# Sputnik Signal > Sputnik Signal is a free, private first-party banner exchange run by Sputnik Digital (https://www.sputnikfx.com). Members show each other's image banners (JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF) at exact pixel sizes in ad slots on their websites. Showing other members' banners earns credits, and credits pay for showing your own banners on other members' websites. No money changes hands: joining is free, nobody buys credits, and webmasters are not paid cash. Every account gets 10,000 welcome credits when it verifies its email. Each valid ad shown on a member's approved website earns 1 credit; for the first 25,000 counted ads shown per member account, every 10 shown earn 11 credits. Members use a self-serve portal at https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app. A network operator reviews every website and banner; a member's campaign starts on its own once one of its banners is approved. Ad serving, clicks, and reporting run first-party on signal.sputnikfx.com. The ad embed loads no third-party scripts and sets no cookies, and the network builds no behavioral profiles. Pages on signal.sputnikfx.com itself (not the ad embed) also load an AI support chat widget from a separate host. Full text of every help page in one file: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/llms-full.txt ## How it works - Sign up: register at /app/register and pick a plan, "I have a website" (show members' banners to earn credits and advertise your own) or "I only want to advertise" (no website needed). Verify your email to receive 10,000 welcome credits, then sign in at /app/login. - Credits: every member account has one credit balance. One credit pays for one showing of your banner. Home shows credits and starter bonus progress; the account page lists recent credit activity. - Earning: each valid ad shown on your approved website earns 1 credit, or 11 per 10 for the first 25,000 counted ads shown per account. Credits are added hourly. Bots, invalid or suspected traffic, house ads, empty slots, requests without a browser Origin header, and your own banners never earn. - Spending: create a campaign and set total shows; that many credits move into the campaign budget. Lowering total shows refunds unused budget, never below what was already served. Operators can also grant credits. - Advertisers: create, edit, and duplicate campaigns and upload exact-size banners, which go to an approval queue. - Operator: reviews websites, approves banners, and can grant credits. Members cannot approve their own sites or banners or grant themselves credits. - Campaign start: a member's campaign starts on its own once one of its banners is approved and its readiness checks pass, or on its start date if one is set. Members pause and resume their own campaigns. With no end date, a campaign runs for one year from creation. - Sizes (exact pixels): Medium Rectangle 300x250, Large Rectangle 336x280, Leaderboard 728x90, Wide Skyscraper 160x600, Half Page 300x600, Billboard 970x250, Mobile Leaderboard 320x50, Large Mobile Banner 320x100, Square 250x250, Tallboy 250x360. - Time: reporting days run midnight to midnight Eastern Time (New York), and campaign dates use Eastern Time. - Webmasters: add a website by primary domain (localhost, bare IPs, and preview hosts are rejected), choose a category (general or gambling), and declare no adult content. New sites start pending review; pending or rejected sites do not serve, though embed codes are available while pending. Create one ad slot per ad position, with one exact banner size or several. A responsive slot (several sizes) serves the largest of its sizes that fits the slot's width when the page loads, so one embed covers desktop and mobile. Copy one embed per slot and paste it on HTTPS pages on approved domains. - Content rules: adult sites are not allowed. Gambling sites are allowed only after a thorough operator inspection. - Blocking: on a site's page, a webmaster can block a single banner, or block a site to stop every banner that links to that website. Blocked ads never serve on that site, and blocks can be undone. - Campaigns never serve on a website that matches their own click URL domain. A member's campaigns can serve on the member's other websites; those shows earn no credits, and the member can block them per site (Block my campaigns here). - Image banners only, 350 KB or smaller. HTML5 and video ads are not supported. ## AI agents - AI agents may sign up and set up Signal for a real person. Registration has no CAPTCHA or bot trap. - Signal has no public API for members. Agents use the same web pages a person does, in a browser session: the forms need the session cookie and CSRF token that the page provides. - Registration form at /app/register: `name`, `email`, `password`, `password_confirmation`, `role` (`both` for "I have a website", `advertiser` for "I only want to advertise"), optional `organization` (company or brand) and `timezone`, and the required `terms` checkbox: the person must be 18 or older and agree to the Terms of Use at https://signal.sputnikfx.com/terms. Use the email address of the person you act for, and check the box only if that person has accepted the terms. - That person must click the verification link in their email. Accounts still unverified 72 hours after signup are deleted. Verifying grants the 10,000 welcome credits. - After sign-in, the portal at /app covers adding websites, creating ad slots, copying embed codes, creating campaigns, and uploading banners. Sites and banners wait for review by a Sputnik operator; an agent cannot approve them, grant credits, or skip review. - In Chrome with WebMCP, the setup forms are also exposed as agent tools: `signal_register_account`, `signal_add_website`, `signal_create_ad_slot`, `signal_edit_ad_slot`, `signal_create_campaign`, and `signal_upload_banner`, plus the read-only `signal_get_embed_codes` on a website's page. Account creation, new campaigns, and banner uploads wait for the person to press submit. ## Pages - [Sputnik Signal](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/): Product overview of the free first-party banner exchange - [About Sputnik Signal](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/about): Who runs Signal (Sputnik Digital), what it is, and how to reach support - [Help](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help): Help hub linking every guide - [How the banner exchange works](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/exchange): Free to join, 10,000 welcome credits on email verification, 1 credit per valid ad shown (11 per 10 for the first 25,000), what never earns, blocking, site and banner review - [Install on a website](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/install): Webmaster guide to add a website for review, create ad slots, set up responsive slots with several sizes, edit a slot's sizes later without changing its embed, copy the embed, paste one snippet per slot, earn credits, and block banners - [Campaign basics](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/campaigns): Advertiser guide to impression credits, draft campaigns, banner upload and approval, editing and duplicating, and operator activation - [Supported sizes](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/sizes): Banner size catalog with exact pixel dimensions, where each size fits on a page, which screens it suits, and which sizes to pick for ad slots and banners; banners and slots must match exactly. Signed-in members also get an Ad sizes page in the portal showing which sizes the network shows most, the ad slots that take each size, and how many live banners compete for them - [Reports and metrics](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/reports): Definitions of Ads shown (served), Actually seen (viewable), Clicks (unique), Click rate (CTR), Seen rate (viewability), Fill rate, Empty slots (no-fill), and Remaining credits - [Network portal](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/portal): What advertisers, webmasters, and accounts with both roles can do in the self-serve