Signal Setup for Manual CSS Selectors
There are two different ways that publishers can implement their Signal ads. You can:
manually select the ad zones on the page to trigger a reload
use Google Ad Manager to 'auto-detect' the right ad zones to trigger a reload
Auto-Detecting for Signal
The easiest implementation method is to auto-detect the correct ad zones that are being used by Google Ad Manager (GAM) or Doubleclick for Publishers (DFP).
This is very easy to setup and requires a simple toggle to enable. When creating your ad tags via Connect, just be sure that you're enabling auto-detect. See the screenshot below showing the auto-detect toggle enabled:
Note that if you're using auto-detect, you will only need to create a single Signal ad for each ad size. Thus, you'll have one ad for the 300x250 ads, one for 728x90, and so on.
Manual CSS Selection for Signal
If you're not using DFP or GAM, you must specify what <div> you want to target on the page to trigger a reload.
In order to implement a Signal ad, Sovrn needs to understand what area on a page we need to target. This can be done by finding the <div> where your ad lives on the page.
A <div> tag defines a section in the layout of a web page?s HTML document. In the HTML of a site, hardcoded ads are typically found associated with a <div> id, which is usually found under a <div> class. See the example below.
For the screenshot above, the <div> that we want to target is "#code-block code-block-1".
What is a <div>?
A <div> class defines a grouping of elements by type (ex. “Header”, “footer”, “bottom”, or whatever a publisher chooses to name it), while a <div> id is always specific to one unique element or ad placement.
See the example below, where <div> class = “fr” and <div> id = ?cbmadtop?.
<div> class = “fr”
This needs to be input as .fr when creating your Signal ad
<div> id = “cbmadtop”
This needs to be input as #cbmadtop when creating your Signal ad
Sometimes the web page has a logical naming convention and the <div> id is easy to find (ie. <div> class = “sidebar”, <div> id = “2nd_med_300x250_rectangle"). More frequently, the task of finding <div> id's is what takes the longest in a hardcoded Connect implementation.
For this reason, it is recommended that a publisher provide Sovrn a list of the ad unit <div> id's from their webpage(s). If their site uses different ad placements for multiple page layouts (ex. home page, product page, about us, etc.), then the <div> id's in the list will need to be associated with that specific layout/page name.
If a publisher cannot provide this information, then Sovrn ad ops will do their best to extract the <div> id's, which can extend the time it takes to implement the ad by a few days. Additionally, if there are multiple page layouts with their own ad units/placements for the site, this will also impact implementation time.
Other Important Things to Consider about Connect
Each ad placement needs to have a unique <div> for the tag to work properly. If the <div> is not unique, or it appears more than once on the page, the Signal ad will not work.
Connect tags will not work within an iFrame
If there is an existing page refresh function on the page, that will need to be disabled for the Sovrn reload to work properly.
Don't get stuck! If you run into any issues with your Connect tags, be sure to email support@sovrn.com.