Google Ad Manager Getting Started Guide
Google Ad Manager Getting Started Guide
As a new Ad Manager user, you might be wondering where to begin. We’d like to
offer some resources to help. With these tips and guidelines, you’ll learn the basics
of Ad Manager as well as how to effectively sell, schedule, deliver, and measure all
of your directly-sold and network-based ad inventory.
Ready to get started? This guide has all the answers – keep it near your work area
for easy reference!
In this packet:
Getting Started - 3
Creating an ad slot - 4
Creating a placement - 6
Generating ad tags - 8
Creating orders - 9
Uploading creatives - 13
Getting Help
Resources - 14
1
Signing in to Your Account:
Your sign-in
To sign in to Ad Manager for the first time, enter your AdSense username and
password. Once you’ve signed in, you can create new user accounts if you have
Ad Manager administrative privileges. New users can then sign in to Ad Manager
using their Google Account username and password.
2
Getting Started:
Once you’ve signed in to Ad Manager, please review our Ad Manager tutorials. Just
click Tutorials at the top of your account to start learning more.
To view all of our Ad Manager reference information and training materials, visit the
Google Ad Manager Help Center, where you can browse our searchable FAQs, step-
by-step guides, and video tutorials. You can also join the Ad Manager Help Group to
connect with other users and share any questions and comments, along with your
own Ad Manager expertise.
Tip: Visit the Google Ad Manager Help Center, your complete resource for all
Ad Manager topics. Just go to www.google.com/support/admanager/publisher
3
Defining Your Site’s Inventory:
Creating an ad slot
When you sign in to Google Ad Manager for the first time, you’ll see the Orders screen.
Before you can get your ads to deliver, you need to define your inventory. You can
create inventory by clicking the Inventory tab. After defining your inventory, you’ll
see the Ad Slots screen.
What are ad slots? Imagine printing a hard copy of your homepage and cutting out
all of the ads. Each empty space is an opportunity to advertise. Ad Manager defines
this space as an ad slot, which includes a name, description, and ad dimensions.
4
Defining Your Site’s Inventory:
Creating an ad slot:
On the Inventory tab click Ad Slots, then click New Ad Slot.
A. Enter a name.
B. Enter a size.
C. Define a target window,
which identifies the browser
window where an ad’s
landing page will open.
Values include:
_top: The target URL will
load in the full body of the
current window, breaking out
of any potential framesets.
_blank: The target URL
will open in a new,
unnamed window.
D. If you’d like AdSense to
fill unsold inventory or
compete on price against
your ad networks and
remnant inventory, select
the AdSense checkbox.
E. (Optional) Enter a description.
F. Associate the ad slot with
one or more placements
by clicking Add» beside the
appropriate placements.
G. Click Save.
5
Defining Your Site’s Inventory:
Creating a placement
After you’ve created your ad slots, the next step is to associate your ad slots to one
or many placements. A placement enables you to group ad slots that an advertiser
might want to target. Say, for example, you operate a news site. You might create
one placement that includes ad slots for all skyscraper ads on your site. You might
create another placement that includes all ad slots on pages containing content
about sports. Both of these placements could include the ad slot for the skyscraper
ad slot on sports pages. Other placements might include combinations of ad slots
appearing in the world news, travel, and weather sections of your site.
6
Defining Your Site’s Inventory:
Creating a placement:
In the Inventory tab click Placements, then click New Placement
A. Enter a name.
B. If you’d like to make your
placement available for
Google advertisers to target,
select the Allow Google
advertisers to target this
placement checkbox.
C. (Optional) Enter a description.
D. Associate ad slots to the
placement by clicking Add»
beside the desired ad slot. (If
an ad slot doesn’t exist yet,
you can complete this step
later.) Each placement should
include a unique combination
of ad slots.
E. Click Save.
7
Defining Your Site’s Inventory:
Generating ad tags
To link a particular ad slot with the desired page and location on your site, you’ll
need to introduce Ad Manager-generated code into the HTML of your pages
Congratulations! Your inventory set-up is now complete, and you can deliver your
advertising campaigns across your site.
8
Creating Orders and Line Items:
Creating orders
The Orders tab is where you’ll likely spend the majority of your time in Ad Manager.
From here, you can create and manage orders, upload creatives, and check your
available inventory.
When you sign in to Google Ad Manager, the Orders tab appears. An order represents
an agreement between you and an advertiser for a particular slice of your inventory,
and most commonly maps to an insertion order, which outlines the details of an
advertising campaign between a seller of interactive advertising and a buyer.
If you’re not sure if you have enough inventory to fulfill your campaign requirements,
you might want to Check Inventory first to see if ad impressions are available to be
reserved. If you’re confident that availability isn’t a problem, then you can skip the
forecasting step.
Checking your inventory forecasts can provide useful insight, which can help you
prevent overbooking or underselling. Please note, for any recently created ad slots
where forecasting information is unavailable, you will be prompted to overbook any
new orders until forecasting data becomes available.
9
Creating Orders and Line Items:
A. Enter a name.
B. For the optional external order number, you can use an invoice code or some
other information for your reference.
C. Enter flight dates, relative to the displayed time zone.
D. (Optional) Enter the billable party, which may be an advertiser, an agency, or
both. This information is for your reference only and doesn’t affect any billing
processes.
E. Select the Trafficker and Salesperson for the order.
F. Enter an advertiser.
G. (Optional) Enter an agency, contact information, and notes.
10
Creating Orders and Line Items:
11
Creating Orders and Line Items:
12
Creating Orders and Line Items:
Uploading creatives
Now that you have determined when and where you wish to serve an ad, you need to
associate the advertiser’s creative with the purchased inventory. Line items typically
include many ad slots, each of which may have one or more creatives, which is a file
or link that generates an ad (the terms creative and ad may be used interchangeably).
After selecting either Upload Creatives or Needs Creative, you will be prompted
to enter a creative Name, select the Ad Slot Size, and select the Creative Type.
Ad Manager supports the following creative types:
t'MBTIGJMF IPTUFESFEJSFDU
t*NBHFGJMF IPTUFESFEJSFDU
t3JDINFEJBDPEF UIJSEQBSUZUBHTBOEBOZDVTUPN)5.-
Once you upload your creative, please review the creative and click Approve
and activate.
13
Resources:
Google Ad Manager
google.com/admanager
14
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