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FAQs for Bloggers
See all answers
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Can I run both 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. For more information about our adstrip placement requirements, please read Sections 10.4-10.6 of our Terms at http://web.blogads.com/Documents/blogger_terms/.
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How can I change my password once I've created a Blogads account?
Once you've logged in to your account click on the "Logins" link in the left navigation 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 your new password. Please remember to save the changes.
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How do I insert the css and javascript codes for my newly created adstrip into my blog?
When clicking the 'Customize adstrip' link to the right of your newly created adstrip, on the first page that loads towards the bottom you will find your css and javascript codes that need to be placed into your blogs HTML code. The css code should normally be placed into the head section of your blog's html code. The javascript code should normally be placed into the body section of your blog's html code where you want the adstrip to appear.
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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. To do this, log into your account, click on the "Adstrips" link in the left navigation bar, and then click on the "Create ad with offer code" link to the right of your adstrip. Upload your ad's contents and click the "Advanced details" button at the bottom of the Create Ad page (do not click "Proceed" yet). On the Advanced Details page, enter your offer code in the offer code box and hit "Proceed". Then you will successfully be able to check out with your free ad. (To find your offer code, click on the Adstrips link in the left navigation bar and then click the link named "customize adstrip" to the right of your adstrip. The offer code is listed in the text box named "Offer Code" - please note that offer codes are case sensitive.)
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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 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. For 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 a 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.
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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. 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.
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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.
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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" so that it doesn't appear on the order page or the hive order page, please go to your Adstrips page and click on the "customize adstrip" link to the right of your adstrip. 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 on your site and your readers will continue to be able to submit ads via the "Advertise here..." link at the bottom of the adstrip directly on your site.
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When do I appear on the Blogads order page?
After your javascript has been running on your site for at least 2 days and your adstrip's javascript has exceeded 3,000 page impressions. Your adstrip will show up on the order page as long as the javascript is called more than 3,000 times per week.
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How do I set my offer code?
Click on the "Adstrips" link in the left navigation bar. Click on the "Customize adstrip" link to the right of your adstrip. Enter a new offer code into the "Offer Code" text box and save.
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How do I post ads on my own site without paying?
Click on the "Adstrips" link in your left navigation bar and then click the "Create ad with offer code" link in the row of the adstrip you want to submit the ad to. After uploading your ad on the Create Ad page, you will need to enter that adstrip's offer code. To do so, click on the "Advanced details" button at the bottom of the page. Enter your offer code in the Offer Code text box on the Advanced Details page, and then hit Proceed. On the Checkout page, you will see that the price is $0.
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How can I change my blog's pitch on the Blogads order page?
Click on the "Adstrips" link on the left nav bar. Then click on the link called "Blog description" to the right of your blog's name. Now you can enter your blog's pitch in the "Order page summary" text box. Don't forget to save your changes.
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How can I change my prices?
Log in to your Blogads account, then click on the "Adstrips" link on the left. To the right of your adstrip there is a link named "customize adstrip". 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.
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How can I create a second adstrip? For example, for premium orders, or for another blog I run?
Click on "Adstrips" in the
left navigation bar. Click on the "Create Adstrip" link to the right 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 a 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.
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I don't 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 adstrip's name. Under the "Ad format" heading you will see your adstrip pricing structure. At the end of each of these ad formats there is a column called "accept flash price multiplier." Un-check that box if you do not want to run flash ads. To save your changes click on the "Proceed" button on both the current and the next page, until you get back to your main adstrips page.
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How do I indicate that an adstrip is full?
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 immediately recalculated to take into consideration the queued ad.
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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 have 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 normally.
Not all users are affected, 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".
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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" in the left navigation bar. Click on the number (probably 1- if it's only one new ad submitted) appearing under the "new ads" column. Now you'll see the heading: "Ads waiting for approval." Under this heading you can preview the ad creative by clicking the name of the ad, and you're able to approve or reject the new ad by changing the ad's status in the "Action" column and saving. You can also select the "Position" of the ads here. Save your changes toward the bottom of the page. When you approve or reject an ad, the page will reload with the status of the ad displayed as "processing." Once your request is processed you will see your selected ad state the next time you reload the page. The ad will appear in your adstrip, and on your blog, within a few minutes.