portal, including credits, site review status, and blocking - [Privacy and data](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/privacy): What the ad embed does and does not do, fields logged per ad request, view, and click, hashed IPs, 90-day raw-event retention, and cookies (the ad embed sets none) - [Embed performance](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/embed): Embed size (10,945 bytes raw, 3,952 gzipped, measured 2026-09-25), requests per ad, async loading, and layout shift handling - [Ad blocker test results](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/ad-blockers): every Signal request matched against EasyList, EasyPrivacy, uBlock Origin, AdGuard Base, and Peter Lowe lists on 2026-09-26; none blocked Signal on signal.sputnikfx.com, while the same lists blocked Google Ad Manager, AdSense, EthicalAds, and Carbon Ads. Includes method and limits. - [What is a first-party ad network?](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/first-party-ad-network): Definition, request flow on one host, comparison with exchanges, self-hosted servers, and curated networks, and tradeoffs - [Sputnik Signal compared](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/compare): Signal next to EthicalAds, Carbon Ads, Revive Adserver, and Google Ad Manager, with sourced competitor facts as of September 2026 - [Glossary](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/glossary): Definitions of ad slot, responsive slot, impression credit, starter rate, ads shown, actually seen, seen rate, fill rate, house ad, placement key, and more ## Links - [Create account](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/register): Free self-serve registration with a website or just to advertise, with email verification - [Network sign in](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/login): Portal login for advertisers and webmasters - [Sputnik Digital](https://www.sputnikfx.com/): The studio that runs Sputnik Signal --- The rest of this file is the full text of every public Sputnik Signal help page, generated from the live pages. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/about ## About Sputnik Signal. Sputnik Signal is a private banner exchange run by [Sputnik Digital](https://www.sputnikfx.com). Members show each other's banners on their websites and earn credits to show their own. Joining is free and no money changes hands. ### The basics #### Who runs it Sputnik Digital, LLC runs Sputnik Signal: the servers, the member portal, and the review of every website and banner. #### What it is A banner exchange for advertisers and webmasters. Each valid ad shown on your website earns 1 credit, and each credit pays for one showing of your banner on another member's site. New members get 10,000 welcome credits when they verify their email. See [how the exchange works](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/exchange). #### Why first-party The embed script, banner images, seen reports, and click redirects all run on the Signal host. Your pages load no third-party ad scripts, the ad requests carry no cookies, and the network builds no behavioral profiles. See [what a first-party ad network is](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/first-party-ad-network) and [privacy and data](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/privacy). #### What it is not Signal does not pay cash and does not sell credits. It serves exact-size image banners only, with no HTML5 or video ads. Adult sites are not accepted, and gambling sites are accepted only after a thorough inspection. ### Get support - Open the Cosmo chat on any page of this website. It answers questions about how Signal works and can pass your request to the Sputnik Digital support team. - Members can [sign in to the portal](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/login) to manage campaigns, banners, and websites. New here? [Create a free account](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/register). - The [help center](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help) covers installing ads, running campaigns, sizes, and reports. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help ## Help and guides. Public docs for Sputnik Signal, a free banner exchange. Members show each other's banners on their websites to earn credits, then spend the credits showing their own. Use these pages to learn how the exchange works, put ads on your website, run a campaign with banner images, or check the exact sizes the network accepts. ### How the exchange works Show other members' banners on your site to earn credits, then spend them on your own. Welcome credits, the starter rate, what counts, and blocking. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/exchange ### Install on a website Step-by-step: add your website in the portal, create ad slots, copy the embed snippet, and paste it into your pages. Covers approved domains and HTTPS rules. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/install ### Run a campaign How impression credits, drafts, banners, click URLs, and total shows work. Explains banner approval, how a campaign starts on its own, and why banner sizes must match slots. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/campaigns ### Supported banner sizes The full size catalog with names, keys, and exact pixel dimensions. Use this when designing creatives or choosing a slot format. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/sizes ### Reports and metrics What ads shown, actually seen, clicks, click rate, seen rate, and fill rate mean, plus date filtering and CSV export. The exact definitions behind every number. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/reports ### Using the network portal For advertisers and webmasters: register, verify your email, then create campaigns or add websites and ad slots, and track your own delivery. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/portal ### Privacy and data What the ad embed does and does not do, what is recorded for each ad, how long it is kept, and cookies. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/privacy ### Ad blocker test results Every Signal request matched against EasyList, uBlock Origin, AdGuard, and more, with other ad networks as controls. Dated results. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/ad-blockers ### Embed performance Measured script size, requests per ad, async loading, and how to reserve space so the page does not shift. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/embed ### What is a first-party ad network? How requests flow when ads are served from one host, compared with exchanges, self-hosted servers, and curated networks. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/first-party-ad-network ### Signal compared Signal next to EthicalAds, Carbon Ads, Revive Adserver, and Google Ad Manager, with sources. