We are very proud to announce the release of two very big enhancements to our platform.

The first is the new Site/IP Exclusion feature for advertisers. The concept while very simple is extremely powerful in terms of what it means for our advertisers.

Previously advertisers had minimal control over the clicks they were receiving and we would always get e-mails from advertisers asking about particular sites and IP addresses that simply looked fraudulent or were extremely low converting.

Click Fraud is a pet hate of every advertiser and while our system does its best to alleviate fraudulent clicks, nothing is perfect. The new Site/IP Exclusion feature gives power to the advertiser, in essence, allowing them blacklist sites and IP addresses from clicking their ads.

If you are an advertiser reading this I am sure you will instantly see the benefit of this new feature.

To access this, look for the new link in the advertiser section in your account area.

The second feature which you would already be aware of from our previous blog post is the new “Stripe Ad” Format. If you run a blog then this ad format may prove invaluable in your advertising arsenal.

For advertisers we have an introductory offer for Run of Network campaigns so get in quick!

These additions to AdToll are a great step forward and there is plenty more in the pipeline so stay tuned!

Bloggers will already be very familiar with the Stripe Ad - it has been available as a plug-in for WordPress for awhile now and it has had some great success, particularly on the larger blogs with plenty of traffic.

For those that are not familiar, the Stripe Ad is a non-obtrusive way of displaying a text ad at the top of your site, just like this:

We will shortly be releasing the Stripe Ad giving you even more power and control over your ad inventory. The Stripe Ad will be easy to plug in to your web site and when you do you will gain access to our ever growing advertising base!

We speak to a lot of publishers and one problem that they mostly face is the ability to market their available advertising space and then bringing on board advertisers. It’s not an easy job marketing your available advertising and then spending time building relationships and negotiating rates.

That’s why webmasters use our service! We take the pain out of advertising by bringing our network of advertisers directly to YOU giving you MORE TIME to spend what you should be doing.

We are expecting to release Stripe Ads early next week so stay tuned for an official announcement of their release. We encourage all publishers to give it a go.

We will also be having an introductory special for Run of Network ads as well for the release.

More AdToll enhancements coming soon are CPM RONs, interstitial ads and more!

As we get back into the swing of things I am already planning our next wave of platform enhancements! I am actually looking for some feedback and further ideas on these enhancements as they are still in the design stage, so if you have something you want to say or add please reply to this post or get in contact with us.

As we evolve, like any good business, we need to adjust the way we do things and we need to ensure you have the tools you need to get the job done.

We have plenty of ideas and things in the pipeline but the following are what we would consider our highest priority in the coming months.

Increased Fraud Protection Systems

As our network gains more exposure we are finding more and more fraudsters are trying their luck - and this is from both the Publisher and Advertiser side.

To protect our valued customers we need to tighten the grips a little which may mean things such as PayPal account verification and credit card verification steps.

Sub-Categories

When we launched AdToll we started off with a tight group of categories some of which have grown very large and some of which haven’t. We need to re-organise our categories and take it a step further by adding sub-categories.

This further pigeon holing of sites means Advertiser’s can far effectively target particular niches and on the flip side Publisher’s should see an increased CTR from the more relevant ads - it’s a win win!

Just as an example we would look at creating sub-categories such as ‘Arcades’, ‘Media Sharing’ and ‘MMORPGs’ under the ‘Entertainment & Games’ category.

Goal Tracking Version 2.0

At the moment every ad booking you create has a different code snippet to track conversions. As you can imagine this is a nightmare for an Advertiser.

We will look at simplifying this so that one code snippet will be required that will cover all of the Advertiser’s campaigns. We may also introduce conversion statistics down to the site level so Advertiser’s can see where their conversions are coming from.

Site/IP Blacklisting for Advertisers

We believe Advertiser’s should be in total control of where and who sees their ads. This new feature will allow them to block IP addresses and sites from seeing their ads and clicking on them.

This is especially useful for Advertiser’s who are concerned with conversion rates and want to block low-converting traffic.

“Make an Offer”

A marketplace isn’t complete without some form of negotiation, and that’s exactly what this is! In essence it allows an Advertiser to make an offer on a Publishers ad group.

Let’s face it, sometimes we look at site rate cards and the prices are just too high - why shouldn’t the Advertiser be able to make the Publisher an offer? The short answer is, he shouldn’t.

This feature will mean more activity and will work well for both parties - the Advertiser can negotiate a better price and the Publisher will win bookings he wouldn’t have otherwise won.

Performance Reporting for Publishers

Publisher’s need the tools to help them optimise their sites and ad groups. We plan on providing a neat set of reports that will give the Publisher an insight into the performance of their ad groups.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that any assistance in the area of optimisation will work wonders for our Publishers.

