Setting up inventory

Overview

Setting up inventory in the Equativ platform is the process of mapping ad slots (placements) where ads will be served: on desktop/mobile web sites, in iOS/Android apps, in video content etc. 
You can set up inventory directly in the Equativ platform (described in this article) or using the API. Read Getting started with Equativ's APIs and Manage API articles for more details. 

Inventory elements

In the Equativ platform you can create and manage:

• Sites – which represent the publisher’s domain; Depending on your inventory, the site can also be a mobile app, a supply partner, or a group of network sites;
• Pages – which represent pages or types of pages belonging to your site, e.g. homepage, article pages, or blog posts;
• Formats – which are types of ad slots for creatives, that you want to display on selected pages, e.g. top banner, or skyscraper;
• Page groups – which represent collections of formats; 

In the Equativ platform, formats are not assigned directly to pages, but they are linked through page groups. 

While creating a page you have to place it into a page group, which is the collection of selected formats. These formats will be displayed on pages assigned to this page group;

Additionally, you can use Equativ’s Packs option (described at the end of this article) to group your sites or pages.
  

Inventory creation

The best practice is to start by creating Formats, then Sites > Page groups > Pages. The below instruction is following this order.
 

Formats

To create a format, proceed as follows:

1. Go to Inventory > Formats.
2. Click the orange "+" button.
3. Enter the format’s name, for example name it based on its dimensions: "728 x 90" or "Top banner 728 x 90". 
4. Select the format type: Web or App (SDK). Once the format is saved, the format type is permanent and cannot be changed. The Video option is disabled because the video formats (Video - Linear and Video - Non-linear) are created automatically as soon as the in-stream video workflow is enabled in your network.
5. In case of a Web format, make the following settings:   
   1. HTML Tags supported: always leave this option enabled.
   2. Instances per page: use this option to get multiple instances of the same format on a page.
   3. Platform settings: define the format’s width and height. The size is not restrictive, and it only represents the aspect ratio of the creative.
6. In case of an App (SDK) format, make the following settings:
   1. Instances per page: use this option to get multiple instances of the same format on a page 
   2. Width and Height: define the format’s width and height. 
7. Click Save.

Sites

In most cases, create a site for each domain or app you intend to monetize. This practice ensures granularity so you can analyze and optimize each domain/app using the reporting and forecasting tools. 

To create a Site, proceed as follows:

1. Go to Inventory > Sites & pages​​​​​
2. Click the New button.
3. Fill in the following fields: 
   1. Site Name: appears in the EMP user interface.
   2. Display Name: appears in EMP reporting.
   3. Site URL: if you are creating a website, add the website's URL. It must contain http(s)://www or http(s):// and a dot (".") must follow the domain, for example: http://www.mysite.com ; The website URL added here is used as a fallback value Equativ will forward to demand partners if the website URL cannot be determined automatically from the ad request. Without knowing the website URL, buyers usually reject such ad opportunities as invalid. If the site you are creating represents multiple actual websites, it is recommended instead to send the site URL dynamically in ad requests, using the pgDomain parameter. For more information about this parameter, see Ad API - GET method.
   4. Application Id: if you are creating a mobile app, add the application Id (also known as bundle Id), extracted from the app store URL. For example, the application Id is 294047845 in case of an iOS app store URL https://itunes.apple.com/app/id294047845 or com.lemonde.androidapp in case of an Android app store URL https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lemonde.androidapp&hl=en. The iOS application Id is a numeric Id while the Android application Id is alphanumeric with at least two segments separated by dots, each segment starting with a letter. The application Id added here is used as a fallback value Equativ will forward to demand partners if the application Id cannot be determined automatically from the ad request. Without knowing the application Id, buyers usually reject such ad opportunities as invalid. If the application you are creating represents multiple actual applications, it is recommended instead to send the application Id dynamically in ad requests, using the buid (see Ad API - GET method) or bundleId (see Ad API - POST method - Reference) parameters.

Ad Network Business Model

With this option, ad networks and agencies can define the buying price of the publisher's inventory:

• Publisher CPM  - the publisher earns the specified value for every 1000 impressions (default is "0", meaning that the publisher earns nothing)
• Ad network rate (%) - the ad network retains the defined percentage of the revenue; the ad network rate can also be used in prebid.js integrations (more details in chapter "Create websites in the Header Bidding with Prebid.js - UI setup article)

Note that once a business model has been defined, it cannot be changed!

To learn about the Child-directed site field, read chapter "Declaring a website as child-directed" in the COPPA compliance article  

4. When you are ready with your edits, click the Save button.

You can add IAB categories that best fit your Site. These categories will be sent in the bid requests improving your monetization.
To do it, expand the IAB categories associated with this site tab, and then click the Edit categories button.


