Table of Contents
How to Set up Campaign Manager
Create a Campaign Playlist
To create a campaign playlist, go to the Playlists view and select “+Add”. In the left panel, set the “Run As” option to create a Regular Playlist, Autogenerated Playlist, or Campaign Playlist. Once you select Campaign Playlist, new configuration settings will appear.
What is a Rundown?
A rundown is a detailed schedule outlining the sequence of content to be displayed on your screens. It is equivalent to a playlist, as it includes the files that will play, frequency, sorting order, targeting, and schedule.
- Rundown Day: The designated day for when your scheduled content starts displaying on your screens, typically viewing one-week at a time e.g. start rundown every Monday)
- Open Hours: The daily operating hours of the locations where this campaign will run
- Loop in Minutes: The target length of the campaign playlist (e.g., 5 minutes or 60 minutes), used for inventory calculations.
- Impression Index: Estimated number representing people walking by screens and viewing the content at different locations.
- Category Limit Margin: Sets a buffer percentage to delay alerts when exceeding category limits
- Time range: Default duration for how long content will play (e.g. 24 hours).
Optionally, you can activate the rate calculator for this playlist. Not active for all accounts.
What is a Rate Calculator?
A "rate calculator" is a tool used to determine the cost of displaying content on screens. It helps estimate the price for advertising campaigns based on multiple factors such as the duration of the display, number of screens, number of locations, and the frequency of the content being shown.
- Cost per Minute: Charge for displaying content on screens for one minute.
- Default Premium: Additional charge applied to the base rate for premium playlists.
- Default Discount: A reduction in the base rate offered under certain conditions.
Set Campaign Manager Attributes
After setting up the campaign playlist you have to set up attributes.
- Targets: Add a new name to your target, and then add the locations you want to include.
- Advertisers: List of advertiser brands displayed on the left side, and sub-brands on the right that will have ads in your campaign.
- Categories: Different content categories associated to your campaigns (e.g. third-party branded content, direct advertiser, retailer programming). The system allows to add additional categories, set limits for each (e.g. limit to 30% of branded content), and specify a color to help identify them in the inventory page.
- Locations: Displays your created campaign playlists on the left and the locations where each playlist is running on the right.
How to Create a Campaign in Campaign Manager
After setting up the campaign playlist and campaign attributes, go to the Campaign view in Campaign Manager.
To create a new campaign, select “+Add” at the top. Add campaign details such as name, associated playlist, category, any notes, and then click Save.
Note: Once the playlist is selected, it cannot be changed.
To add campaign items to this campaign, select the “+Add” button. It will open up a new dialog for setting item details such as air dates, day parting (days or schedule), target, and brand. The media file (“Content”) can be added now or later leaving the field empty. Specify how many times this file should appear in the rundown (frequency). The system will adjust the based on the media file selected.
You can duplicate the campaign item to make specific changes without redoing all your work. After setting up the campaign items, click “Book” to make the campaign appear in the rundown. If not Booked, the campaign items will be saved as a draft, and won’t show up in the rundown view.
Understanding the Rundown View
The rundown view lists all campaign items (media) associated with the selected playlist.
Each row shows a media file scheduled to play, the duration (in seconds), frequency, start and end dates, day parting and targeting applied.
You can sort the media files manually by dragging and dropping, use one of our auto sequence options, or by exporting the rundown to a spreadsheet and upload a desired sequence.
Types of auto sequence:
- Shuffle: Randomly sequences files, avoiding back-to-back repeats at the same locations.
- Frequency: Sorts content with the highest frequency in the rundown first (e.g. media file ABC has a frequency of 16 in the example), then then the next content with the highest frequency, and so on.
- Category: Sequences items by category, repeating the sorting pattern (e.g., Retail program, TV supplier, Retail program, etc.).
Auto sequence changes will only save after clicking the Save button. When you click Publish, everything will start downloading in the background during the devices’ allowed timeframes, content will play according to the instructions set up.
The bottom of the Rundown page shows the total rundown length (in seconds and minutes), last saved and publish time.
Some files are configured to play in all locations, while others might be targeted for specific regions (e.g. west coast only). To preview the rundown, click the Play button at the bottom of the page. This will open a preview mode where you can select a specific location. The preview will then update to display the content targeted to that chosen location.
What does Weighted Run Time (WRT) mean?
Weighted Run Time (WRT) is the adjusted duration of content in the overall playlist or rundown. The WRT assigns different weights to each media based on factors such as targeting (all locations vs some locations), schedule (hours) and day parting (days when the content will play).
The goal is for all playlists to reach 100% WRT to ensure that all categories (including advertising) are accurately calculated with a full schedule. For example, a 37-second ad might have a 20-second WRT because it only plays from 2:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
Understanding the Inventory View
Inventory refers to the available space or ad slots on the rundown. This space can be used to add more branding content or to be sold to advertisers.
As campaigns and campaign items are added to playlists, the inventory will display them. Select the week and the playlist to see how much inventory is left, the goal is to fill 100% of available space in the inventory.
When hovering over the chart, it shows the different categories and their percentages in the overall programming. It also indicates if any category exceeds its limit.