That’s really the tip of the iceberg, we have plenty more on the agenda such as CPM Run of Network ads, advertising opportunity alerts, rate card enhancements, site communities, a technology upgrade and a lot more!

Until now the only way Advertiser’s could pay for their ad campaigns was through PayPal. The problem there is not everyone has access to PayPal due to their country of origin. There’s also cases where some people just simply stay away from PayPal - they just don’t like it!

Only recently we have introduced our very own credit card facility whereby you can pay for your ad campaigns directly through our service with no need to use Paypal.

This also allowed us to introduce the new auto re-booking feature whereby you can choose to have our system re-book ads for you when they expire!

This is just one of the many ways we have taken on board your feedback over the last 12 months and expect a lot more as well!

It’s Dan here… yes you might remember me being the former owner of AdToll.com - that hasn’t changed.

I know a lot of you out there are wondering what’s been going on here. I have heard first hand from customers about lack of support, issues with ad bookings etc… There’s no good excuse I can give you so I won’t, but rather will say I am now working with the new team to help resolve outstanding issues and get them back on track.

It’s not all bad news however, late December a whole bunch of enhancements were made to the AdToll system, some of which you may not be aware about.

Payments by Credit Card

You are now able to make payments by credit card! We still accept PayPal but there are a lot of people out there who don’t use PayPal or their country doesn’t support it.

The addition of our new credit card payment has also allowed us to introduce auto re-bookings.

Auto Re-Booking Ads

When booking ads you are now given the option to automatically re-book when that ad expires. This is great for those advertisers who want to continue advertising without having to come back and book the ads again. Using this option will require the use of your credit card so that once our system re-books we can automatically deduct the payment.

This auto re-booking has also allowed us to introduce a new metric to site Rate Cards - the Re-Booking Rate. This metric shows you what percentage of advertisers re-book ads. This is very useful because it gives you an impression of what advertisers think and how their ads performed.

Run of Network Daily Budgets

In the past advertiser RON campaigns would run until the entire budget was exhausted. In some cases this was a matter of hours! One improvement which has been on the cards for awhile and requested by advertisers is the ability to set a daily budget.

This is great as it allows advertisers to budget their campaigns effectively.

Upgrade of SSL

We have upgraded the SSL on all domains to a Thawte SSL Web Certificate providing the ultimate in encryption. Very useful for publishers who run ads on secure pages.

Publishers  able to name Ad Groups

If you are a publisher you will love this change - especially if you have sites with lots of Ad Groups. Quite simply you can now give your Ad Groups a name allowing you to easily distinguish them in your account area and in reporting.

Ads can open in new window

Publishers now have the ability of having their ads open in a new window! To make this happen just edit the Ad Group and change the appropriate setting.

336×280 Banner Ad Format

We have added the 336×280 banner ad format.

Publisher controls length of Ad Bookings

In the past advertisers could book up to 12 weeks at a time on publisher Ad Groups. A lot of publishers didn’t like this as they only wanted short term bookings.

If you are one of those publishers then get excited as you now have the ability to change the length of time you allow advertiser’s to book ads. Simply edit the Ad Group and adjust the Max Weeks setting.

As you can see a fair few enhancements to AdToll have taken place in the last couple of months which should give you some hope!

Over the coming weeks a lot more will be happening but I can’t say too much at the moment. What I will say is thank you for continuing to use the service and sticking it out while this transition is underway!

The new version of our PicText™ Ads have been released throughout the network! The one week BETA release was very successful with a number of publishers giving it a go. Statistics we gathered proved the CTR of the new version of PicText™ was more than double and the fill rate was much higher with more relevant ads and more variety.

If you are using our PicText™ Ads you will now see they have been upgraded to the new version - spotted by the loading icon before the ads load.
There are a couple of technical considerations which you may require you to make some changes, these are below:

• The ad code must not be altered apart from changing styles or variables. DO NOT separate the styles from the javascript area, they need to be together.
• The ad code MUST be placed between the <BODY> tags on your page.
• You must have height and width properties set in your styles. The top style in the ad code has this, for example “.at_table_style_19875 { width:200px;  height:50px; background-color: #0000CC; padding: 3px; }”.

Thanks to everyone that helped with the testing, it was much appreciated. If anyone does discover anything strange or has any questions please get in contact with us!

The new version of our PicText™ Ads are finally here! Initially we are releasing them as a BETA and are now calling on any Publishers interested in giving them a go.

To use the new version of our PicText™ Ads just create a new ad group for your site and select “PicText Ad Version 2 Beta” - then as normal follow the instructions!

What’s different about Pictext™ Version 2?

• The ads are automatically served in an IFRAME so our ads do not slow your web site loading time.
• You will be served far more relevant and a higher volume of ads then ever before.
• You will see a better payout rates and payout rates will vary with niche.