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/compare ### Glossary Every term used in the portal and reports, from ad slot to starter rate. Page: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/glossary ### What is in each guide #### [Install guide](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/install) For webmasters who want ads on a live site. Walks through adding a website in the portal, ad slot creation, embed copy/paste, and how slots get filled by active campaigns. - Add website + primary domain - Create slots at an exact banner size - Copy embed code from the site page - Paste once per slot; HTTPS and approved domains only - Site review, earning credits, and blocking banners #### [Campaign basics](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/campaigns) For advertisers running display flights. Covers spending credits on a draft, uploading banners for approval, editing or duplicating, and how the campaign starts on its own once checks pass. - Impression credits, HTTPS click URL, total shows - Upload banners that match exact WxH - Edit, duplicate, and credit refunds - Readiness checks, automatic start, pause and resume #### [Supported sizes](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/sizes) Reference table of every format in the network catalog. Creative files must match width and height exactly; the server inspects image bytes, not just the file extension. Animated WebP and GIF are allowed. - Friendly name, machine key, dimensions - Same catalog used by slots and creative upload #### [Reports and metrics](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/reports) Plain definitions for ads shown, actually seen, clicks, click rate, seen rate, fill rate, and remaining credits. Explains the four reports, date filtering, and CSV export. - Exact formula behind each metric - Campaign, site, placement, and creative reports #### [Network portal](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/portal) For advertisers and webmasters. A self-serve view of your own campaigns or sites, separate from the operator admin console. - Advertisers: credits, campaigns, banner uploads, delivery - Webmasters: websites, review status, ad slots, embed codes, fill rate, blocking - Everyone: credits and starter bonus progress on Home, credit activity on the account page ### Accounts and access - **Sign up** at [/app/register](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/register) with a website to exchange banners, or just to advertise. Verify your email to get 10,000 welcome credits, then use [network sign-in](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/login). See the [portal guide](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/portal). - **Credits** are the currency of the exchange. Every member account has one credit balance. Each valid ad shown on your website earns 1 credit (11 per 10 for your first 25,000), and each credit pays for one showing of your banner. No money changes hands. See [how the exchange works](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/exchange). - **Advertisers** create campaigns from impression credits and upload banners. An operator approves banners and can grant credits; a campaign starts on its own once a banner is approved. - **Webmasters** add websites for review, create ad slots, copy one embed per slot, and can block banners they do not want on a site. - **Operators** at Sputnik review sites and banners, grant credits, and run network reports. - **Learn Signal** on the [home page](https://signal.sputnikfx.com) if you want the product overview first. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/exchange ## How the banner exchange works. Sputnik Signal is a free banner exchange run by Sputnik Digital. You show other members' banners on your website to earn credits, and you spend those credits showing your own banners on their websites. No money changes hands. 1. **Join for free:** [Register](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/register) with a website to exchange banners, or just to advertise. Nobody buys credits, and website owners are not paid in cash. 2. **Verify your email:** When you verify your email, your account gets 10,000 welcome credits. One credit pays for one showing of your banner. 3. **Show banners on your website:** Add your website and create ad slots. An operator reviews each new website before it serves. Then paste the embed code into your pages. See [install ads on a website](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/install). 4. **Earn credits:** Each valid ad shown on your website earns 1 credit. New members get a starter rate: for the first 25,000 ads shown on your websites, every 10 shown earn 11 credits. After that, the rate is 1 credit per ad shown. Credits for each hour are added shortly after that hour ends. 5. **Spend credits on your banners:** Create a campaign and set its total shows. That many credits move into the campaign budget, and each time your banner is shown on a member's site, one of them is used. See [run a campaign](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/campaigns). ### What counts #### Earns credits A valid ad shown: a member's approved banner delivered into one of your ad slots for a real visitor. Each one earns 1 credit, or 11 credits for every 10 during the starter rate. #### Never earns credits - Requests from bots and other invalid requests - Traffic flagged as suspected - House ads, the network's own filler banners - Empty slots, where no banner was available - Requests that do not come from a browser page (no browser Origin header) - Your own banners shown on your own websites Worked example of earning and spending credits | Step | Credits | | --- | --- | | You verify your email | +10,000 welcome credits | | Your site shows 25,000 valid ads at the starter rate (25,000 ÷ 10 × 11) | +27,500 | | Your site shows 5,000 more valid ads at 1 credit each | +5,000 | | Total earned and received | 42,500 | | You start a campaign with 40,000 total shows | −40,000, leaving 2,500 | | Your banner is shown 40,000 times on members' sites | Campaign remaining credits reach 0 | ### Blocking banners on your site - Open a website in the portal. **Banners shown on this site** lists the banners that ran there. **Block banner** stops that one banner. **Block site** stops every banner that links to the same website, whoever runs the campaign. - Blocked ads never serve on that website. The **Blocked** list on the same page lets you unblock them. ### Your own ads on your own websites - A campaign never shows on the website its click URL points to. A banner that links to example.com never appears on example.com. - Your campaigns can show on your other websites. If you run two sites, a campaign for one can appear in the other's ad slots. - Those shows spend credits from your campaign budget like any other show, but they earn you no credits. - Don't want that? Open the website in the portal and press **Block my campaigns here** in the Blocked panel, or block single banners from the list of banners shown. Your campaigns keep running everywhere else. ### Review and content rules - An operator reviews every new website before it serves ads, and every banner before it runs. - Adult sites are not allowed. - Gambling sites are allowed only after a thorough operator inspection. - Banners are image files at an exact size: JPG, PNG, WebP, or GIF, 350 KB or smaller. HTML5 and video ads are not supported. See [supported sizes](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/sizes). --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/install ## Put ads on your website. Sign in to the network portal as a webmaster, add your website, create ad slots, then paste one snippet per slot into your pages. Each valid ad shown on your site earns credits you can spend on your own banners. See [how the exchange works](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/exchange). 1. **Get a webmaster account:** [Create an account](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/register) as a webmaster (or both) and verify your email, then [sign in](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/login). If an operator already made your login, go straight to sign in. 2. **Add the website:** Open **Websites** and choose **Add website**. Enter a name and the primary domain (for example `example.com`, no `https://` needed). Localhost, bare IPs, and preview hosts are rejected. Pick the site type (general or gambling) and confirm the site has no adult content. The site starts as pending review, and ads start showing once an operator approves it. 3. **Create an ad slot:** Open the site and choose **Add ad slot**. Name the slot (for example Homepage header) and pick its main banner size. To make the slot responsive, tick more sizes under **More sizes**. Optionally show the "Ads by Signal" label. Use one slot per ad position on the page. See responsive slots. 4. **Copy the embed code:** On the site page, each slot has its own snippet. Choose **Copy embed**. You can copy and install embed codes while the site is still pending review. The placement key in the snippet is the only public identifier. Do not edit it. 5. **Paste into your page:** Paste the snippet once where the ad should appear (theme, CMS block, or template). Use one snippet per slot. Serve the page over HTTPS on an approved domain. 