Carefree Ad Manager

A set of ads are loaded into Carefree Ad Manager for publishing on web pages. The ads that get more clicks are displayed more often than ads that get less clicks.

Each set of ads is loaded into their own channel. (Channels are created with the "Create Ad Channel" menu item.) The channel has copy and paste code for publishing the ads in that set.

One ad in a set is displayed with each web page load.

When an ad is displayed, it's impression count is incremented. When it is clicked, it's click count is incremented. Those numbers are used to calculate which ads in the set to display more often than others and by how much.

Optionally, an ad channel can maintain a 1:1 rotation of ad impressions instead of the popularity rotation described in the above paragraph. With 1:1 rotation:

Each ad is delivered once in each rotation regardless how many clicks it has received.
Logging impressions and clicks is optional.

New ads can be inserted into existing channels at any time. Similarly, any ads can be disabled (for later re-enabling) or permanently deleted at any time.

Quick Start

Create an ad channel with the "Create Ad Channel" menu item. Each content channel manages one set of ads.

To insert an ad into the channel, use the "Update" menu item and then the "Insert Another Ad Into Channel" button. (Ads can be inserted into the channel at any time.)

Carefree Ad Manager will count clicks only on links with the A tag's href attribute in this format:

href="_____"

The attribute has double quotation marks. The underscore is replaced with the URL of the link. If more than one click-countable link is in the ad, each should have the same link URL.

(To publish links that are not counted when clicked, use single quotation marks instead of double quotation marks.)

To publish the ads, use the "Publish" menu item. Copy the appropriate code for your implementation. Paste the code into your web page/template where the ads are to be published.

Ad Rotation Options

Carefree Ad Manager has two ad rotation options available for each channel, popularity rotation and 1:1 rotation.

Popularity Ad Rotation —

Popularity ad rotation is the default.

Each impression and each countable ad click is logged.

Impression and click counts are used to calculate which ads get the most clicks. The calculation determines how many times individual ads are displayed during each ad rotation. Ads with the most clicks are published more often.

Each ad is published at least once during a complete ad rotation. Ads with better click-through rates are published more than once per rotation. Generally, an ad with a 1:25 click:impression ratio is published twice as often per rotation than an with with a 1:50 click:impression ratio.

1:1 Ad Rotation —

The 1:1 ad rotation is optional.

1:1 ad rotation displays each ad in the channel once during each rotation.

Additionally, logging ad impressions and logging ad clicks are both optional when 1:1 ad rotation is selected.

If the default popularity ad rotation is being used and the web site is very busy, or the MySQL impressions and clicks tables become so large as to be unmanageable or require too much of server resources, consider 1:1 ad rotation without logging ad impressions.

Lost Password

Should the Carefree Ad Manager control panel password be forgotten, it can be found on your server.

In the /cam/ directory (where Carefree Ad Manager is installed) is a file named cam_config.php

In that file, look for a line something like this:

$ControlPanelPassword = 'PASSWORD';

Between the single quotes (apostrophes), where PASSWORD is in the above example, is the Carefree Ad Manager control panel password.

Create Ad Channel

Use the "Create Ad Channel" menu item to create a channel for publishing a set of ads.

Specify a name for the ad channel. This is required.

If 1:1 ad rotation is desired, check the relevant checkbox. Also check the checkboxes to log impressions and clicks if those statistics are desired.

There is also a box for any private notes you want to make to yourself regarding the channel.

Update

Use the "Update" menu item to insert, delete, and change ads in a channel.

Select a channel from the dropdown list on the home page. Then, click the "Update" menu item.

You'll see a button to insert an ad into the channel and a Channel Ads table listing all of its ads (if any).

Inserting an ad into the channel —

Click the button above the table. On the next page, you'll see a page with 4 form fields:

A name for the ad. Type a name for the ad. What you type here will be listed in the Channel Ads table.
The "enabled" checkbox. To enable the ad, check the box. To disable, uncheck the box. Only enabled ads are displayed on web pages.
The ad to publish. Type or paste the ad to publish. Any HTML and JavaScript code a regular web page can have can be put here.
PHP code can not be used in the ads themselves. It has to do with the way the ad is delivered from Carefree Ad Manager to the web page.

About links:
Carefree Ad Manager will count clicks only on links with the A tag's href attribute in this format:

href="_____"

The attribute has double quotation marks. The underscore is replaced with the URL of the link. If more than one click-countable link is in the ad, each should have the same link URL.

The A tag may have additional attributes. target= or style=, as examples.

The reason for the strict format is that Carefree Ad Manager will substitute those links with its own link. The substitution enables Carefree Ad Manager to count clicks.

More than one ad may have the href="_____" link so long as each link URL is identical.

To publish links that are not counted when clicked, consider these options:
- Use single quotation marks instead of double quotation marks.
- To prevent search engines from following it as a link, use a different tag for linking. (See "Linking Without an 'A' Tag")
Notes. For private notes to yourself regarding the ad.

Click the submit button to insert the ad into the channel.

Editing an ad —

Find the ad to edit in the Channel Ads table.

If one or more ads are to be enabled or disabled, check their respective Enabled checkboxes. Then, click one of the submit buttons on that page.

To make other edits to an ad, click its Edit button. Then, change any of the fields mentioned in the "Inserting an ad into the channel" section. Click the submit button to finalize the edits.