Technical things to consider

• There is no need to put the ad code into your own IFRAME as our new ads do this automatically for you.
• You can only alter the values in the ad code for the styles and other parameters. Do not alter the ad code in any other way - such as moving the styles to an external stylesheet.
• Testing has been conducted in a variety of browsers including IE6, IE7 and FireFox 2 and 3.

What should you do if you see a problem?

If you are using our new PicText™ Ads and you discover a problem or have some feedback please get in contact with us immediately. It’s through your help in this BETA stage that we will improve and iron out any issues.

We already have a number of Publishers who have been trialling the new version with some fantastic success! We look forward to working with all of our Publishers to help you monetize your web sites even better than before.

Keep in mind this is a BETA release and as such Sponsored Ad bookings will not be accepted, however you will be served a variety of relevant ads (based on your site restrictions, ad rating, vertical and user geo-target) .

We often get asked by Advertisers if we provide CPM based Run of Network campaigns. The good news for these Advertisers is that we are now working on introducing CPM based Run of Network campaigns to accompany our CPC based campaigns.

This is also great news for Publishers as they will now be able to earn on a CPM basis!

We expect CPM Run of Network campaigns to be released sometime in June and further release information will be available on this blog in the next month.

We are offering Advertisers a pre-release special whereby if you pre-book a CPM RON campaign before release you can take advantage of our wholesale price. If you are interested please get in contact with us. 

We asked ourselves the question, “what is a video ad?”. A simple question but it made us think. We came to the conclusion that a video ad is simply a type of ad media. At that time we had a dedicated video ad format (300×250) and that really didn’t make much sense based on our discussion.

This discussion, as well as feedback from our customers has lead to this change. What we have done is changed the 300×250 video ad group into a normal banner ad (Medium Rectangle) and now video ads can be booked on any of the banner ad sizes. We figured that video is simply an ad media, just like a JPG, or even flash (SWF), so why shouldn’t you be able to book video as well!?

To accompany this change we have also provided more flexibility to Publishers when setting up their banner Ad Groups. Now they have the ability to select which types of ad media they will accept and display.

This in a sense killed two birds with one stone because one of the things Publishers were asking for was the ability to disallow GIF and SWF ads; now they have the ability to do that and more.

You will also see changes on the Rate Cards and booking screens. On the Rate Card, on each available Ad Group it will show the Advertiser what ad media is allowed, and this information is also shown at the top of the booking screen for Sponsored Ad Bookings.

Also on the booking screen, as part of the ad media section, the Advertiser is required to select the type of ad media they wish to use. This helps make it clear to the Advertiser what type of media they can book and provides them with the necessary information and fields required when they select their option.

This change is a step forward for AdToll and provides a lot more flexibility and options to Publishers. We look forward to hearing any feedback or ideas so please feel free to contact us if you do!

We have had numerous requests to make our ad code (ad serving) SSL compatible. This is VERY important for publishers serving ads on pages within a secure area.

As part of our promise to deliver on your suggestions we have now made this available.

How do you use it?

Very simply actually… all you need to do is change the URL of the ad code from http://adserve.adtoll.com to https://adserve.adtoll.com

For example your current ad code may look something like this:

<!-- START ADTOLL.COM CODE V1.0 -->
<style type="text/css">
A.at_adv_here_15956, A.at_pow_by_15956 {font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none; color: #000099; text-decoration: none; }
A.at_adv_here_15956:hover, A.at_pow_by_15956:hover { color: #0000FF; text-decoration: underline; }
</style>
<script type="text/javascript">
adtoll_see_your_ad_here = 1;
adtoll_your_text = "Advertise here";
adtoll_show_powered_by = 1;
</script>
<script src="http://adserve.adtoll.com/js/at_ag_15956.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<!-- END ADTOLL.COM CODE V1.0 -->

If serving pages in a secure area (SSL) then change the ad code to this:

<!-- START ADTOLL.COM CODE V1.0 -->
<style type="text/css">
A.at_adv_here_15956, A.at_pow_by_15956 {font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-variant: normal; text-transform: none; color: #000099; text-decoration: none; }
A.at_adv_here_15956:hover, A.at_pow_by_15956:hover { color: #0000FF; text-decoration: underline; }
</style>
<script type="text/javascript">
adtoll_see_your_ad_here = 1;
adtoll_your_text = "Advertise here";
adtoll_show_powered_by = 1;
</script>
<script src="https://adserve.adtoll.com/js/at_ag_15956.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>
<!– END ADTOLL.COM CODE V1.0 –>

The only change required is to the second last line where you change the http to https. This tells the web browser that the requested page is coming from a secure area.

That’s all you need to do and you should now be successfully serving ads to your secure pages with no errors.