6. **Check delivery and credits:** Ads appear once the site is approved and an active campaign has an approved banner in one of the slot's sizes. See [campaign basics](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/campaigns). Each valid ad shown on your site earns credits, added every hour, and Home shows your credits and starter bonus progress. Home and Websites show ads shown, fill rate, empty slots, actually seen, and seen rate. The site page breaks them down per slot. 7. **Block banners you do not want:** The site page lists **Banners shown on this site**. Choose **Block banner** to stop one banner, or **Block advertiser** to stop every banner from that advertiser. Blocked ads never serve on that site. To undo a block, choose **Unblock** in the **Blocked** list. ### Responsive slots - Create one slot for each ad position on the page, then add more sizes to it. A header slot can hold 970x250, 728x90, and 300x250, for example. - When the page loads, the embed measures the width the slot has, and Signal serves the largest of the slot's sizes that fits. If no banner is available in that size, Signal tries the next smaller size that fits. If the space is narrower than every size, Signal serves the narrowest size and scales it down to fit. - Paste the slot's one snippet. Do not paste one snippet per size, and do not switch snippets with your own script by screen width. - Signal picks the size once, at page load. Rotating a phone or resizing the window after that keeps the same ad. - Reserve at least the height of the slot's smallest size in your layout so the page does not jump when the ad loads. - To change a slot's sizes later, open the site and press **Edit slot**. The embed code does not change, so there is nothing to re-paste; pages that already have it show the new sizes on their next load. ### If a slot stays empty - Check the site status. Pending and rejected sites do not serve ads. - Check that the snippet is on the live HTTPS page and that the host matches an approved domain for the site. - An empty slot can mean no eligible campaign has a banner in that size. Campaigns never serve on a site that matches their click URL domain, and banners you blocked are skipped. Your own campaigns for other websites can fill your slots unless you block them; those shows earn no credits. - To keep your own campaigns off one of your websites, open it in the portal and press **Block my campaigns here** in the Blocked panel. - Test in a clean browser or on another device if you use an ad blocker or privacy extension. ### Site review and content rules - An operator reviews every new website before it serves ads. - Adult sites are not allowed. Gambling sites are allowed only after a thorough operator inspection. - If a site is not approved, the site page says so and shows the reason when the operator gave one. ### Operators - Operators can add more approved domains to a site (for example a `www` host) and set an optional phone size on a slot in admin. The phone size applies only to slots without extra sizes. - Webmasters cannot approve sites or banners, or pick which advertiser fills a slot. Delivery follows network eligibility and weight, minus anything you blocked. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/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](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/login) as an advertiser (no account yet? [register](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/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](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/exchange). 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. ### Edit or duplicate - **Edit**: change the name, click URL, devices, timezone, optional schedule (start and end in Eastern Time), and total shows. - **Raising** total shows spends more credits from your pool. **Lowering** it refunds the unused budget, but never below what has already been served. - **Duplicate** creates a new draft with the same settings and spends the same total shows again. Banners are not copied, so upload them for the new draft. ### Click tracking and UTMs - Clicks go through a signed redirect on this network, then on to your click URL. This is how unique clicks and click rate are counted. - UTM parameters are appended to the click URL so your own analytics can attribute the traffic. The campaign name fills `utm_campaign` automatically; medium defaults to `display`. - Each banner has an optional rotation share (1-100) under advanced options when you upload it. ### Operators - Operators approve banners and grant impression credits. They can also start, pause, or complete campaigns in admin. - Admin also sets a daily cap, campaign weight, specific websites or ad slots, and per-banner click URL or `utm_content` overrides. - A completed campaign can be reactivated by an operator once the end date is still open and total shows are above the served count. ### Useful terms - **Impression credits**: the shows in your credit pool. One credit pays for one showing of your banner. They come from welcome credits, ads shown on your websites, and operator grants. - **Total shows** (lifetime impression budget): hard ceiling for how many times the campaign can be served. - **Remaining credits**: total shows minus ads shown, never below zero. - **Click URL**: where the viewer goes after a click. Must be HTTPS. - **Draft**: saved, not serving. **Active**: serving when eligible. **Completed**: budget used up or window ended. - See delivery results in [reports and metrics](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/reports). --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/sizes ## Supported banner sizes. Every banner on Signal is an image at one of the standard sizes below, and every ad slot on a member's website is built for one or more of them. A banner only shows in a slot of the same size, so the sizes you pick decide where your ads can appear. Width and height must match exactly; the server reads the image itself, not the file name. Shapes are drawn to scale against each other. | Shape | Name | Pixels | Where it fits | Screens | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | Medium Rectangle `medium_rectangle` | 300x250 | Inside articles, between paragraphs, and in sidebars. The most common display size. | Phones and desktop | | | Large Rectangle `large_rectangle` | 336x280 | Inside articles where a slightly bigger box fits, such as after an introduction. | Phones and desktop | | | Leaderboard `leaderboard` | 728x90 | Across the top of a page, under the header, or above the footer. | Desktop and tablet | | | Wide Skyscraper `wide_skyscraper` | 160x600 | Narrow sidebars next to long pages. | Desktop sidebars | | | Half Page `half_page` | 300x600 | Sidebars with room to spare. Large and hard to miss. | Desktop sidebars | | | Billboard `billboard` | 970x250 | Full-width bands at the top or bottom of wide layouts. | Wide desktop layouts | | | Mobile Leaderboard `mobile_leaderboard` | 320x50 | The top or bottom of phone layouts. | Phones | | | Large Mobile Banner `large_mobile_banner` | 320x100 | Phone layouts that can spare a little more height. | Phones | | | Square `square` | 250x250 | Compact sidebar and in-content spaces. | Phones and desktop | | | Tallboy `tallboy` | 250x360 | Sidebars that need something taller than a square but narrower than a half page. | Desktop sidebars and phones | ### Choosing sizes for an ad slot #### Measure the space first Look at the spot on your page and note how wide it is. Pick sizes no wider than that space. A 300 px sidebar can hold 300x250, 300x600, 250x250, 250x360, or 160x600. #### Give one slot several sizes A responsive slot lists more than one size. Each time the page loads, Signal measures the space the slot has and shows the largest listed size that fits. One embed code then works on desktop and phones. A footer slot with 970x250, 728x90, and 300x250 shows the billboard on wide screens and the rectangle on phones. #### More sizes, fewer empty slots A slot only fills when some