Advertising is an application that allows for the setup and management of advertising campaigns, by creating banners ads for the Splash Page, for a certain interval of time. Once this application has been activated, the Organization Manager can monitor all the data, such as impressions and click analysis for each image inserted.
Cloud4Wi Dashboard management
To access the advertising application, click on the quick access toolbar on the left Manage → Apps → Marketing → Advertising. From here you can manage the advertisements that will be displayed to end-users.
The first screen contains the details for advertisements that are currently present in the system and are visible to the system user.
The listed fields for every campaign are:
- Name: this is the name of the advertising campaign.
- Type: this value depends on the type set for the advertising campaign. There are two types:
- Standard: this is the "classic" ad where clickable images are displayed. This type can be selected for all available positions: Top, Bottom, and Splash (read more below)
- Custom: this advertising consists of an HTML page to submit to the system. It works even in pre-authentication mode since all external images contained in <img /> tags are processed and downloaded to an external server. The only requirement is that any URL contained in CSS blocks must be absolute and must point only to external resources since CSS URLs will not be downloaded outside the solution. This type can be selected only for advertising in Splash position.
- Trigger: this value refers to any user event that makes your banner to be displayed. It is not mandatory to set a trigger and there are some limitations described in the section below. Available events are:
- Login Attempt
- Authentication (Sign-in)
- Opening page (Connect)
- Logout (Sign-out)
- Registration (Sign-up)
- Method: this value is based on the display rules to be set. Please note that this value cannot be modified a second time. It is possible to choose between the following values:
- Clicks: the campaign will expire after a certain number of clicks.
- Impressions: the campaign will expire after a certain number of views by end-users.
- Times: the advertising campaign will start and stop in a time interval that can be set.
- Area: this indicates the area on the page where the banner will be displayed. Choose between the following values:
- Top: places an ad on the upper part of the Splash Page, above all other blocks. Please note Top is not supported by the Metro template.
- Bottom: places an ad at the bottom of the Splash Page, below all other blocks. Please note bottom is not supported by the Metro template.
- Splash: displays an ad when an action is performed. As mentioned before, this is the only template that supports Custom banner.
- Condition: this is the numeric threshold after which the advertising campaign will expire. This value is logically associated with the Method.
- Sponsor Dashboard: this is a URL displaying a dashboard that can be used by the sponsor to monitor the performance of the advertising campaign.
Furthermore, for each advertising campaign, it is possible to perform the following actions:
- Active / Finish: activates or suspends an inactive or active advertising campaign.
- Edit: allows editing to a campaign which had previously been created.
- Statistics: this shows statistics for an advertising campaign based on clicks or impressions performed by end-users.
- Delete: deletes an advertising campaign.
The Organization Manager can search the ads available for a Location by clicking the Search button.
More information about triggers
The following types of banners do not support triggers:
- Banners defined with Type = Standard and Area = Top
- Banners defined with Type = Standard and Area = Bottom
If a banner defined with Type = Standard and Area = Splash has no association with any trigger, it will be shown to the end-user only after the login to the Splash Portal.
To activate triggers, please check the following article: Access Journey.
Creating a new banner
Clicking the Add new banner button adds a new banner. Follow this step-by-step procedure:
- The first step is to select the area on the page where the banner will be displayed.
The possible values are:
- Top: places an ad on the upper part of the Splash Page, above all other blocks. Please note Top is not supported by the Metro template.
- Bottom: places an ad at the bottom of the Splash Page, below all other blocks. Please note bottom is not supported by the Metro template.
- Splash: displays an ad when an action is performed. As mentioned before, this is the only template that supports Custom banner.
An Organization Manager is able to set this if the selected zone is "exclusive" for the current advertising campaign: this way, the Location Manager will not be able to override the zone with other campaigns. Otherwise, any campaign created by the Location Manager will replace the one created by the Organization Manager.
- For the second step, the following data is required:
- Name banner: the name associated with the banner.
- URL: the URL where an authenticated end-user is redirected after clicking the banner.
- Banner: the image uploaded through the Cloud4Wi Dashboard.
- HTML file: the HTML file that is shown to unauthenticated end-users who clicked a banner.
- The third step is shown only to the Tenant who selects the Locations where this advertising campaign will be applied.
- Choose the type of advertising campaign, from the following types (described above):
- Clicks
- Impressions
- Times
It is required to set the numeric threshold for any chosen type (the number of clicks or impressions after which the advertising campaign will expire, or the interval dates out of which the advertising campaign is not valid).
- Confirm all the data set during the previous steps.
FAQ
Q: What happens on the Splash Page when there is more than one active campaign in the same zone? Which is the selected campaign?
A: A random campaign is selected and the related banner is shown up.
End-user experience
This is an example of Top box banner:
This is an example of a Splash ADV banner:
This is an example of a Bottom box banner:
