your CSS (for a more detailed explanation please see the 4th box on http://web.blogads.com/Documents/blogger_css_explain)

div.adspot * ul {
  list-style: none;
  width: 150px;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}

div.adspot * li {
   border: thin solid black;
   background-image: url(semi.gif);
   text-align: center;
   width: 100%;
   cursor: pointer;
   overflow: hidden;
   display: block;
}

Sponsor Bloggers

How can I invite other bloggers to join blogads?
Blogads works by invitation only. You will earn 5% of the ad revenue sold by bloggers you sponsored. If you have been authorized to invite bloggers, you will see a “Sponsor bloggers” link in your nav bar. Once you click on it you will see how many invitations you have left as well as your earnings from bloggers you had sponsored. If you do not see the Sponsor blogger link, please write to us at sponsors (at) blogads.com and explain who you would like to invite and why. Please note that you will need to comply with all our adstrip placement rules before you can sponsor bloggers. See Sections 10.4-10.5 at http://web.blogads.com/Documents/Documents/blogger_terms.

What should I do if the blogger I invited to join Blogads has not received the email inviation?
The invitation e-mails are generated instantly, so if it has not been received, it has probably been caught by a spam filter. Have the blogger you wanted to sponsor contact us at blog-tech (at) blogads.com. We need to know the email address to which the invitation was sent as well as your blogads id e-mail.

Accepting and running ads

I've received an e-mail that a new ad has been submitted into my blog. How do I review and approve it?
Go to web.blogads.com and log in with your e-mail address and password. Click on "Adstrips" on the left. Click on the name of the adstrip that has a new ad in it. This you are able to see by checking the 'New ads' column. Now you will see a heading 'Ads waiting for approval'. Under this heading you are able to approve or reject the new ad by changing the ads status in the 'Action' column. You can also select the 'Position' of the ads here. Save your changes towards the bottom of the page. The ad will appear in your adstrip, and on your blog, within a few minutes.

What happens when I accept an ad and put it in the "any" status?
These ads will rotate within your adstrip: each time a user loads the page, the ads will be generated in random order.

Why did an ad that I never approved appear on my adstrip?
You have three days after submission to approve or reject an ad. After three days, the system automatically approves the ad. The rationale for this is that our automatic notification emails often get stuck in bloggers' spam filters or are mistakenly deleted. Ads for which the advertiser has specified a run after date do not get activated until that date even if they are approved.

How can friends post ads on my adstrip without paying for them?
Have them use your offer code. After they have uploaded their ad, they will need to click on the “Advanced details” button at the bottom of the page. They will be able to insert the offer code on the next page. If the offer code is correct, they will see $0 as the price of the ad on the checkout page.

Where can I find my offer code and how can I change it?
Log in to your Blogads account, then click on the "Adstrip" link on the left. At the end of your adstrip's row there is a customize link. Click on it. Here you will be able to see the code-word you chose under the 'Offer code' heading.

What happens if I don't like the way an advertiser has revised an ad that's already running?
Write to the advertiser and ask him to change the ad. If they refuse or do not respond, get in touch with us and we will manually revert the ad to its original state. In the meantime, change the ad's status to “defer.” This will remove the ad from the adstrip.

Wouldn't it make sense for bloggers to approve all ad changes before they appear live?
We're balancing a number of interests. First, we assume there's some level of trust established between the blogger and the advertiser. Second, a smart advertiser will want to experiment and update the ad a lot; complicating this process would be annoying to both parties. So this trust-but-verify scheme is the most efficient solution we've been able to cook up. If an advertiser does something that annoys you, "defer" his ad and drop him a line politely requesting a correction.

I have recently upped my prices but see customers order ads at the old prices. How is this possible?
We had included your blog in a proposal sent to an advertiser before you updated your prices. Proposals are valid for a month, and the proposal has just gotten approved. This explains why the old price is in the system. You can, of course, choose to accept or reject this ad.

My (non-exclusive) adstrip is full but an ad has been submitted. What should I do?
If you want to run the ad when space frees up, accept it and defer it immediately. This signals to the advertiser that you do want to run the ad. When space frees up undefer the ad. Note that you will only get paid for this ad once it has been undeferred. If you get more ads than you have room for, you should also raise prices.

An ad was submitted into my adstrip a few days ago. I did not have room so I did not approve it. The ad has been approved - but I don't want to run it yet. What should I do?
If this is an finite adstrip, even an approved ad will not run until space frees up. In a nonexclusive adstrip, simply defer the ad and when space frees up in your adstrip, undefer it. Note that you will only get paid for this ad once it has been undeferred. If you get more ads than you have room for, you should also raise prices.