campaign has a banner in one of its sizes. Adding common sizes such as 300x250 and 728x90 gives a slot more banners to choose from. If no banner fits the widest size right now, Signal steps down to the next size that has one. ### Choosing sizes for your banners #### Cover the common sizes Your campaign can only appear in slots that match a size you uploaded. A practical starting set is 300x250 for content and sidebars, 728x90 for desktop page tops, 300x600 for large sidebars, and 320x50 for phones. Add more sizes to reach more slots. Signed-in members can open Ad sizes in the portal to see which sizes the network shows most right now, how many ad slots take each one, and where few banners compete for many slots. #### One message, many shapes Make each size its own layout instead of shrinking one design. Wide sizes suit a short line and a button side by side; tall sizes can stack a picture, a headline, and the button. Keep the text large enough to read at the actual size. #### Export at the exact size Export each file at exactly its listed width and height. A double-size (2x) export for sharp screens is rejected, because the pixels no longer match. Keep each file at 350 KB or smaller. ### File formats - Accepted formats are JPG, PNG, WebP, and GIF. The server inspects the image bytes, so the file extension alone is not trusted. - Each file must be 350 KB or smaller. - WebP and GIF may be animated. The frame dimensions still have to match the chosen size exactly, and the file has to stay under the upload size limit. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/reports ## Reports and metrics. Every report reads from the daily aggregate tables, filters by date, and exports to CSV with the same definitions you see on screen. This page explains exactly what each number means. ### The four reports #### Where to find them Operators open **Reports** in admin. Advertisers see their own campaign figures in the [network portal](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/portal). - **Campaign report**: lifetime budget, delivered, remaining credits, and date-scoped ads shown, actually seen, clicks, click rate, and seen rate - **Publisher-site report**: the same delivery metrics grouped by website - **Placement report**: metrics grouped by ad slot - **Creative report**: metrics grouped by banner Sputnik Signal metric definitions | Metric | What it means | | --- | --- | | Ads shown (served) | Ads delivered into a slot for a real visitor. Rejected requests and likely bots are excluded. | | Loaded (measurable) | Ads shown that the embed placed on the page, so it could start checking whether they were seen. | | Actually seen (viewable) | Ads shown that were really on screen: at least half the ad (30% for large ads) visible for 1 second in an active tab. This is part of ads shown, not an extra count. | | Clicks | Unique clicks. Repeat clicks from the same visitor count once; dashboards also show the total including repeats. | | Click rate (CTR) | Clicks ÷ ads shown, as a percentage. | | Seen rate (viewability) | Actually seen ÷ loaded, as a percentage. A low seen rate usually means the slot sits below the fold. | | Fill rate | Share of ad requests that got an ad: ads shown ÷ (ads shown + empty slots). | | Empty slots (no-fill) | Valid requests where no eligible ad was available, so nothing was shown. | | Rejected requests / likely bots | Malformed, blocked, or bot-like traffic. Tracked separately and never counted in any number above. | | Remaining credits | Total shows minus ads shown. Never goes below zero. | ### Reading the numbers - Rates are computed on read from stored counts, so a report with no traffic yet shows 0% rather than a blank. - Site, placement, and creative reports add daily, format, and device breakdowns so you can see where delivery is going. - Archived campaigns keep their history; their past performance stays in the campaign report. - The admin dashboard also surfaces traffic quality: rejected requests, likely bots, and empty slots. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/portal ## Sign in to the network. Advertisers and webmasters get a self-serve portal for their own campaigns or sites. It is separate from the operator admin console, where banners are approved, credits granted, and campaigns started. ### Getting an account - Create an account at [network registration](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/register). Choose **I have a website** to show and earn and to advertise, or **I only want to advertise**. A company or brand name is optional. - Verify your email from the link sent by signal@sputnikfx.com. Verifying adds 10,000 welcome credits to your account. Unverified accounts cannot sign in. No email? Check spam or use resend on the verify page. - Then use [network sign in](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/login). If an operator already made your login, sign in directly. ### What each role can do #### Advertisers Create and manage your own campaigns, paid from your impression credits. See [campaign basics](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/campaigns). - Check your credits available on Home and Campaigns - Create, edit, and duplicate campaigns. Raising total shows spends more credits; lowering them refunds unused budget, never below what was already served - Upload banners at exact sizes. Each one goes to the approval queue as pending review - Track ads shown, actually seen, clicks, click rate, seen rate, and remaining credits, plus the readiness checks that pass or block a launch - You cannot approve your own banners or grant yourself credits. Campaigns start on their own once a banner is approved, and you can pause or resume them. You can earn credits by adding a website and showing other members' banners #### Webmasters Show other members' banners on your own sites and earn credits. See the [install guide](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/install). - Add a website by its primary domain, pick the site type (general or gambling), and confirm it has no adult content. Localhost, bare IPs, and preview hosts are rejected - New sites show as pending review until an operator approves them. Embed codes are available while pending, but ads only show on approved sites. A rejected site shows the reason when one was given - Create ad slots at exact banner sizes, one slot per position - Copy one embed per slot and paste it on HTTPS pages on approved domains - Track ads shown, fill rate, empty slots, actually seen, and seen rate per site and per slot - On each site page, **Banners shown on this site** lists the banners that ran there. Block one banner or every banner from an advertiser, and unblock from the **Blocked** list #### Both One login sees Campaigns and Websites. Home shows both sections with a combined getting-started guide. The rules above apply to each side. ### Your credits - Every member account has one credit account. - Home shows your credits and **Starter bonus** progress: how many of your first 25,000 counted ads shown have earned 11 credits per 10. After that, each ad shown earns 1 credit. - The account page shows your balance and recent credit activity, including the welcome bonus, hourly exchange earnings, campaign budgets, and refunds. - See [how the exchange works](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/exchange) for what counts and what never earns. ### Your account - Update your name, email, and password from the account screen after signing in. Forgot your password? Use the link on the sign-in page. - The portal never shows other advertisers' campaigns or other webmasters' sites. You only see your own. - Portal numbers use Eastern Time reporting days, about the last 30 days by default. See [reports and metrics](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/reports). - Operators run the whole network from admin: banner approval, credits, campaign controls, and full reports with CSV export. