Help Campaigns

Run a campaign.

A campaign is a flight of banners with a click destination and a total show limit paid from your impression credits. Credits come from your welcome credits and from showing other members' banners on your websites. You create the campaign and upload banners in the network portal. An operator approves banners and starts the flight.

  1. Check your credits

    Sign in as an advertiser (no account yet? register and verify your email). Home and Campaigns show your credits available. You get 10,000 welcome credits when you verify your email. You earn more when other members' banners are shown on your approved websites: 1 credit per valid ad shown, or 11 for every 10 during your first 25,000. Operators can also grant credits. With no credits you cannot create a campaign. See how the exchange works.

  2. Create a draft campaign

    Open Campaigns and choose New campaign. Set a name, an HTTPS click URL, total shows (how many credits to spend, up to your balance), and devices. Saving moves those credits into the campaign budget right away. Start and end dates are optional and use Eastern Time; leave the end date empty and the campaign runs for one year from when you create it. Ads never show on a website that matches the click URL domain (self-promotion block). Your campaigns can show on your other websites unless you block them there; those shows earn no credits.

  3. Upload banners

    Open the campaign and choose Upload banner. Pick the size first. The image must match that size in pixels exactly and be 350 KB or smaller (JPG, PNG, WebP, or GIF). Add short alt text that does not include the word "advertisement" (the ad label is separate). The banner goes to the approval queue as pending review.

  4. Wait for approval

    An operator reviews each banner. Pending and rejected banners do not serve. If a banner is rejected, read the note, fix the file, and upload again. Upload a banner for every size you want to reach; a 300×250 slot only shows a 300×250 banner.

  5. Go live

    You do not need to start the campaign. It goes live on its own as soon as every readiness check passes, which usually happens when Sputnik approves one of its banners. If you set a start date, it waits until then. The status strip at the top of the campaign page says what the campaign is doing and what, if anything, it is waiting for. Use Pause campaign and Resume campaign there to stop and restart it.

Back to help · How the exchange works · Supported sizes · Reports and metrics