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Why did an ad that I never approved appear on my blog?
You have until the start of next day after submission of an ad to approve or reject the ad. The day after an ad is submitted, 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.
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How can friends post ads on my adstrip for free?
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.
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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 in the left navigation bar. To the right of your adstrip is a link named "customize adstrip". Click on it. Here you will be able to see the code-word you chose under the "Offer code" heading.
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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/her ad and drop him/her a line politely requesting a correction.
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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 un-defer the ad. Note that you will only get paid for this ad once it has been un-deferred. If you get more ads than you have room for, you should also raise prices.
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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's likely that the ad cache for your blog is still not refreshing. 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.
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I just approved an ad but it is not displaying on my blog. What's up?
It can take 10-20 minutes for the ad to appear on your blog. If you still cannot see the ad then this could be due to your browser's cache. To refresh your browser's cache in Internet Explorer hold down your 'Ctrl' key and click the 'refresh' button with your mouse. In Firefox hold down the 'Shift' key and click the refresh button with your mouse. You should be able to see the ad on the blog once the page reloads.
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Site statistics show that I've got a lot more traffic than Blogads seems to register. What gives?
There are several 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 page views 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 page views 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 check the page views 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 an 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've 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've run through points 1-4.
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How do I set my PayPal address?
Once you've logged in to your Blogads account, click "My Account" on the left-hand side. You will see the PayPal address field on this page.
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When do I get paid?
To lessen the risk of chargebacks, we PayPal within 15 days after the end of the month in which an advertiser pays for an ad, if your balance exceeds $75. We'll also sweep all accounts clean at the end of the year. Make sure we've got your PayPal address and w9 information in your "my account" page and we'll close you out in our next bout of payouts.
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How do I know if an advertiser has bought an ad on credit?
When you receive the new ad submission notification, it states whether the ad has been bought on credit or not.
Typically these ads get paid 30-60 days after their run. The payment date info is now included in Waiting For Approval notification email. For more info on the payment status of your ads, see this FAQ item.
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How do I know which ads have not yet been paid for by advertisers?
The total amount due to you for 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 go 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 gotten 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've sold in each month.
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How much money can I expect this month?
This is displayed in the first row of the "Due payments" table, on top of your Accounting 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: 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.
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I've passed the payout threshold of $75 and have inserted my PayPal e-mail address, but still haven't 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 for which we've received payment. 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: there's 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."
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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.
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What fees and charges are applicable to my Blogads account?
Please click here,
to visit our Service Fees page, which displays fees applicable to bloggers
joining the Blogads network. Blogads charges bloggers who joined us before May 2005 20% of an ad's purchase price. Bloggers who joined later are charged 30%, five percentage points of which is remitted to the blogger who sponsored him or her. When purchases are made through a hive order form, Blogads pays five percentage points of its fee to the blogger who is that hive's administrator.
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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.
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I've changed my email address. How do I change my Blogads user ID?
Once you've 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'd like along with the password. Once you've created this new ID and logged in using the new email address, the system will give you the option to delete the old one on the main Logins page.
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How can I remove an email address that is no longer valid?
Log in to your account. Now click the "Logins" link in the left nav bar. You'll first need to add in a new login email address before you can remove your non valid email address. Please refer to the following link here about adding a new email address. Once you've added the new email address, logout of your account and log back in with the new email address you just created. Now go back to the "Logins" page in your account. You'll now see you have two email addresses. Tag the email address you need to delete and click the "Delete" button. The old email address is now removed.
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Does Blogads send any tax documents?
Through Dec. 31, 2006, we sent 1099 forms only to bloggers whose sponsorship revenues passed $600 in the calendar year. We will, however, send a 1099 to U.S. resident individuals (and partnerships), who earned more than $600 in the calendar year. For this reason, we require anyone approaching $600 in revenues to fill out a w9 form (Americans citizens or residents) or a w8 form (everyone else). The link to the form is on your My Account page.
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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, or even 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.
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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, and people who have a track record of supporting Blogads.
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