Postmedia - FAQ (EN)

Postmedia Ad Manager is a self-serve advertising portal providing potential clients access to the power of Postmedia's brands. This easy-to-use platform offers digital and print advertising options to help you grow your business and achieve results, all at your convenience.

You can access 130+ news brands on the Postmedia network, reaching Canadians from coast to coast.  Use Postmedia’s award-winning and premium content to deliver your message to consumers in communities of all sizes and drive sales.

For more information on Postmedia brands, visit postmediasolutions.com/brands 

Postmedia Ad Manager offers different campaign types to reach your target audience.  You can choose from the following options when building your campaign:

1. Digital Campaigns: Postmedia offers impression-based digital campaigns on desktop, mobile, and tablet platforms for Postmedia brands nationwide.  

2. Print Campaigns: Place an ad(s) in the Postmedia newspaper(s) of your choice.  If you are advertising a limited time offer/event that needs maximum exposure to a local audience or if you are looking for branding and reach/frequency with a loyal and local audience.  

Using Postmedia Ad Manager, you will build a campaign that can be viewed on:

• Digital: On Postmedia desktop and mobile platforms, targeting your choice of site, geo or content categories.

• Print: Published in the Postmedia newspaper(s) of your choice.  

Your campaign price is determined by the type of campaign you select, the size and the frequency. 

1. Digital Campaigns: Allows advertisers to reach our online readers through Postmedia’s sites on desktop and mobile.  Campaigns start at $200 per month.

2. Print Campaigns: A minimum frequency of at least 3 times in the newspaper of your choice is recommended to generate results.

Depending on the product you select, as well as the targeting options, your price will change.

The rates found in Postmedia Ad Manager, as well as any offers and promo codes offered through the Postmedia Ad Manager platform, only apply to campaigns purchased through the platform.

Postmedia Ad Manager allows you to create a campaign that reaches visitors and readers on our print and digital platforms, across all our brands. 

A campaign is a set of advertisements created and displayed on the marketing tactic of your choice to reach your intended audience.

Creating a Campaign through Postmedia Ad Manager is easy. 

Every campaign consists of: 

• Campaign Channel: Choose the marketing tactic – PAM offers digital and print channels.

• Budget: Set your budget based on how much you want to spend or how many ads/impressions you want to serve. 

• Schedule: The dates your campaign will run. 

• Targeting: Where your ads will be shown. See the Targeting section for more information on targeting options. 

• Creatives: The actual ads displayed to your audience. Don't sorry if you don’t have a creative, you can build one from scratch in our easy-to-use Creative Builder!

Postmedia Ad Manager lets you choose campaign types to reach your target audience.  You can choose from the following options when building your campaign:

Digital Campaign: This impression-based option allows advertisers to reach our online readers through Postmedia’s sites on desktop and mobile. Campaigns start at $200 per month. Choose this option if your goal is to capture traffic to your webpage or market your event/business to a local newspaper reader audience.

Print Campaign: Place an ad or ads in your Postmedia Newspaper of choice.  Choose this option if you are advertising a limited time offer/event that needs maximum exposure to a local audience or if you are looking for branding and reach/frequency with a loyal and local audience. A minimum frequency of at least 3 times is recommended to generate results. 

Postmedia Ad Manager offers local marketers the opportunity to launch campaigns quickly, control all aspects of your advertising and optimize performance. The process of creating your campaign allows you to select the advertising channel and targeting options to best reach your key audience.  Read more in the Targeting Options section.

When creating your campaign, you will add one or more creatives. A Creative is the image that will be shown to the visitors you target.

You can either upload a completed Creative from your hard drive (like a JPG image) or create one from scratch through our easy-to-use Creative Builder. Read more in the Creative section.

Campaigns can be set up in 5-simple steps:

1. Select Campaign Channel:

• Digital

• Print

2. Targeting Strategy:
   Digital: Target your campaign by Geo (location), Audience type or Contextual (reader interest). When targeting by audience type and contextual you can also select geo (location).   
   Print: Select the publication you wish to advertise in and the format you would like (ad size).

