FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

General


1. What are the benefits for publishers and developers?

  • Connected to 50+ ad networks
  • Optimized eCPM, based on real time revenue forecasts
  • Dynamic campaign selection
  • Automated data collection across networks
  • Experienced ad operations management
  • Free sophisticated mobile analytics
  • 1 technical integration

2. How do I join Smaato?

Joining the Smaato Network is quick and easy and you can be up and running in minutes by clicking on the "Sign up" button at Smaato home page or use the link below.

https://my.smaato.com/selfservice/join.jsp

We implemented a very easy sign-up process that gives you access to our fully automated self-service portal. To make the whole process even simpler we made two videos which show you how to set up an account and how to ad enable your application and/or mobile website with Smaato.

Video 1: How to set up an free account




3. How much does it cost?

Joining the Smaato network is free.


4. How do I earn money?

You will receive a share of the net revenue generated from every ad displayed for Cost per Thousand (CPM) or ad clicked for Cost per Click (CPC) advertising.

As a publisher (mobile website or application) you will need to sign up with Smaato and add your site or app to our network.

You will receive a share of the net revenues generated from ads displayed on your sites and apps. The percentage you will receive varies from 70% to 90%, depending on the amount of ad impressions generated. To have a look at the revenue share model, please click here.

Payment


1. What is the minimum amount for payment?

Smaato will pay out earnings to publishers above an accumulated revenue of $100.00 as specified in the Terms & conditions. Earnings below $100.00 will roll over into the following month.


2. Can I pause payment of my monthly earnings?

Once you've set up your payments, these will continue monthly unless your earnings are below $100.00 for a particular month, in which case your earnings will automatically roll over to the following month.


3. In what currency are the earnings displayed?

The earnings are displayed in US Dollar.


4. What are earnings?

Earnings are the revenues you made with mobile advertisements. Earnings are made by displaying ads (CPM) or by receiving clicks on ads (CPC). Smaato serves both kinds of ads although the weighting of these ad types may vary per country.


5. How do I get paid?

Publishers can choose between receiving their monthly earnings by Paypal or Bank wire transfer.


6. Can I change my payment method?

You can change the payment method at any time by logging in to your account.

  • Login in to Smaato
  • Click on > Account > Payment Information

Publishers


1. What sites or apps qualify for Smaato?

Smaato Network is open to everyone ranging from large publishers with multiple mobile sites to small start-ups, blogs and app developers. For more information please review our Publisher Content Guidelines (http://www.smaato.com/terms).

2. What criteria does my site or app need to pass in order to get added to the Smaato Network?

You will need to meet the following criteria before submitting your site or app online for approval:

  • You will need a site or app in order to join the Smaato Network.
  • As described in our Terms & Conditions, we can only accept applications from persons over the age of 18.
  • Your site or app will need to comply with our Publisher Content Guidelines.

Smaato reviews all sites and apps submitted online.


3. Does my site or app need to be in English?

Smaato currently supports publishers with sites or apps that can display the ISO 8859-1 character set. ISO 8859-1 is used to represent most languages throughout the Americas, Western Europe, Asia, Oceania and Africa.


4. Does Smaato review all publisher sites and apps?

The Smaato team reviews all sites and apps submitted by publishers before adding them to the Smaato network.


5. How do I display ads on my site or app?

Once you added your site or app, we will automatically generate ad codes for you for every ad slot you have defined. Just copy and paste the ad code into the relevant area of your site or app. You will be able to access this ad code by following the steps below.

  • Login in to Smaato
  • Click on > Install Tools
  • Copy the code for integration

6. How many adspaceIDs can I create?

You can create up to 5 adspace IDs. Each adspace ID can support different ad formats and have different targeting information. If you need more adspace ID’s just contact the Smaato Support team: support(at)smaato.com.

Dashboard Questions


1. What reporting does Smaato provide?

Smaato provides real-time reporting and analytics. This means you can access all the up-to-date information to fine tune your site or app to maximize your revenue-generating possibilities.


2. Can I download my reports?

All reports can be downloaded by clicking on the "Export to Excel (CSV)" link at the bottom of all reports.


3. In what time zone are the reports displayed?

The reports are shown in GMT.


4. What's the difference between an ad request and an ad impression?

An ad request is a call made to the Smaato advertising platform triggered by the ad code integrated in your site or app for a particular adspaceID. An impression represents an ad displayed on your site or app to an end user. The ratio of impressions served to ads requested is called the fill rate.


5. What is eCPM?

eCPM or Effective Cost per Thousand impressions is calculated by dividing your total earnings by the total number of impressions. For example, if as a publisher you earned $200.00 from 40,000 impressions, the eCPM calculation would be ($200.00 / 40,000) x 1000 giving an eCPM of $5.00.


6. Why is eCPM important for publishers?

eCPM is a useful report metric for comparing revenue generated across marketing channels and advertising networks.

7. How can I optimize my earnings?

There are a number of things you can do in order to optimize your earnings:

  • Tagging
    Tags are keywords generated by you that provide a concise description of your site or app's content. Providing descriptive tags improve performance by matching the most relevant ads for the ad slots defined.
  • Ads per page
    We suggest limiting the number of ads per page to two or three depending on the page size. For sites with lots of content and long pages, three ads may perform well. For the majority of mobile sites with short pages, two ads per page is industry best practice.
  • Ad positions
    Typically publishers place one ad at the top of a page and one ad at the bottom of a page. This may be your starting position. All sites and apps are different, so it really depends on your site structure.
  • Ad formats
    There are 2 different ad format options for your site or app; text link and graphic banner.
  • Test and rework
    There are a number of different variables as shown above that influence the performance of ads on your site or app and your earnings potential. It really is about testing what works well with your audience and changing these variables to achieve the optimum mix.


8. Can I manage both web sites and applications under the same account?

Yes. You can add, manage and control your websites and applications under your publisher account.


9. Why are there discrepancies between “Served Ads” and “Impressions”?

Smaato is sending ads per your ad request.

If you get the ad this is the served ad. Although you forward the ad to your publishers this doesn’t have to be meant that the served ad by us (Smaato) to you will be fully displayed or called from your end-user. Reason could be that the end-user stops the application or the service or whatever.

Thus the number of served ads and impressions can vary.

Technical Questions


1. You often get smaller ad banner sizes than requested?

Smaato supports the MMA standard banner sizes. It can happen that our Ad Network partners cannot deliver the requested size. Then we always send you the next smaller size.


2. Your site has been approved and your status LIVE but you don’t get live ads?

Please check if you do see a green banner with the message “Done: Click to Finish”. If you do see this ad banner, please follow the instruction and click on the green ad banner to finish the process for getting live ads.


3. Where can I find an integration guide?

Currently there is only our SOMA API integration guide available.


4. You have integrated one of our SDKs but get the error message “unknown PublisherID and AdspaceID”?

This can have 3 reasons:

  • 1. The Publisher and Adspace ID don’t match.
  • 2. The AdspaceID has occasionally been deleted by you.
  • 3. The AdspaceID might have been blocked by us because it doesn’t conform with our Publisher Content Guideline. (link to guideline)

Video 2: How to setup an iPhone Application



5. You have difficulties with the integration of our code snippet?

Please follow the instructions provided in our SOMA Server API Developer Guide. It will explain exactly how to integrate the code snippets into your site or app source code.

6. You receive a “no ads available” message?

The message “no ads available” means that currently for this specific request ( e.g. the provided country/ location/ category) there is no ad available.