I have an expired ad that continues to run on my site. How can I remove it?
Please refresh your browser cache. If you still see the old ad it appears that the ad cache for your blog did not get refreshed. We apologize for this problem. You can manually expire the blogads cache by making any change to your adstrip: changing the status/position of a running ad, accepting a new ad or pressing the "proceed" button on both pages of the relevant "customize adstrip" sequence will do the trick.


Traffic, payment and administration

Site statistics show that I've got a lot more traffic than Blogads seems to register. What gives?
There are a couple of possible explanations:
1. Blogads on every page. Make sure you have the blogads javascript on every page of your site. Archives, individual posts, pages with comments... everything. We can give you credit only for the pages that include the javascript code.
2. Spiders and robots. The blogads server counts the pageviews by displaying a 1 pixel by 1 pixel invisible image on your blog, along with the javascripts. This may differ slightly from your own statistics, as spiders and search engine bots do not read javascripts. This can account for a difference of roughly 10%. Also, note that the number of pageviews on blogads pages is updated once a day.
3. RSS. We also do not count traffic to your RSS feed, since feeds do not carry blogads. This can account for another 20% difference on some blogs.
4. Traffic measurement. If these reasons do not explain the difference, please install these two free statistics generators on your site for comparison: Sitemeter and Statcounter. They are simple to use and require little effort to install into your html code. Other statistics report generator programs may or may not identify the page views amongst the page hits accurately. This is caused by endless possibilities that the url's included in the page can have. For example, certain statistics generators may think that any hit for .php scripts counts as a page view, while some of the .php scripts serve images to be displayed on the page instead.
Another option is to chec the pageviews based on the number of requests to a page logo (normally a .gif or image file related to the main heading of the blog site), as this is  normally displayed on every page of the blog. This .gif image has a unique url. Take the www.blogads.com image url as a example: http://web.blogads.com/blogads3_logo.gif. You can check how many hits there are to this url every day and how it compares to the number of page views reported by blogads.
5. Still unsure? Contact us. If you have taken all of the above into consideration and still feel that there is a discrepancy, please send your raw access data logs to blog-tech (at) blogads.com and we will investigate. But please do this only once you have run through points 1-4.

How often do the ad statistics get updated?
Every hour during the day. To be more exact, the statistics get updated at the following hours (Eastern time): 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 10 p.m., 11 p.m.

How do I set my Paypal address?
Once you have logged in to your Blogads account click "My Account" on the left hand side. You will see the Paypal address field on this page.

When do I get paid?
To lessen the risk from chargebacks, we Paypal within 15 days after end of month in which advertiser pays for an ad when your balance exceeds $75.  We'll also sweep all accounts clean at year end. Make sure we've got your Paypal address and w9 information in your "my account" page and we'll dose you out in our next bout of payouts.

Can I use my blogads earnings to buy ads on other blogs via blogads?
You cannot. You can, though, use your normal blogads account to buy ads, but you will need to pay for ads you buy separately.

How do I know if an advertiser has bought an ad on credit?
When you receive the new ad submission notification, it includes if the ad has been bought on credit. Typically these ads get paid 30-60 days after their run. For more info on the payment status of your ads, see this FAQ item.

How do I know which ads have not been paid for by advertisers?
The total amount due to you for such unpaid ads is listed in the last row of the “Due payments” table on top of your Accounting page. There is a little question mark in the Unpaid ads row. When you click on it, you will get to the Due payments page. This page lists all the ads that we have not paid to you, grouped by expected payout date. The bottom section of this page lists the ads that have not yet been paid for by advertisers. Because we cannot pay you for such ads, this section is called “Payments not yet due.” The original payout date for each ad is listed in the row of the ad. This is the 15th of the month following the activation of the ad – i.e. the date on which you would have got paid, had these ads not been bought on credit. The reason we are including this original payout date is to enable you to see how much you sold in which month.

How much money can I expect this month?
Please consult the the table "Due payments" on top of your Accounting page. This page lists by payout date the amount you can expect from us based on sales you have made to date. The amount under “Unpaid ads” is your share of ads you have run, but for which we have not yet received payment from the advertiser. For information on how to find out which ads have not been paid for by advertisers, please see this FAQ item.

Thank you for the payment! How do you know which ads were included in this month's payout?
On your Accounting page, look for the accounting item "Payout of your ad shares". There is a little orange question mark next to it. Click on it and you will see the list of ads that were part of this payment.

How do I get paid for ads I ran in Blogads 2 now that Blogads 3.0 is up and running?
Payments from Blogads 2 continue to be made on the 15th of every month, as we receive payments from advertisers.

I seem to have ads that have run their course but are showing up as 'Unpaid ads' on my accounting page. These ads are not included in the latest payment date under the 'Due Payments' heading. Why?
We can only pay you for ads that have been paid for. While we require upfront payment from most advertisers, many agencies can only pay after they have been invoiced. For large orders of repeat customers we extend payment terms of 15-60 days from the date ads begin running. The silver lining in this delay is that there is no credit card fee for these payments, which are settled by check or wire transfer. Once payment is received for an 'Unpaid ad' it will be removed and added into the next valid payment date on the 'Due Payments' page. For more info on the Due Payments page, see this FAQ item.