3. Budget:
   Digital: Specify how much you would like to invest in your campaign. Postmedia Ad Manager supports digital campaigns starting at $200.00.
   Print: Price is determined by publication choice, ad size and frequency. Choose a format that fits your objectives and your budget. The price indicated is price per issue.

3. Schedule: Select start and end dates for your campaign.
   Digital: Depending on your campaign budget, we recommend 7+ days for optimal performance. 
   Print: A minimum frequency of at least 3 times is recommended to generate results. 

4. Creatives: Upload your creative or use our Creative Builder to build creative from scratch. 

The Campaign Channel/Product you select will determine the price per ad or impression for your campaign.
The Product selector is where you pick the attributes to be added to your Campaign (i.e ad size, frequency, targeting options, placements, etc.).

Digital: After selecting a Product, you will input your ideal budget for the Campaign. Based on your selected Product, the Platform will calculate the number of impressions or clicks you will get for your budget amount. The price used for the calculation is displayed in CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions). Each product has its own CPM, so the price will vary based on your choices.

Print: Select your ad size and frequency and see prices displayed. 

The price for your campaign depends on both your budget and products selected. On Postmedia Ad Manager, you can choose from print or digital campaigns. Depending on the product you select, as well as the targeting options, your price will change

In digital advertising, CPM is the cost per thousand, (Cost-Per-Mille), a term for the price of 1,000 ad impressions. If an ad placement on a website costs $12.00 CPM, an advertiser will pay $12.00 for every 1,000 ad impressions. 

All campaigns require creative review and approval. Once approved, your campaign will go live on the requested start date.

Approval will be completed within 1 business day after campaign is created and paid for.

Campaign(s) will be organized under one order. Use the Orders page to print a receipt for each transaction. You can also reach all campaigns in the left hand menu under Campaigns.

You can check the status of your campaign to make sure ads and impressions are being delivered in the campaign by choosing a specific campaign and look through the creatives and performance tabs. You can also edit your campaign in this section.  View the final statistics of your campaign in the reports section.

Steps to change your budget depend on the status of your campaign:

DRAFT: If your campaign is in DRAFT status, your budget can be changed.

LIVE: If your campaign is in LIVE status, your budget cannot be changed.

PAUSED: If you want to edit your budget, you can pause your campaign, copy it, cancel the original campaign and submit a new campaign with new dates and a new budget.

CANCELLED: If you cancel your campaign or if your campaign did not reach the contracted number of impressions, you will get a refund.

You can edit a campaign that has already been submitted and paid for by navigating to the campaign and clicking Edit. Targeting and flight dates can be edited, however you cannot edit your budget.

NOTE: If your campaign has already started, the start date cannot be changed.

Your campaign may no longer be delivering impressions because the end date has passed. If you want your campaign to continue delivering impressions, you will need to create a new campaign. 

Your campaign may no longer be delivering impressions if you have no active creatives. You can view all of your submitted creatives by navigating to your campaign and clicking on Creatives. Make sure at least one creative is active in order for the campaign to deliver. 

If you are still having issues, please contact the support team. A contact form is available through the Support button in the drop-down menu in the top right corner of the platform.

To stop a campaign from delivering, click into the campaign and select Pause from the dropdown. The campaign will stop delivering impressions. Once paused, the campaign can then be cancelled.

• DRAFT: The campaign has not yet been submitted. Please note, once a campaign has been submitted, it can take up to 30 minutes for a campaign’s status to be updated. 

• PENDING: The campaign has been set up and paid for but has not reached its start date yet. Campaigns can also be PENDING if creative approval still needs to be received. 

• LIVE: The campaign is currently delivering impressions.  

• COMPLETED: The campaign has fulfilled its budget or passed its end date and is no longer delivering impressions. 

• CANCELLED: The campaign has been cancelled and will no longer deliver impressions.  

