How do I schedule a preroll or gateway ad to play on a station?

AA-00245

Keep in mind that entering a Preroll/Gateway campaign is the same as entering a regular instream campaign except for two things; the file must be a video file and it must be trafficked as an Impression based Campaign. Since it's the same process, the only difference is making sure that you select the Gateway/Preroll link on the second page and that you upload a video file once you get to the Campaign Details screen.

The type of file you need to upload and run depends upon the type of player that your station is using to stream your station to your audience.  If your player is Flash based - all prerolls you run MUST be .flv files.  If your player is Windows Media Based then all video gateway ads MUST be .wmv.  The players use competing technologies and as such, do not play their competitors media files.  If you are unsure which player you are using, reach out to your Content Delivery Network, they can advise you on the specific file type since they normally designed the players for you.

That being said, here are the steps you can take to schedule the ad:

1. Click on the Campaign Manager link at the top of the screen
2. Click on Add New Campaign
3. Set-up/Choose the proper Advertiser Record:
   a. If the advertiser has already run campaigns on your station(s) then you can use the USE EXISTING link to search for their record which should be stored in the database. If the advertiser is a new one and has not run ANY campaigns (be they preroll or instream) click CREATE NEW link
   b. enter the Advertiser Name, Choose and Industry and enter a Bill to Name. Ando is not a billing system per se, so any other fields in the New Advertiser Record section of the page are optional and will be reported on the Contract Confirmation only. Your company might require you to enter the Client Traffic ID into the Traffic Id number line (the last one on the list). IF they do enter it here and click SAVE
4. Enter a Campaign name
5. Enter a product name - if you don't have a specific Product Name you can copy and paste the Campaign Name from the line above
6. Set the Campaign Source. 95% of all orders scheduled at the Station or Market level will be Local-Local. This means that the buy came into the station through a local AE or the NSM and that the ad will be running on a local station in the market cluster. Local - Corporate is an ad that gets purchased by the client at the station and the ad will run in markets outside of the local cluster. If the buy came in through a Corporate sales team and it is being trafficked to a station in the local market then this will be Corporate-local. Corporate-corporate is a buy that came in that the corporate level and runs in multiple markets across the company.
7. Set the start date and end date and click the Impressions Radio Button
8. Then...enter the number of impressions that are needed to deliver the campaign, be it 1000, 100000, or even 325,000 - Remember you must choose impression based at this step. Spot based will not deliver the results that you need.

9.
Enter the Cost Per Thousand into the Campaign CPM line
10. And enter the Campaign Revenue Total
11. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click SAVE to move to the next screen, the CAMPAIGN TYPE SELECTION SCREEN
12. Set the parameters for the creative you'll be using: approximate the duration of the creative, set this as a Vidoe and choose Preroll/gateway.
13. If your player only has one ad unit location, then you can not run a companion synced banner since the video for the file will play in the ad until window.  You can leave this at the default and click Next.
14. Enter the same cost per thousand that you used on the previous page into the CMP rate box
15. Then enter the click through URL to the client's site (make sure to include the HTTP://)
16. Select 1 flight from the drop down box and leave the start date, end date, and Impressions goal defaulted to what they are.
17. Click SAVE to move to the PLAY SCHEDULE SELECTION SCREEN
18. Prerolls typically run a 24 hour 7day/wk schedule so click the EVERY DAY link and highlight ALL HOURS in the daypart box, then click ADD TO SCHEDULE directly under the daypart box
19. Once the page refreshes, scroll to the very bottom of the screen and click DONE to move to the final page, the CAMPAIGN DETAILS SCREEN
20. Mouse over the Edit link in the DAYPARTS column to verify that you did indeed select the proper Play Schedule.
21. Once verified, run your mouse to the left side of the screen and click the red stations link
22. When the pop-up screen opens, choose the proper market from the Select Market drop down list
23. Then, highlight the correct station(s) from the Matching Stations box and click the right pointing green arrow to move it/them to the right-most box
24. After all the correct stations are in the Selected Stations box, click SAVE
25. Now click one of the two Upload links - they both open the same dialogue box so it doesn't matter which one you choose (windows Media players will only play a FLV player and Flash based players will only play a .flv file) If you need clarification on which player you are using check with your Content Delivery Network (CDN)
26. Browse your local PC and find the proper video file on your computer and then click Trim Silence and Normalize Volume and click upload
27. Now from the Tools Menu (it is almost three inches directly up the screen from the now Green Stations Link) and choose Frequency Caps
28. Set both to 0 and click SAVE
29. Now all you need to do is activate the campaign. To do so, click the Ready to Activate button (or Submit for Approval Button) in the upper right hand corner of the screen
30. Last you will want to verify that the line item turned from red to Green (or orange if the flight is to start off in the future). You'll also want to verify that the flight dates are Green or Orange, the Stations link is green and that the uploaded file has uploaded and the full duration is set properly. If the system was unable to read the duration from the uploaded file there will be a -1 in the duration column. If this is the case (very rare), then click the EDIT SPOT DETAILS link from the SPOT ACTIONS menu and set the duration manually. Once there is a full number in the Duration field, click Save. At this time you can preview the file by clicking on the little sound icon. If everything is green and your file is correct, you are done.