Account Setup
Welcome to Indie Ads Manager!
All Indiegraf publishers receive white-glove onboarding to Indie Ads Manager. That means we’ll take care of your account creation and configuration.
Once you’ve signed your contract, we’ll send you an onboarding survey that collects information about the types of digital ads you want to offer in your publication.
We’ll need to know the name and email address of the main account owner.
You will receive your login information by email.
Once you log in, please update your password and save it somewhere secure.
Familiarize Yourself with IAM
Logging Into Indie Ads Manager
Indie Ads Manager users (incl. Publishers and advertisers) can log in to the platform from the following public link.
NOTE: Don’t forget to bookmark this link for future reference!
LOGIN LINK: https://ads.indiegraf.com
When To Log In?
Publishers should log in to Indie Ads Manager to:
Add and/or edit advertiser records
Add and/or edit campaigns
Build and serve ad items
Check ad performance
Advertisers should log in to Indie Ads Manager to:
Check ad performance
TROUBLESHOOTING: If you’re having trouble logging in to Indie Ads Manager, here are some things to try:
Disable or uninstall your ad-blocking browser extension
Clear your browser's cache and cookies
Log in using your browser's private or incognito mode
Log in using another browser
Digital Advertising Glossary
Getting started with digital advertising can be intimidating!
Our digital advertising glossary includes some common online advertising terms as well as some of the terms you’ll encounter in Indie Ads Manager.
Your Publication(s)
A ‘publisher’ in Indie Ads Manager contains details about the advertising spaces and other parameters for a particular website or app to which you are serving ads. Within each publisher record, you can create ad zones, which are the available advertising spaces on your website, email newsletter, and app.
Your Advertisers
An ‘advertiser’ in Indie Ads Manager is any source of advertisements. This could be an individual, a company, an agency or publication network, or even an ad exchange.
Additional Resources
Your First Advertiser
Any time you have a unique source of ads, you should create an advertiser.
Creating an Advertiser
1. Click on Advertisers on the left navigation menu
2. Click Add Advertiser
3. Name the advertiser
4. Optional: Create a user account for the advertiser
5. Click Save this Advertiser
Advertiser Dashboard Access
You can give each advertiser access to Indie Ads Manager so that they can view their ads performance and retrieve conversion tags. Advertiser user accounts can be set up or edited even after an advertiser has been created.
Navigate to the relevant advertiser (or follow the above instructions to create a new advertiser)
Click on Edit Advertiser Properties in the right menu. The Edit Advertiser page will appear
Check the Enable Dashboard Access box
Enter the email of the person to which you are providing access and set a password
Click Save this Advertiser
Additional Resources
Your First Campaign
Campaigns allow you to organize and manage ad items. A campaign can include multiple ad items or just one. When you assign a campaign to a zone, you assign all the ad items under it.
Navigate to and click on the relevant advertiser in Indie Ads Manager
Click Add Campaign
Select Standard Campaign from the New Campaign window. VAST Campaigns are to be used with video advertising only.
Enter a name for the campaign, we recommend using naming conventions so that it is easier to pull ad reports. I.e., “Ad Type - Campaign”
Optional: Add a Roadblock Tag and adjust the Targeting and Scheduling levels if you would like.
Click Create Campaign
Additional Resources
Your First Image Ad
NOTE: Used for standard ads on your website and in your email.
Image ad items are the most common type of ad item and one of the easiest to build. In this section, we’ll walk through how to build an image ad before you assign it to a zone.
Build an Image Ad Item
Click on the campaign you just created
Click Add Ad Item
Select Image from the Ad Item Type window.
Give your ad a name. As with the campaign, we recommend using naming conventions. I.e., “Ad Type - Campaign Name - Size”
Upload the ad creative. Click Library and Upload an image from your computer.
Enter the Destination URL for the ad. This is where readers will be taken if they click on the ad.
Input the ad size. Make sure that the dimensions of the Ad Size match the size of the ad zone to which the campaign will be assigned.
Optional: Complete the remaining ad item fields. You can learn more about the optional fields by clicking the link.
Click Save Ad Item. You will be taken back to the campaign section and the ad item you created will be listed.
Preview & QC Your Image Ad
From the ad campaign window, click the checkbox beside the ad name
At the bottom of the Ad Items list, click Preview
Ensure your ad is rendering the way you want it to
Take a screenshot of the preview and send it to your advertiser for approval
Additional Resources
Your First Native Ad
NOTE: Used for native ads on your website and in your email.
Image ad items are the most common type of ad item and one of the easiest to build. In this section, we’ll walk through how to build an image ad before you assign it to a zone.
Build a Native Ad Item
Click on the campaign you just created
Click Add Ad Item
Select Native (Custom Rendering/API) from the Ad Item Type window.