• PAUSED: The campaign has been paused and is no longer delivering impressions. 

• FAILED: Your campaign has failed. Please contact the support team. A contact form is available through the Support button in the drop-down menu in the top right corner of the platform.

Targeting is the way in which you customize your campaign and decide who will see your ad.

You can determine which consumer groups will be able to see your ad through our targeting and digital tactic options. We recommend multiple tactics purchased per campaign to fully target your desired audience.  The more niche your targeting settings are, the higher the CPM for your campaign and vice versa. It is important to make sure your targeting options are not too specific so that your campaign can reach as many visitors as possible.

Print campaigns target the publication you select.

Read more about this in our Targeting Best Practices section.

The targeting options available are unique to each of the campaign products available to you in the Create a Campaign section, for example site, visitor location and audience behavior are all options dependent on the category. Note that the Product you set when creating your campaign will have an impact on the targeting options that are available to you.

The digital targeting options available are:

GEO-TARGETING: This is location-based targeting, such as a province or city. You can choose multiple geo targets. 

AUDIENCE TARGETING: Driven by our extensive nationwide first-party data and innovative technology, you can choose from one of Postmedia’s desired audiences such as Arts & Entertainment Afficionados, Financial Enthusiasts, Sports Fans and more. GEO targeting is also included with this option. 

CONTEXTUAL TARGETING: Align your campaign to a relevant content category or topic such as Food & Lifestyle, Travel, Auto and more. GEO targeting is also included with this option.

Print campaigns are targeted by publication.

For digital advertising campaigns on the Postmedia network, if you do not set any targeting options, your campaign can be shown to any visitor who visits our websites.

Targeting is the way in which you customize your campaign and decide who will see your ad. 

Creative is the image that will be shown to the audience you target. You can upload creative (like a JPG image) or create one from scratch using our easy-to-use Creative Builder.

You can either upload a completed Creative (Print: PDF, Digital: JPG, PNG) from your computer or from your creative library (where previously used creatives are saved) or build a Creative from scratch through our easy-to-use Creative Builder. 

All submitted creatives need to be approved by our team before the Campaign goes live. You will be notified by email if your creative is approved or rejected. You have the option to submit new Creatives if you are not satisfied with the submitted ones. 

Read more about Best Practices for Creative for some considerations when selecting your creative.

• Size: as per your selected ad size

• File Type: PDF

• DPI >= 200

• Color: CMYK or Grayscale

• File size =< 25MB

• Page size: Single page

The Creative Builder option is available in the Creative section. This option is great to use if you don’t have a Creative available. To use this option, you simply upload an image and fill in a few fields and the creative will be created for you.

Yes. Creatives can be submitted during the Campaign creation flow or added later. 

To add new creatives once your campaign is live, click your campaign and navigate to the creatives tab.

You cannot edit an approved Creative on a running Campaign, but you can add new ones. This is a great choice for digital campaigns if you’d like to A/B test your creatives and optimize whichever one seems to capture more clicks. You can pause or resume the creative you are using for the campaign at any time but must have at least one active creative per campaign available.

You can manage the creatives on a campaign by entering the creative section under Campaigns and pressing the edit button.

Creatives will be approved or rejected by the Postmedia Ad Manager team within 1 business day. You will be contacted if there are any issues with your creatives.

Please review our creative approval process here.

NO CREATIVE: No creatives were added for this Campaign. The Campaign will not deliver until a creative is added and approved.

UNDER REVIEW: A creative has been added and is waiting to be approved by the Publisher.

APPROVED: The creative was approved by the Publisher.

ACTIVE: At least one creative was added and approved, the campaign has started.

INACTIVE: The creative has been inactivated and is no longer shown to the audience.

REJECTED: The creative was rejected. If this is the only creative, the campaign will not deliver.

EXPIRED: The Campaign passed the End date before a Creative was approved.