I have passed the payout threshold of $75 and have inserted my paypal e-mail address, but still have not received money. Why?
If this payment would have pushed you over $600 in calendar year revenues from blogads, we require a w9 form from you before we can process payment. You will find the link to the form on the "My Account" page. We can only pay you for ads that have been paid for. While we require upfront payment from most advertisers, many agencies can only pay after they have been invoiced. For large orders of repeat customers we extend payment terms of 15-60 days from the date ads begin running. The silver lining in this delay is that there is no credit card fee for these payments, which are settled by check or wire transfer. You can see the payment status of each of your ads on the Accounting screen within your blogads account, under "Payment date".

The accounting page states that my next payment won't take place until Feb. next year. Why?
While you are below the $75 monthly payment threshold, the system will predict a payout for next February. No matter how little money we owe you, we'll pay you within 60 days of the end of the year. If you pass the $75 payment threshold, the payout date on your accounting screen will come forward to the 15th of the next month.

Can you send me a check?
The threshold for check payment is $750. If you'd rather wait until you have $750 in your account, tick the “Check” radio button on the My Account page. Remove your paypal address and insert your mailing address in the appropriate field on this page. If the check needs to made out to a name different from the name of the account, please include the recipient's name in the Address field.

I have recently revised my prices, and have just received an ad at the old price. Is there a delay before the new prices take effect?
Your new prices take effect immediately. However, the ad you have just received was part of a proposal that we at blogads created for an advertiser before you revised your prices. Because larger advertisers as well as those working via agencies need some time to approve a proposal, prices in proposals are frozen for a month. It is of course your choice whether you reject this ad or accept it at the old price.

What fees and charges are applicable to my Blogads account?
Please click here, which will take you to the our Service Fees page applicable to bloggers joining the Blogads network. The charges applicable to your account may differ from these and are available via the footer of your adstrip admin pages once you have logged into your blogads account.

Why do the payout percentages recorded in the accounting archive vary slightly from ad to ad?
Different payment channels have different fees. There's no fee when we get paid directly, as happens 1 in 5 times (or so). Paypal's fee varies a little depending on transaction size. Worldpay charges another set of fees on another sliding scale. And Amex charges something else. So basically, there's an infinite variation in these fees.

How can I change my login e-mail address?
If you are logged into your account click on the "Logins" link on the left nav bar. Here you will be able to create a new login by clicking on the 'Add new' button.

Can I create a second ID to access my Blogads account?
Yes. Click on the 'Logins' link in your nav bar and then on the 'Add new' button. You can specify the new email address and the password on the following page.

I want a second person to be notified when I get a blogad order. How do I do this?
You will need to create a second ID associated with your account. See Can I create a second ID to access my Blogads account?

I have changed my email address. How do I change my Blogads user ID?
Unlike in Blogads2, you can do this yourself now. Once you have logged in, click on the 'Logins' item in the nav bar. This will show you the current email address. Hit 'Add new' and then specify the email address you would like along with the password. Once you have created this new id, the system will give you the option to delete the old one on the main Logins page.

Does Blogads send any tax documents?
We have been told by the IRS that advertising sales are a kind of service that does not require the preparation of 1099s or any kind of tax reporting from us to the IRS. Consequently, we send them - or you - no information. You can, however, put together the information you need for your taxes based on the Accounting page within blogads. At the same time, sponsorship revenues need to be reported on a 1099 form. If you are getting close to the $600 reporting threshold from sponsorship revenues in the current calendar year, you will hear from us and we will require a w9 form before we can send any more payments to you.

I have stopped blogging. How can I terminate my blogads account?
You can terminate your blogads account by taking the javascript code off your page and sending us an email notification. Please read Sections 12.2-12.4 of our Terms at http://web.blogads.com/Documents/blogger_terms/ for more details.


Hive

How can I join a Hive?
Assuming you are a blogad seller, membership in Hives is at the sole discretion of the hive administator, the blogger who manages the network. The administrator sets terms for participation. This may include linking to the network page, ad positions, including a hive logo. Only bloggers who are linked to the network should show up on the network page.

In order to join a hive, you must email your request to the hive administrator. Contact blog-tech [at] blogads [dot] com with the specific hives you want to join and we will send you the appropriate contact information.

Can I create a Hive of my own?
Write ad-niche (at) blogads.com and explain why you'd like to create a hive. We prefer to deal with long-time bloggers, people who are focused in a particular niche, people who have a track record of supporting Blogads.

To read the FAQ for Viewers, please click here.
To read the FAQ for Advertisers, please click here.