# 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