To see a copy of your approved print ad once it has been published, become a subscriber or pick up a copy of the newspaper at a store in your area. To subscribe, please visit your preferred publication’s subscription offers page via the Subscribe button at the upper right corner of the homepage when viewed on desktop, or at the top of the homepage on mobile to see features and prices.   

To stop a Campaign from delivering, pause it from the Campaigns page. The Campaign will stop delivering impressions until it is un-paused.

Campaigns that have been submitted and paid for can be edited from the Campaigns page. Certain options are no longer available for editing compared to when you initially created your Campaign, such as the campaign budget and dates. In order to edit your budget or campaign dates, you can pause your delivering Campaign, copy it and submit a new Campaign with new dates.

Your campaign may no longer be delivering because it has passed the selected end date for your campaign. In order to continue to campaign to deliver more impressions, you will need to create a new Campaign.
An additional reason a campaign might not be delivering is if you have no active creatives. You can view all your submitted creatives in the campaigns page. Make sure at least one is active for the campaign to deliver.
If you are still having issues, please contact the support team directly. The contact form is available through the Support button in the dropdown menu in the top right corner.

To view the status of your campaign, go to the campaigns page. Various statuses are available based on your campaign progress, these include the following:

• Draft: The Campaign has been submitted and is currently being created in the internal (Publisher) systems. This process can take up to 30 minutes after it has been submitted. 

• Inactive: There are no approved creatives added to the campaign. 

• Live (Ready): At least one creative has been approved and the campaign is ready to go live at the set start date.

• Live (Delivering): The campaign is currently delivering impressions. 

• Completed: The campaign has fulfilled the budget and is no longer delivering impressions.

• Cancelled: The campaign has been cancelled and will no longer deliver impressions. 

• Paused: The campaign has been paused and is no longer delivering impressions. The campaign must be resumed in order to deliver impressions. 

• Pending: The campaign has been set up and paid for but missing creatives

You can view campaign performance at any time by selecting your campaign and clicking on the performance tab. Here you can view real-time campaign performance by date range. Click on the creatives tab to view overall performance by creative. 

To download a report containing all performance related metrics click on Reports in the left-hand menu. You can also schedule automated reports to be sent to your email at a frequency of your choosing.

The following metrics are available in the exported reports in the Reports section. Note that some of these metrics may not be available depending on the date range you selected when creating the report. Metrics listed in the reports include:

• Booked impressions: The amount of impressions that were calculated according to your budget when you created your campaign.

• Budget: The dollar value you set when creating your campaign.

• Clicks: The amount of clicks during the selected date range.

• Delivered impressions: The amount of impressions that delivered during the selected date range.

• CTR: The “click-through-rate” is the number of clicks received, divided by the number of delivered impressions. The CTR is presented as a percentage. 

• Spend: The total amount of the campaign budget spent based on the number of delivered impressions during the selected date range.

To see a copy of your approved print ad once it has been published, become a subscriber or pick up a copy of the newspaper at a store in your area. To subscribe, please visit your preferred publication’s subscription offers page via the Subscribe button at the upper right corner of the homepage when viewed on desktop, or at the top of the homepage on mobile to see features and prices.   

Once you have finished creating your campaign, you will be taken to the checkout page. From here you can choose to pay for the campaign or add more campaigns. Postmedia Ad Manager supports payments via credit card through our secure payment provider and accepts many major credit cards.

You will be charged at checkout for your campaign’s total budget.

If your campaign delivers an impression amount lower than what you budgeted for, the platform will automatically refund the amount that was not delivered to your credit card after the campaign has ended.  

In the event of under delivery, the value of non-delivered impressions will be calculated and refunded. Please note that the validity period of the credit card used to purchase the campaigns should cover the entire delivery period for all campaigns that were part of the order, as refunds can only be issued for the same card that was used to pay for the campaigns. 

Please check the Terms and Conditions for more details about Postmedia Ad Manager’s refund policy.

You can update your payment information when you checkout or within your user profile, located in the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the platform. 