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/privacy ## Privacy and data. This page covers what happens when a Sputnik Signal ad loads on a member's website: what the embed does, what the server records, and how long it keeps it. It describes how the software works today. It is not legal advice, and it does not decide what your own site's privacy notice must say. ### The ad embed #### What it does - Loads one small script from the Signal host. - Asks the Signal host for an ad, sending the slot's placement key and the browser window's width and height so it can pick the right banner size. - Shows the banner image, served from the Signal host. - Sends up to two reports back to the Signal host: one when the banner is placed on the page, and one if it was actually seen. - Wraps the banner in a link to a click redirect on the Signal host, which then sends the visitor to the advertiser's page. #### What it does not do - It loads no third-party scripts, pixels, or tags. - It builds no behavioral profile and does no cookie-based targeting. The ad is chosen from the slot, the banner size, the device type, and which campaigns are eligible. - Its ad requests and seen reports are sent without cookies, and the server sets no cookies on those responses. - It does not send the page's content or its address. The server records only the website's hostname, taken from the browser's standard Origin header. What Sputnik Signal records for each ad event | Event | What is recorded | | --- | --- | | Ad request | Time, a random delivery ID, the ad slot, website, and ad size, desktop or mobile, the campaign and banner shown (if any), the outcome (shown, empty slot, house ad, or rejected), bot and suspected-traffic flags, the website's hostname, a hashed IP identifier, and the browser's user agent (first 200 characters). | | Loaded and seen reports | Time, the delivery it belongs to, whether the banner was placed on the page and whether it was actually seen, a hashed IP identifier, and the user agent (first 200 characters). | | Click | Time, the delivery, campaign, banner, and ad slot, the destination address, whether it was a unique or a repeat click, a hashed IP identifier, and the user agent (first 200 characters). | | Daily and hourly reports | Counts only: ads shown, loaded, actually seen, clicks, and empty slots, grouped by campaign, banner, website, and ad slot. No IP identifier and no user agent. | ### IP addresses - The raw IP address is not stored. The server keeps a keyed hash of it (HMAC-SHA256 with a secret key). - The hash is used for short-term checks: spotting clients that send an impossible number of requests, and telling a repeat click from a new one. - Changing the secret key makes all earlier hashes impossible to match, so it cannot serve as a long-term ID. ### How long data is kept - Raw ad requests, loaded and seen reports, and clicks are deleted after 90 days by a job that runs every night. - The count-only daily and hourly reports are kept so members can see past performance. They hold no IP identifier or user agent. - Original banner uploads are kept privately for 30 days, then deleted. - Security and audit logs of account and operator actions are kept separately and are not covered by the 90-day rule. ### Cookies - The ad embed sets no cookies. The embed script, the ad request, the banner image, the seen reports, and the click redirect are all served without cookies. - Pages on this website (help, sign in, the portal) use this site's standard session and security cookies. Ad choice, reporting, and credits do not use them. ### Clicks and advertiser sites - A click goes to the Signal click redirect first, which counts it, then on to the advertiser's page. - The destination address can include UTM tags so the advertiser's own analytics can see the visit came from Signal. What happens on the advertiser's site is covered by that site's own policies. ### The support chat on this website - Pages on this website, including this one, load Cosmo, an AI support chat, from a separate host run by Sputnik Digital. - The chat loads only on this website. The ad embed on members' sites never loads it. ### Questions - Open the Cosmo chat on any page here and ask. It can answer questions about the documented behavior and pass a request to the Sputnik Digital support team. - Members can [sign in to the portal](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/app/login) to see and manage their own campaigns, banners, and websites. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/embed ## Embed performance. What the ad embed costs your page: its size, the requests it makes for each ad, how it loads, and how it affects layout. Sizes were measured on September 25, 2026, from the script the Signal host serves. Embed script size, measured September 25, 2026 | Measure | Size | | --- | --- | | Script as served, uncompressed | 10,945 bytes (about 10.9 KB), including code comments | | Gzip compressed | 3,952 bytes (about 4 KB) | | Brotli compressed, for reference | 3,304 bytes (about 3.3 KB) | | Dependencies | None. Plain JavaScript, no libraries. | | Browser cache | Served with `Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable`, so a browser can reuse it for up to a year. | Network requests the embed makes | Request | When | | --- | --- | | The embed script | Once per page. Repeat snippets on the same page reuse the same file, and later pages load it from the browser cache. | | Ad request | One per slot, without cookies. It includes the width the slot has on the page, so a responsive slot gets a size that fits. A second request happens only when the returned banner is already showing in another slot on the page, to ask for a different one. | | Banner image | One per ad, loaded lazily by the browser and cached for up to a year. | | Loaded report | One small request when the banner is placed on the page. | | Seen report | One small request, only if the ad was actually seen. | | Click | Only when the visitor clicks: one visit to the Signal click redirect, which forwards to the advertiser. | ### Requests per ad - A typical ad makes 3 or 4 requests after the script loads: the ad request, the image, the loaded report, and the seen report if the ad was seen. - All of them go to the Signal host and none to any other company. - The ad request and reports are sent as simple cross-origin requests, so the browser does not add an extra preflight request before them. ### Loading - The script tag uses `async`, so your page keeps loading while the script downloads. - It waits until your page's HTML is parsed, then fills every slot it finds. It also picks up slots added to the page later, such as in a single-page app. - If the ad request fails or returns no ad, the embed hides the slot and your page carries on. ### Layout shift - The snippet starts as an empty container, so it takes no space until an ad arrives. - When the ad arrives, the embed shows the banner at its exact size if it fits. If the slot is narrower, the banner scales down proportionally so it never spills out of the slot. The image carries its width and height before it loads, so the browser reserves the right space. - A small "Ads by Signal" line shows under the banner, plus an optional ad label above it, which add a little height. - To avoid any shift when the ad appears, reserve the slot's height in your own CSS. Add `data-preserve="true"` to the container so an empty slot keeps that space instead of being hidden. ### What it never loads - No third-party scripts, pixels, tags, fonts, or stylesheets. - No iframes. The banner is a plain image and link placed in your page. - No cookies on its ad requests or reports. - No HTML from the ad. The embed builds the image, link, and label itself and never inserts markup from the server. ### Options on the container - `data-preserve="true"` keeps the slot's space when there is no ad. - `data-new-tab="false"` opens the advertiser's page in the same tab. By default it opens in a new tab. