A new update is here – we’ve released a consolidated way to mark your ads, along with a brand new feature to create dynamic ad insertion points. Let’s dig into what's changed!
In this article:
What is Ad Marking
If you’re participating in a campaign in the Creator Network – whether it’s an Ambassador or Host-Read sponsorship, ad marking is a necessary step to ensure your ad is being tracked properly and to showcase your host-read endorsement with the brands. For Creators who’ve been in the network prior to May 2023, you can still access the “Mark Your Ad” modal from the campaign offer.
In the latest update, an ad marking type, Existing Ads, has been updated to streamline marking multiple ads in your episode, along with adding a new marking type, Insertion Point, to create new ad slots for dynamic ads.
Before we begin, let’s go over some topics:
What is an ad? This is your host-read, announcer read or any embedded ad in your episode.
Ad Marking: action to mark the timestamp of an existing ad or create a new ad slot.
Existing Ad: any type of embedded ad that exists in your episode.
Insertion Point: create an ad insertion point into your existing or future episodes.
Transitions: the lead in before and after your ad or ad break.
What is a Programmatic ad? An ad program where you can earn revenue by serving third-party brand-safe ads, dynamically inserted into your marked or created ad slots.
If you're hosted on Zencastr, click here to begin your guide.
Externally Hosted (Shows not hosted with Zencastr)
Mark Existing Ads: Campaign Participation
How to mark your Existing Ads:
Log in to your Zencastr Creator Network account.
Click the Episodes tab.
Find the episode you’d like to mark ads in and hover to locate the context menu (3 vertical dots), click Edit.
On the left-hand sidebar, click the Ads tab.
Click +New Ad.
Select Existing Ad.
Fill out the following fields:
Ad Name: name your ad, this will help you keep track of the creative, for Ex: “BlendJet Take 1.”
Offer (mandatory to confirm submission of participation): from the dropdown, select the campaign the ad is for.
Start Time: the timestamp of the beginning of your ad using HH:MM:SS.sss format.
End Time: the timestamp of the end of your ad using HH:MM:SS.sss format.
Contains transitions: Keep the toggle disabled if you’re hosted externally. Learn more about this feature benefit for Zencastr-hosted shows.
Click Create.
To mark additional ads for the selected episode, click +New Ad and follow the steps outlined above.
Click Next.
Once done, please hit the Publish changes button.
How to Check if Ads are Successfully Marked
To confirm that your ads were successfully marked, please follow these simple steps:
Go to the Monetize Dashboard.
Click on the campaign you are checking this for.
Look for the section called ‘Your episodes with ads’. It should show all the episodes you have marked for that campaign.
Result: If all episodes with your marked ads are displayed in the 'Your episodes with ads' section, congratulations! Your ads have been successfully marked. In case you notice any missing episodes, it was not successfully marked. Please try again using the following steps outlined in 'Mark Existing Ads: Campaign Participation' to ensure that all episodes are properly included.
Zencastr Hosted
For creators hosted on Zencastr, there are two use cases for the Existing Ad marking feature.
If you have a pre-existing ad, such as a host-read ad or an announcer-read ad embedded to your episode, you’re able to:
Mark an ad for a campaign you’re participating in.
Swap out an old ad and repurpose your ad slot for programmatic ad insertion.
Mark Existing Ads: Campaign Participation
How to mark your Existing Ads:
Log in to your Zencastr Creator Network account.
Click Episode.
Find the episode you’d like to mark ads in and hover to locate the context menu (3 vertical dots), click Edit.
On the left-hand sidebar, click Ads.
Click +New Ad.
Select Existing Ad.
Fill out the following fields:
Ad Name: name your ad, this will help you keep track of the creative, for Ex: “BlendJet Take 1.”
Offer: from the dropdown, select the campaign the ad is for.
Start Time: the timestamp of the beginning of your ad using HH:MM:SS.sss format.
End Time: the timestamp of the end of your ad using HH:MM:SS.sss format.
Contains transitions: add the timestamp at the start and end of the ad if there are transitions. Detailed information here.
Click Create.
To mark additional ads for the selected episode, click +New Ad and follow the steps outlined above.
Click Next.
Once done, please hit the Publish changes button.
How to Check if Ads are Successfully Marked
To confirm that your ads were successfully marked, please follow these simple steps:
Go to the Monetize Dashboard.
Click on the campaign you are checking this for.
Look for the section called ‘Your episodes with ads’. It should show all the episodes you have marked for that campaign.