Payment statuses are listed in the orders section. Payment statuses include: 

• SETTLED: Payment is confirmed, and the budget has been captured by the credit card.  

• SENT FOR REFUND: A refund was issued due to under delivery. It usually takes 2-5 business days to complete the refund. 

• COMPLETED: All campaigns that were part of order are complete. Any potential under delivery has been calculated, and a refund has been issued. 

• CARD INVALID: There was an issue with your credit card. For more information, please contact support. A contact form is available through the Support button in the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the platform.

You can update your account information by clicking on your user profile located in the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the platform. Here you can edit your company details, account details, and billing information.

You can edit your password by going to your user profile located in the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the platform. Click on Reset Password under Account Details. You can also reset your password by logging out and clicking on the Forgot Password link on the login page.

To change the email address associated with your account, you will need to contact support. A contact form is available through the Support button in the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the platform.

For assistance with your account or to cancel your Postmedia Ad Manager account, you will need to contact support. A contact form is available through the Support button in the dropdown menu in the top right corner of the platform.

Targeting the correct audience for your campaign is integral to its success. To help with this, we are sharing our best practices to keep in mind when choosing your targeting options for your campaign:

• Create buyer personas for the types of people you want to target with your campaign. 

Think about user behavior, demographics, as well as psychographic behavioral traits.

• Utilize first party data.

If you have first party data (data that your company has collected about its consumers), use this to both craft your user personas and decide who to target, as conversion rates will be the highest with people that have already expressed interest in your product.

• Utilize Geotargeting

Target consumers specifically based on their location. Narrow this to ensure your ad reaches the correct people.

• A/B test personas and targeting options

Test different targeting options and channels (desktop, mobile) to find the optimal audience for your product, and test different options to ensure you’re reaching the maximum number of consumers. Keep in mind that if you select more niche targeting options, less people will see your ad.

• Target by channel

Change or customize your targeting options to fit the channel in which you are advertising

• Consider timing and sense of urgency when selecting your targeting options.

Consider your digital campaign’s timing to make sure you fulfill the number of impressions you have booked. You typically need to allocate a minimum of 1 week, but ideally four weeks of advertising time for each campaign. The targeting options you choose will determine how much time you need. If you choose more niche/narrow targeting options, you will need to allocate more time to the campaign since your target audience will be smaller and harder to find.

Creatives are the fun part of every ad campaign! This is your chance to visually show your consumers what your brand or product is all about. Ensure the success of your campaigns’ creatives by following our best practices for creatives. Read more below:

1. Use high quality images and videos
   The image or video you select is the first impression your consumers will have of your brand. Ensure that the creative you use is clear and high quality to add credibility and interest to your campaign.

2. Add a clear CTA (call to action) for your digital creative
   Add a short, succinct and clear call to action for every creative. The CTA should prompt the consumer on what to do next- should they click, read more, get excited? Your CTA will tell them the answer. Your CTA should also be short as the average span is only 8 seconds! If your message cannot be clearly conveyed in 8 seconds, take a second look and revise. Finally, be sure your CTA conveys a clear value proposition about your product or brand to let your audience know why they should be interested.

3. Simple Design and clear font.
   Add a creative with a simpler design and easy to read font so that your product and CTA are the main focus of your ad.

4. Consistency with design, style, and voice
   Make sure both your ad and landing page have a consistent design, voice and color scheme to demonstrate that it’s clear the two are related. Inconsistency here can cause your ad to look untrustworthy. 

5. Think across screens
   Choose a creative that can work on multiple devices and formats. You want to be sure your ad reaches as many people as possible, so having a creative that can work across devices ensures it will reach the maximum number of consumers.

6. A/B test your creatives
   A/B test and modify your creatives based on the results of your campaign, and on the users you want to target. Keep your user personas in mind when designing your creative, and test which creative is resonating with each persona. Customize your creatives and campaigns accordingly.

7. Have fun
   This is your chance to showcase your brand’s creativity and voice- add unique and fun copy and images to engage your target audience.