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A Guide to the Creative Card

This article will cover the following:

  • The 7 different types of creatives
  • How to add creatives
  • Adding a Link creative
  • Adding an Email creative
  • Adding an Image creative
  • Adding a Flash creative
  • The Creative card
  • Edit Multiple Creatives

The 7 Types of Creatives

Creatives are the advertising assets that a network provides to affiliates for the purpose of generating traffic to their offer.  CAKE supports 7 different types of Creatives:

  • Link: Simply a link that can be provided to an affiliate that will redirect to the offer link.
  • Email: Intended to be used in an email and can be either an HTM, HTML or TXT file.  CAKE will dynamically find HREF links in the content of the file for the purpose of replacing them with one of two tokens; #url# or #unsub#.

- #url#: This token will replace the offer link in the creative with the affiliate’s unique link.  

- #unsub#: This token will replace the unsubscribe link with the provided unsubscribe link in the offer.

  • Image: CAKE will support any image file type such as a .png, .jpg, .gif etc.
  • Flash: Shockwave Files (.swf) should be uploaded for this creative type.
  • Text: TXT files should be uploaded here. Similar to the Email Creative, CAKE will dynamically find HREF links in the content of the file to be replaced by the #url# or #unsub# tokens.
  • HTML: HTML files should be uploaded here. Similar to the Email and Text Creatives, CAKE will dynamically find HREF links in the content of the file to be replaced by the #url# or #unsub# tokens.
  • Video: Upload actual MP4 or MOV files here.

How to add Creatives

Creatives are uploaded at the Offer card level.

Open your Offer card > select the Creatives tab.  There are two different import methods of Creatives:

  • Add Creative: The Add Creative button is located in the Creative tab of the Offer card and allows for the upload of individual creatives.  This import tool supports any of the creative types.
  • Batch Creative Upload: The Batch Creative Upload button is also located in the Creative tab of the Offer card and allows for multiple Image or Flash creative types to be uploaded at one time.

Adding a Link Creative

Adding a Link Creative

Once you click the Add Creative button you will need to complete the Add a new Creative wizard to create your new creative.

Offer: The offer will pre populate itself into the wizard

Creative Type: Select Link

Status: There are 3 options for creative status

- Active: An active creative is available to all affiliates who have access to this offer.  Active creatives redirect traffic to the offer link.

- Inactive: An inactive creative is not available to affiliates in the Affiliate portal.  Traffic being sent to an inactive creative will be redirected to the offer redirect, vertical redirect or global redirect depending on settings in place.    

- Hidden: A hidden creative is actually an active creative but is not shown to the affiliates in the Affiliate portal.  Hidden creatives will need to be sent manually to an affiliate and traffic will redirect to the offer link normally.

Name: This is the unique name of this creative.

Once the Creative card opens, you will need to add the landing page for this Creative.

Click the Add button in the Landing Page section of the Info sub tab.

This will prompt the Add A New Landing Page wizard to open.

Name: Name the Landing Page.

URL: the actual URL of the Landing Page

Type: Landing Page, Confirmation Page or Both

Creative Specific: Checking this check box will make this landing page exclusive to this creative. It will not be an option anywhere else

Hit Next to review your Landing Page information and Finish to confirm.

Adding an Email Creative

Adding an Email Creative

To add an Email Creative click the Add Creative button > the offer will pre populate itself into the wizard.

Creative Type: Select Email

Status: Only active creatives redirect to the offer link.

Name: This is the unique name of the Email Creative.

Click Next and Finish and the Upload a Creative File wizard will open automatically.

Upload a Creative File wizard

Upload a Creative File wizard

Click the Add File(s) button > select either an HTM, HTML or TXT file.  

- If the HTM(L) is referencing external images not stored on a server, include the images as well.  The HTM(L) file needs to reference the names of the images. If the images are stored on an external server, the HTM(L) file needs to reference the domain where the images are stored.  

***CAKE has the ability to Cloud Host media files. If you choose to host your own images they will need to be hosted on an external server or provided to the affiliate for hosting***

- Once the file(s) have been chosen, click the Upload File(s) button.

- The Edit File(s) card will open automatically.

Edit File(s) card

CAKE will dynamically highlight all HREFs in red in the File Content window.