Result: If all episodes with your marked ads are displayed in the 'Your episodes with ads' section, congratulations! Your ads have been successfully marked. In case you notice any missing episodes, it was not successfully marked. Please try again using the following steps outlined in 'Mark Existing Ads: Campaign Participation' to ensure that all episodes are properly included.
Mark Existing Ads: Programmatic Ad Program
We’ve released a new feature, an innovative way to cycle out old ad spots – we’re giving you the ability to replace embedded or “baked-in” spots and swap in dynamic ads if you’ve opted into our Programmatic Ad Program. If you’ve already marked your ad (if you’re participating in a campaign), you’re all set and have enabled the ad slot to be swapped in with a programmatic ad.
If you’d like to repurpose an ad outside of any Creator Network campaign, follow the steps below:
How to mark your Existing Ads, external or announcer-read ads:
Log in to your Zencastr Creator Network account.
Click Episode.
Find the episode you’d like to mark ads in and hover to locate the context menu (3 vertical dots), click Edit.
On the left-hand sidebar, click Ads.
Click +New Ad.
Select Existing Ad.
Fill out the following fields:
Ad Name: name your ad, this will help you keep track of the creative, this is optional, but encouraged to help you keep track of the marked ad. For Ex: “Insurance Announcer Read Ad”
Offer: optional field, select the campaign if applicable. You can keep this field blank if you do not see an appropriate campaign to select. For most users who are marking slots for programmatic ads, and are not actively participating in other monetization offers in the Creator Network, this field will be left blank.
Start Time: the timestamp of the beginning of your ad using HH:MM:SS.sss format.
End Time: the timestamp of the end of your ad using HH:MM:SS.sss format.
Contains transitions: add the timestamp at the start and end of the ad if there are transitions. Detailed information here.
Click Create.
To mark additional ads for the selected episode, click +New Ad and follow the steps outlined above.
Click Next.
Once done, please hit the Publish changes button.
If you’d like to sign-up for the Programmatic Ad Program, please reach out to [email protected].
Pre-marking for Scheduled Episodes
You’re now able to pre-mark your ads before your episode airs! Please note this feature is for Zencastr hosted shows. During the publish and scheduling workflow, follow the steps below to continue on to pre-mark your ad prior to release.
To ad mark scheduled episodes:
Create (and schedule) your new episode as you normally would following the steps here.
Prior to hitting the Publish Episode button, on the right-hand sidebar, click the Ads tab.
Click +New Ad.
Select Existing Ad or Insertion Point from the dropdown menu.
Click Create.
To add more ad slots, click +New Ad and follow the steps outlined above.
Click Next.
Once you are done, hit on the Publish Episode button to publish (or schedule) your episode with your pre-marked ads.
Creating Insertion Points
This is a new release under the ad marking feature set! If you’re looking to create ad insertion points, select Insertion Point. This feature is for Creators who have opted and received a Programmatic offer from the Creator Network.
To simplify the concept of Insertion Points, this is a similar concept as adding a preroll, midroll or postroll, but with the flexibility for you to choose the timestamp of where you want to place this ad slot. In terms of how we classify the ad duration spot by industry standard, preroll runs the first 25%, midroll between 26-75%, and postroll 76-100% of your episode.
To create ad insertion points:
Log in to your Zencastr Creator Network account.
Click the Episodes tab.
Find the episode you’d like to add an insertion point in and hover to locate the context menu (3 vertical dots), click Edit.
On the left-hand sidebar, click the Ads tab.
Click +New Ad.
Select Insertion Point
Fill in the following fields:
Start Time: enter the timestamp using HH:MM:SS.sss format you’d like to insert into the specific episode.
Number of ads: enter the number of ad slots you’d like to run back-to-back in your created ad break. For example, if you create a preroll ad break at 00:00:00, you can choose to open up your inventory to accommodate 3 ads within this preroll break.
Click Create.
To add more ad slots, click +New Ad and follow the steps outlined above.
Click Next.
Once done, please hit the Publish changes button.
Transitions
A dynamic insertion tool (coming soon) will give you the ability to flight your ad on your back-catalog. The Contains transitions feature was included in this release to allow you to efficiently mark your ad and accommodate this future feature!
What is a transition?
A transition is audio in the form of music or any announced ad breaks that play before or after an ad.
Why is this important?
Based on our user feedback, we wanted to give you the ability to have a seamless ad transition for any baked-in ad to be repurposed to a dynamic ad. If you’re marking your ads now, you will be set for the future feature, without needing to backtrack to make edits.
To use transitions effectively, if your show has a music transition or an announced ad break as a lead-in that pertains to the ad marked, you must input this timestamp. If you’ve planned a transition to accommodate all ads to be dynamically swapped in (if opted in), leave the transition disabled.