 

Page groups

To create Page groups:

1. If you are already in the Sites & Pages view (previous step), you only need to select a Site (by clicking its name in the panel on the left), and then click the New Page group button.



  
2. We recommend to name your page group according to the formats it includes, e.g. 300x250, medium rectangle - MedRec;



3. Click the Save button.
4. Click the green button located on the right of the page group.



5.  Now you can select the formats that you want this page group to contain. 



   

Pages

To create a page:

1. Select the site to which you would like to add your page, and click the New page button. 



2. In the Page creation window:
  

• first, select the appropriate Page group from the drop-down list;
• optionally, if you want to create a tree structure of your pages, you can use the Parent page option; that way you will make this page a child page and nest it under an existing page, which will become its parent page; you can organize the parent/child pages under a site on a maximum of 6 levels, i. e. the entire structure can have a maximum of 7 levels (including the site). Make sure you use short page names in case of page trees with many levels: a page name can contain a maximum of 100 characters and any page name (as contained in the ad tag) is prefixed by all of its parent page names, separated by slashes. For instance, if a page called myParentPage has a child page called myChildPage and a grandchild page called myGrandchildPage, then the full name of the grandchild page will be: myParentPage/myChildPage/myGrandchildPage; this grandchild page has 41 characters — long page names and many parent/child levels will bring you closer to the 100 character limit per page name 
• name your page;
• we recommend filling out the Page URL field, even though it’s optional.
• remember to make sure that the option “allow ad delivery on this page” is enabled, otherwise ads will not be displayed.

3. When you are ready with your settings, click the Save button.
 
You can add IAB categories that best fit your Page. These categories will be sent in the bid requests improving your monetization.
To do it, expand the IAB categories associated with this page tab, and then click the Edit categories button.


 

Ad tags

 

After you create your pages you can quickly and easily download Equativ tags for them. Equativ tags are .txt export files including all the codes needed for tagging. Each ad tag contains site ID, page ID, format ID, and optionally some targeting information.

For some tag types (e. g. OneCall), you will find a generic code at the beginning of the file. This is followed by all the ad tags, structured by website, page and format. 

To learn more see the Tagging guide article.

To download an Equativ tag:

1. Go to Inventory again, and select Sites & Pages.
2. Expand the selected Site by clicking on the plus icon next to the selected Site in the panel on the left, and then select the Page.




3. In the Tags section, choose the tag type from the drop down menu and expand the generated tag for that format. 
 

• OneCall – used to call all formats on a page in a single call ("OneCall"); recommended ad tag for integrations of Equativ ad tags on websites;
• Standard – used to call each format of a page one by one (as opposed to OneCall);
• Standalone – used to make a third party system (e. g. a publisher ad server) call ads from Equativ; in the third party system, the Standalone tag is used as a redirect tag; usage in an HTML page recommended only if none of the other tag types can be used;
• NonRich – used to retrieve ads in environments where javascript cannot be used

To learn more about the specifics of each of the ad tags, see the Tagging guide article.
   
To download all your tags at once, i.e. tags from all pages of the site, select a Site in the Sites & Pages view, and then click the “download all tags” option. 


 

Video integration codes

Equativ offers a variety of ways for integrating in-stream video ads into your video content. Depending on the integration type you use, there will be different integration codes generated.

To get these codes:

1. First, select the page in the Sites & Pages view.
2. Expand the Video tags section and select the appropriate Integration type.



3. Copy/paste all the code snippets.  

To learn more about our video ads integration methods, see the In-stream video integration methods article
 

App placements

In mobile apps, the ad requests are managed by Equativ’s SDK (iOS or Android SDK).




To retrieve the code for app placements:

1. Go to Inventory > Sites & Pages.
2. On the left side, select the website.
3. Click on Download all tags for the site ... as shown in the screenshot above.
4. On the Export tags of sites and pages page, select App placements, as shown in the screenshot below. 
5. Click Generate to download the integration codes. 

Packs

Additionally, you can use Equativ’s Packs option to group your sites or pages. For instance you could create a pack for your verticals, such as all your pages dealing with sports that you may want to sell to a sports advertiser as a pack. That way you can quickly add selected insertions to the pack, instead of individual pages, and run reports on the entire pack.

To create a pack:

1. Go to Inventory > Packs. 




2. Click the New button.

3. Then, type in the Name of your pack and select the desired sites or pages and move them to the right column using the yellow arrow.



4. When you are ready with your settings, click the Save button.
Note: when a pack is updated with new sites or pages, all online insertions containing this pack are put online again to take into account this update.