Each HREF can be selected to be replaced with either #url# or #unsub# in the File Link(s) window.

Email Creative card

The Creative card will open as well.

An Email Creative can be edited at any time by clicking the Files tab.

Specific Files can be edited or deleted.

To open the Edit File(s) Card highlight the HTM(L) file > click Edit File(s).

 

The same process and options apply when uploading a Text or HTML file as well.

Adding an Image Creative

Adding an Image Creative

To add an Image creative click the Add Creative button > the offer will pre populate itself into the wizard.

Creative Type: Select Image

Include HTML Template File: A custom HTML Template can be created within Global Settings which is located under the Setup Main Tab. This allows you to upload the Image File in its raw form and then to provide HTML code to your Affiliates. This feature works hand-in-hand with the image hosting feature.

Download Linked Images: This is an optional feature that will download any image files if your Advertiser provides you with an HTML Creative and the images within the HTML file are being hosted elsewhere. CAKE will download these images so that they can be stored locally to your instance.

Status: Only an active creative can redirect to the offer link.

Name: The name of the image creative you are uploading.

Once done, proceed through the wizard and click Finish.  The Upload a Creative File wizard will open automatically.  You can then click the Add File(s) button > Select 1 or multiple image files > and click the Upload File(s) button to upload the files to the creative card.

Adding a Flash Creative

Adding a Flash Creative

Flash creatives can be uploaded one at a time using the Add Creative button or can be uploaded in batch by using the Batch Creative Upload button.

Creative Type: Select Flash

Download Linked Images: This is an optional feature that will download any image files if your Advertiser provides you with an HTML Creative and the images within the HTML file are being hosted elsewhere.CAKE will download these images so that they can be stored locally to your instance.

Status: Only an active creative can redirect to the offer link

Name: The name of the Flash creative you are looking to upload

Width & Height: You are able to specify the width and height of the Flash file you are uploading.

Click next and Finish and the Upload a Creative File wizard will open automatically.  You can then click the Add File(s) button > select 1 or multiple Flash files > then click the Upload File(s) button.

 

Adding a Video Creative

To add a Video creative click the Add Creative button > the offer will pre populate itself into the wizard.

Creative Type: Select Video

Download Linked Images: This is an optional feature that will download any image files if your Advertiser provides you with an HTML Creative and the images within the HTML file are being hosted elsewhere. CAKE will download these images so that they can be stored locally to your instance.

Status: Only an active creative can redirect to the offer link.

Name: The name of the image creative you are uploading.

Once done, proceed through the wizard and click Finish.  The Upload a Creative File wizard will open automatically.  You can then click the Add File(s) button > Select 1 or multiple video files > and click the Upload File(s) button to upload the files to the creative card.

Creative card

On the Creative card > Home tab > the mini-info tab houses all creative specific information.

Name: This is the name of the creative you created in the Add a New Creative wizard.

3rd Party Name: You have the ability to associate a 3rd party name to a creative.  This feature needs to be enabled.

Type: This is the type of creative you've uploaded (link, email, image or flash).

Dimensions: These are the length x width dimensions of the creative file you've uploaded.

Status: This field will reflect one of the following statuses we chose in the Add new Creative wizard (active, inactive or pending).

Expiration Date: Choosing a date will expire the Creative at the specified date.

Landing Page: Placing a link in this field will apply an Landing Page Override to the creative.

Allow Link Override: When enabled, CAKE will acknowledge the "ckmrdr" parameter; allowing for deep linking.

Notes: Clicking the edit notes hyperlink will allow you to edit notes in the History tab of the Creative card.

Edit Multiple Creatives

Multiple creatives can be edited through the Change Creative Information wizard.   Select the creatives you want to edit and click the "Edit Creatives" button.  The Change Creative Information wizard will display.

The following fields can be updated to multiple creatives at one time:    

  • Name
  • 3rd Party Name
  • Status
  • Expiration Date
  • Offer Link
  • Allow Link Override

 

Change Creative Information Wizard

Change Creative Information Wizard

Simply update the properties you would like to apply to ALL of the creatives you selected.

The wizard will finalize with a confirmation screen and will apply to the creatives.


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