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/ad-blockers ## Ad blocker test results. On September 26, 2026 we matched every request the Signal embed makes against the filter lists that uBlock Origin, Adblock Plus, AdGuard, and Brave rely on. None of the lists blocked Signal on its current host. The same lists blocked Google Ad Manager, AdSense, EthicalAds, and Carbon Ads. Signal requests matched against seven filter lists, September 26, 2026 | Request | signal.sputnikfx.com (current) | ads.sputnikfx.com (old host) | | --- | --- | --- | | Embed script | Allowed | Blocked by EasyList and AdGuard Base | | Ad request | Allowed | Allowed | | Banner image | Allowed | Allowed | | Seen report | Allowed | Allowed | | Click redirect | Allowed | Blocked by EasyList and AdGuard Base | | Slot markup (element hiding) | Not hidden | Not hidden | ### Why we moved hosts - EasyList has a generic rule that blocks scripts and pages loaded from any hostname starting with `ads.`. Signal used to run on `ads.sputnikfx.com`, so its embed script was blocked before it could ask for an ad. - Signal now runs on `signal.sputnikfx.com`, where no list matches. The old host still answers for snippets already pasted on websites, but new embed codes point to the new host. If your snippet still says `ads.sputnikfx.com`, copy a fresh one from your site page. Control requests from other ad networks, same lists, same date | Control script (same lists, same day) | Result | | --- | --- | | Google Ad Manager tag (`securepubads.g.doubleclick.net`) | Blocked | | Google AdSense (`pagead2.googlesyndication.com`) | Blocked | | EthicalAds client (`media.ethicalads.io`) | Blocked | | Carbon Ads (`cdn.carbonads.com`) | Blocked | ### How we tested - Lists, downloaded September 26, 2026: EasyList (version 202609252133), EasyPrivacy (202609252117), uBlock Origin's own filters, privacy and badware lists, AdGuard Base (2.4.93.2), and Peter Lowe's ad server list. Together that is about 202,000 network rules and 84,000 element hiding rules. - Matching engine: Ghostery's open source adblocker library, which reads the same filter syntax as uBlock Origin and Adblock Plus. - Each Signal request was checked as it happens on a real website: the embed script and the calls it makes from a publisher page, the banner image, the seen report, and the click redirect. We also checked whether any generic rule hides the slot's markup. ### Limits of this test - This is a filter list test, not a test inside each browser extension. Extensions add their own settings, and some users add extra lists or block elements by hand. - Filter lists change every day. A list maintainer could add Signal later, and EasyList's policy allows reports against paid or exchanged ads. We will rerun this test and update the date on this page. - Nothing here is a promise that every visitor sees every ad. Signal is simply not on the common lists as of the date above. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/first-party-ad-network ## What is a first-party ad network? A first-party ad network serves the ad script, the banner images, and the click redirects from its own host, with no third-party ad tech in between. The company running the network also runs the servers, so one operator is responsible for what loads on your page and what gets recorded. 1. **Your page loads the embed:** The snippet you paste is an empty slot plus one `async` script tag. The script comes from the Signal host. 2. **The embed asks for an ad:** The script sends the slot's placement key to the Signal host, without cookies. The server checks that the request comes from an approved domain for that slot, picks an eligible approved banner, and records the request. 3. **The banner loads from the same host:** The banner image is served from the Signal host. The embed reports back to the same host when the banner is placed on the page and again if it was actually seen. 4. **A click goes through the same host:** The banner links to a signed click redirect on the Signal host. It counts the click, then sends the visitor to the advertiser's page. First-party ad network compared with other ways to run ads | | First-party network (Signal) | Programmatic exchange | Self-hosted ad server | Curated network | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Who runs ad serving | The network operator, on its own host | The platform, often with several buyers and vendors taking part in each auction | You, on your own server | The network operator | | Where ad code comes from | One host | The platform plus the buyers' and vendors' scripts, depending on setup | Your server | Usually the network's own host | | How ads are chosen | Slot, banner size, device type, and campaign eligibility | Auction bids, often using audience data | Rules you set | Page topic or site audience, varies by network | | Who advertises | Other members of the exchange | Any buyer the platform allows | Advertisers you sign yourself | Advertisers the network sells to | | What the site owner gets | Credits to show their own banners, no cash | A share of ad revenue | All revenue from the deals you sell | A share of ad revenue | | Work for the site owner | Paste a snippet per slot | Tag setup and ongoing tuning | Install, update, and secure the server, then sell the ads | Apply, then paste a snippet | ### Tradeoffs - You rely on one operator, Sputnik Digital, to run the host and keep to what this page describes. - Demand is limited to members of the exchange. Signal is new and small, so a slot may stay empty when no member has a banner in that size. - Signal pays in credits, not cash. If you need ad revenue, a network or exchange that pays a revenue share is a better fit. - Formats are limited to exact-size image banners. There are no HTML5, video, or native ads. - Serving everything from one host does not by itself decide what your own privacy notice must say. See [privacy and data](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/privacy) for exactly what is recorded. --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/compare ## Sputnik Signal compared. These products solve different problems. Signal is a free banner exchange that pays in credits. EthicalAds and Carbon Ads are paid ad networks for developer audiences. Revive Adserver is software you host yourself. Google Ad Manager is Google's ad server and exchange. Competitor facts come from each vendor's own pages as of September 2026, with numbered sources at the end. Model, who can join, and hosting | Product | Model | Who can join | Hosting | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Sputnik Signal | First-party banner exchange run by Sputnik Digital | Free sign-up. An operator reviews each website and banner. No adult sites; gambling sites only after a thorough inspection. | Run by Sputnik Digital on its own host | | EthicalAds | Ad network for developer audiences, built by the Read the Docs team [1] [2] | Invite-only with an evaluation. Developer-focused sites with at least 50,000 pageviews a month, with some exceptions for fast-growing sites. [3] [4] | Vendor-hosted. The ad server code is open source under AGPL-3.0. [5] | | Carbon Ads | Curated ad network for developers and designers, run by BuySellAds [6] | Invitation only. Publishers agree to show only Carbon ads. [7] | Vendor-hosted [6] | | Revive Adserver | Free ad server software. It includes no advertisers. [9] | Anyone can download and run it [9] | Self-hosted, or a paid hosted edition. Open source under GPL-2.0 or later. [9] [10] | | Google Ad Manager | Google's ad server combined with its ad exchange [13] | Requires a Google AdSense account. Google describes it as built for large publishers with significant direct sales. [14] | Hosted by Google [13] | Publisher pay, tracking, and ad formats | Product | What publishers get | Tracking and cookies | Ad formats | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Sputnik Signal | Credits, not cash: 1 per valid ad shown, 11 per 10 for the first 25,000. Credits pay for showing your own banners. | The embed loads no third-party scripts. Ad requests carry no cookies. IPs are stored only as a keyed hash. No behavioral profiles. [Details](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/privacy) | Exact-size image banners (JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, 350 KB max) | | EthicalAds | 70% revenue share, paid monthly, $50 minimum [4] | Ads