Give your ad a name. As with the campaign, we recommend using naming conventions. I.e., “Ad Type - Campaign Name - Size”
For website ads, enter a Destination URL. For email ads, leave this field blank.
Input the ad size. Make sure that the dimensions of the Ad Size match the size of the ad zone to which the campaign will be assigned
Under the HTML Ad Template section, select a template from the list.
Enter the variables (i.e., main brand colour, image URL, sponsor name, etc)
Click Save Ad Item
Preview & QC Your Native Ad
From the ad campaign window, click the checkbox beside the ad name
At the bottom of the Ad Items list, click Preview
Ensure your ad is rendering the way you want it to
Take a screenshot of the preview and send it to your advertiser for approval
Additional Resources
Assigning Your First Ads
Assigning Ads to Your Indie Website
You can assign ad campaigns through the Advertiser or through your Publisher record.
Navigate to the advertiser record in Indie Ads Manager
Click on the appropriate campaign
Click Assign to Zone
Assigning Ads to Indie Email
You can assign ad campaigns through the Advertiser or through your Publisher record.
Navigate to the advertiser record in Indie Ads Manager
Click on the appropriate campaign
Click Assign to Zone
Configuring Assignments
Any eligible campaigns for the zone will show up, select the campaign you set up in the previous step.
Choose how you want to serve the ads, you can serve them by Fixed Delivery or by Auction
Once you determine how to serve the ads, you can include information about Pacing & Scheduling, Financials, Frequency Capping, and Targeting
Click Save
Once a campaign has been assigned to a zone, you will be able to see it and check its status. Active ads can be paused and paused ads can be resumed.
Additional Resources
Ad Delivery Optimization
When assigning a campaign in Indie Ads Manager, you can use a variety of tools to optimize your ad delivery.
What is Scheduling & Dayparting?
The Schedule field is where you can set the period of time over which you want to run an ad campaign. When assigning an ad, you can click Enable Schedule, and start and end date fields will appear.
The Dayparting option allows you to set days and hours within which you want to serve a campaign.
What is Priority?
Priority dictates which ads Indie Ads Manager will try to serve first. Indie Ads Manager looks for valid ads assigned to the same zone starting with the ones with the highest priority, moving down to the ads with the next highest priority only when it does not find a valid ad, and so on.
Priority is represented by integers from 1 to 5, with a default priority of 4.
What is Delivery Pacing?
Delivery pacing dictates how often an ad will be served over its duration based on its quota.
Default: Indie Ads Manager will try to serve the ads as often as possible to meet the quota.
Smooth Delivery: Indie Ads Manager will try to evenly serve the ad based on the quota and schedule restrictions that have been set. For example, if a campaign has a quota of 30,000 impressions set over a period of 60 days, Indie Ads Manager will serve the ads in the campaign 500 times per day.
What is Weight?
Weight dictates how often Indie Ads Manager will try to serve an ad compared to other ads with the same priority. In other words, priority takes precedence over weight.
Targeting
When you assign a campaign or a zone, you can specify geographic, platform, and keyword targets that can alter the priority of the assignment(s).
Geographic Targeting
With geographic or location targeting, you can serve the assigned campaign only for viewers in certain locations based on their device’s IP address. You can also do the opposite and exclude viewers in certain locations.
Platform & Device Targeting
You can add platform and device targeting to ensure your ads are displaying on the desired device or platform, including device types and operating systems.
Keyword Targeting
With keyword targeting, you can serve the assigned campaign only on pages with certain URLs or words. You can also use keyword targeting to require specific publishers to be served, or to exclude them from being served certain ads.
Configuring ad delivery settings, pacing and priority
Implementing rules and prioritization to ensure optimal ad-serving
Using targeting options like geolocations, demographics, contextual
Additional Resources
Running Your First Report
The Statistics section in Indie Ads Manager provides reports with metrics like impressions, clicks, CTR, conversions, and more. For each publisher account, you can drill down and view data about individual ad zones. Similarly, for each advertiser account, you can choose to view data about individual campaigns, as well as the ad items in each campaign.
Advertiser Campaign Reports
Scroll down and expand the Statistics section in Indie Ads Manager
Find the relevant Advertiser and expand the menu
To view the campaign overview, click on Ad Item Summary
If your campaign includes more than one ad item, you can view the performance of specific ad items by clicking on them (icon is a flag).
Optional: adjust the dates in the upper right corner
Publisher Zone Reports
Scroll down and expand the Statistics section in Indie Ads Manager
Find you Publication and expand the menu
From here, you can view a Zone Summary, Campaign Summary, Forecast, etc
If your ad zone has multiple campaigns assigned to it, you can view the individual campaigns by clicking on them