chosen by page content and country. Says it loads no third-party scripts or pixels and uses the visitor IP only to find the country, without storing it. [1] [3] | Text with a small image, or text only. A larger format was added in January 2026. [15] [16] | | Carbon Ads | Typically $1.20 to $2.30 per 1,000 impressions, paid monthly [7] | Its join page says it uses pixels, not cookies [8] | Native ad units, including a larger Carbon Cover unit [6] [8] | | Revive Adserver | You sell your own ads and keep the revenue | Sets cookies, including a random visitor ID that lasts a year. The operator can switch that ID to a fixed value and anonymize IP addresses. [11] | Image banners, HTML5, third-party tags, and video [12] | | Google Ad Manager | Revenue after Google's share, paid monthly [17] | Personalized ads by default. Publishers can choose non-personalized ads, which still use cookies for frequency capping and reporting. [18] | Display, native, video, rewarded, and audio [19] | ### Where each one fits #### Where the others are stronger - EthicalAds, Carbon Ads, and Google Ad Manager pay publishers in cash. Signal does not. - They also have far more scale. Carbon reports 350+ publisher sites and over $120 million paid to publishers since 2010. EthicalAds reports 35 million+ developer impressions a month. [1] [6] Signal is new and small, so slots can stay empty. - Revive Adserver and Google Ad Manager support many more formats, including HTML5 and video. - Revive gives you full control of the server and the code, and the EthicalAds server code is public too. #### Where Signal fits - You want to promote your own site and have ad space to trade, but no ad budget. - You want one operator serving the script, the images, and the clicks from its own host, with no third-party ad code on your page. - Your site is outside the developer niche that EthicalAds and Carbon Ads focus on. ### Sources, as of September 2026 - [1] EthicalAds home page, [ethicalads.io](https://www.ethicalads.io/), as of September 2026 - [2] EthicalAds about page, [ethicalads.io/about](https://www.ethicalads.io/about/), as of September 2026 - [3] EthicalAds publisher FAQ, [ethicalads.io/publishers/faq](https://www.ethicalads.io/publishers/faq/), as of September 2026 - [4] EthicalAds publisher policy (last updated March 14, 2024) and publishers page, [ethicalads.io/publisher-policy](https://www.ethicalads.io/publisher-policy/) and [ethicalads.io/publishers](https://www.ethicalads.io/publishers/), as of September 2026 - [5] EthicalAds server repository, [github.com/readthedocs/ethical-ad-server](https://github.com/readthedocs/ethical-ad-server), as of September 2026 - [6] Carbon Ads home page, [carbonads.net](https://www.carbonads.net/), as of September 2026 - [7] Carbon Ads FAQ, [carbonads.net/faq](https://www.carbonads.net/faq), as of September 2026 - [8] Carbon Ads join page, [carbonads.net/join](https://www.carbonads.net/join), as of September 2026 - [9] Revive Adserver home page, [revive-adserver.com](https://www.revive-adserver.com/), as of September 2026 - [10] Revive Adserver repository, [github.com/revive-adserver/revive-adserver](https://github.com/revive-adserver/revive-adserver), as of September 2026 - [11] Revive Adserver personal data page, [revive-adserver.com/privacy/personal-data](https://www.revive-adserver.com/privacy/personal-data/), as of September 2026 - [12] Revive Adserver features page, [revive-adserver.com/features](https://www.revive-adserver.com/features/), as of September 2026 - [13] Google Ad Manager home page, [admanager.google.com/home](https://admanager.google.com/home/), as of September 2026 - [14] Google Ad Manager Help, sign up, [support.google.com/admanager/answer/7084151](https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/7084151), as of September 2026 - [15] EthicalAds ad design and specs, [ethicalads.io/advertisers/ad-design-and-specs](https://www.ethicalads.io/advertisers/ad-design-and-specs/), as of September 2026 - [16] EthicalAds blog, new larger ad format (January 2026), [ethicalads.io/blog](https://www.ethicalads.io/blog/2026/01/announcing-a-new-larger-ad-format/), as of September 2026 - [17] Google Ad Manager Help, revenue share and payments, [answer/9470827](https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/9470827) and [answer/9752368](https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/9752368), as of September 2026 - [18] Google Ad Manager Help, personalized and non-personalized ads, [support.google.com/admanager/answer/7678538](https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/7678538), as of September 2026 - [19] Google Ad Manager Help, creative types, [answer/9317029](https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/9317029) and [answer/7024809](https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/7024809), as of September 2026 --- Source: https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/glossary ## Glossary of terms. The words used across Sputnik Signal, the portal, and reports, each in a sentence or three. For how the numbers are calculated in reports, see [reports and metrics](https://signal.sputnikfx.com/help/reports). ### Terms #### Ad slot A space on a website where one banner shows. Each slot has a main size, optional extra sizes, and its own embed code. More positions on a page need more slots. #### Responsive slot An ad slot with more than one size. When the page loads, Signal serves the largest of the slot's sizes that fits the space the slot has on that screen. One snippet covers desktop and mobile. #### Banner exchange A network where members show each other's banners. Showing other members' banners on your website earns credits, and credits pay for showing your own banners on theirs. No money changes hands. #### Impression credit The unit of the exchange. One credit pays for one showing of your banner. You earn 1 credit for each valid ad shown on your website. #### Starter rate The higher earning rate for new members. For the first 25,000 ads shown on a new member's websites, every 10 shown earn 11 credits. After that, each ad shown earns 1 credit. #### Welcome credits The 10,000 credits added to your account when you verify your email. #### Ads shown (served) Ads delivered into a slot for a real visitor. Rejected requests and likely bots are not counted. #### Actually seen (viewable) An ad shown that was really on screen: at least 50% of the ad visible for 1 second in an active browser tab. Large ads, such as the 970×250 billboard, need 30%. #### Seen rate (viewability) Ads actually seen divided by ads that loaded on the page, as a percentage. A low seen rate usually means the slot sits far down the page. #### Clicks Unique clicks on an ad. Repeat clicks from the same visitor on the same ad count once. #### Click rate (CTR) Clicks divided by ads shown, as a percentage. #### Fill rate The share of valid ad requests that got an ad: ads shown divided by ads shown plus empty slots. #### Empty slot (no-fill) A valid ad request with no eligible banner to show. The embed hides the slot unless the webmaster asks it to keep the space. Empty slots never earn credits. #### House ad A banner from the network itself, shown when no member campaign fits a slot. House ads never earn credits and never use a campaign's credits. #### Remaining credits A campaign's total shows minus the ads it has shown so far. It never goes below zero. #### Self-promotion block The rule that a campaign never serves on a website matching its own click URL domain. A member's campaigns can still show on the member's other websites; those shows earn no credits, and the member can block them per site. #### First-party embed The code a webmaster pastes for each slot: an empty container and one async script from the Signal host. The ad request, banner image, seen reports, and click redirect all use that same host. #### Placement key The public identifier inside a slot's embed code. It tells Signal which slot is asking for an ad. Do not edit it. #### Approval queue Where uploaded banners wait for an operator to review them. Pending and rejected banners do not serve.