Deleting one or more ads —

Find the ads to delete in the Channel Ads table. Check their "delete" checkbox.

Click the Delete Checked Ads button below the table.

Channel information —

If desired, the channel name, the 1:1 ad rotation and related checkboxes, and the notes about the channel may be changed.

Publish

Use the "Publish" menu item to copy ad code for pasting into web pages and templates.

A channel's set of ads may be published on web pages with either PHP code or JavaScript code. Paste it into web pages at the location where the ads are to be published.

For WordPress websites, click here to download the WordPress and Carefree Ad Manager PDF with step-by-step instructions for putting ads in your (i) posts, (ii) pages, (iii) sidebar, and (iv) footer.

Here is a PHP/JavaScript ad publishing comparison chart.

Publishing with PHP code	Publishing with JavaScript code
PHP code will work only on PHP web pages, and will work even if the browser has JavaScript turned off.	JavaScript will work on all web pages except for browsers with JavaScript turned off.
Ads can be published only on web pages at the domain where Carefree Ad Manager is installed.	Ads can be published on web pages at any domain.
Ad impressions are logged with the URI of the web page where the ad is published. The URI is the URL without the leading "http://" and domain name.	Ad impressions are logged with the absolute http://... URL of the web page where the ad is published. (Alternative described at "Important Note" further below.)
Ad content is available to search engine spiders.	Ad content is less likely to be available to search engine spiders.

Important Note — A few hosting companies use algorithms to reject any URL that contains an absolute URL in its parameters ("parameters" being anything following a "?" character). Publishing with JavaScript contains the absolute URL of the web page in the JavaScript URL's parameter.

Here is a work-around:

In the JavaScript code to publish a channel's ads, you'll find this:

+document.URL+

Change it to:

+document.URL.replace(/^[^:]+:\/\/[^/]*/,"")+

The code will strip the "http://" and domain name from the URL in the JavaScript URL's parameter (replacing a URL with a URI). It should then pass the hosting company's restriction.

The downside to the above is when you deliver ads on domains other than where Carefree Ad Manager is installed. Your impression logs will contain only the URI of the web pages, not the absolute URL with domain name.

Remove

Use the "Remove" menu item to:

Remove impression and click records made with your IP address 3.145.66.67
Remove impression and click records for individual ads in the channel.
Delete the entire channel from Carefree Ad Manager.

To accomplish a removal, click its radio button. A submit button will be revealed below that radio button.

Click the submit button to accomplish the removal.

To delete the entire channel, an extra checkbox will be revealed that will need to be checked to confirm you intend the deletion. Without the check, the submit button will not be revealed.

Statistics

The "Statistics" menu item provides statistics for individual channels.

The statistics can be for the channel's popularity ad rotation or the channel's 1:1 ad rotation. If the channel has utilized only one type of rotation, then statistics will be available only for that one.

Check the checkboxes for the statistics that are desired.

Popularity Ad Rotation Statistics

This section assumes all checkboxes are checked for the channel's ads delivered with the popularity ad rotation.

The statics page provides these numbers for each ad:

Impressions	The number of times the ad has been displayed.
Clicks	The number of clicks the ad has had.
Click:Impressions ratio	The average number of impressions for every click.
Click percentage	The percentage of clicks to impressions.
Latest calculated impressions per set	Each ad in the set is displayed at least once (except disabled ads). The "impressions per set" number shows how often the ad will be displayed every time the entire set is rotated through.

Below the statistics for individual ads is a Totals and Averages section with the combined statistics and URLs of all the ads.

Following Totals and Averages is a list of each ad with numbers and bar graphs for comparing click percentages.

1:1 Ad Rotation Statistics

This section assumes all checkboxes are checked for the channel's ads delivered with the 1:1 ad rotation.

The statics page provides these numbers for each ad:

Impressions	The number of times the ad has been displayed for impressions that have been logged.
Clicks	The number of clicks the ad has had for clicks that have been logged.
Click:Impressions ratio	The average number of impressions for every click.
Click percentage	The percentage of clicks to impressions.

Below the statistics for individual ads is a Totals section with the combined statistics and URLs of all the ads.

Both Ad Rotations

Again, assuming all statistics checkboxes are checked.

Below the statistics for each ad, and below the Total or Total and Averages section, are 3 links that, when clicked, reveal URLs with numbers and bar graphs. The numbers and bar graphs represent how often the URL occurs.

(Some browsers do not provide referring URLs. Therefore, the URL totals may be lower than the number noted in the statistics table. The statistics table gets its numbers from ad delivery and click handling, not from counting referring URLs. The statistics table numbers are correct. Referring URLs and their numbers can be used for general data about which pages have more hits or are more effective.)

[impression pages] — The URLs of the web pages where the ad was displayed.
[clicked pages] — The URLs of the web pages where the ad was clicked.
[destination URLs] — The destination URL of the link that was clicked. (If the ad's link URL has been changed, then more than one URL may be on this list.)

Export

Use the "Export" menu item to export the channel's data. Exports are CSV formated for importing into Excel, OpenOffice.org, and other spreadsheet software.

The ads, the impression records, and the click records may be exported. Use the radio buttons to specify which.

A CSV file name may be specified.

When the "Export" button is clicked, the download of the CSV file starts automatically. The browser will need to be told where to store the file.

Log Out

When the "Log Out" home page menu item clicked, the log-in cookie is removed from the browser, even if the "Remember log-in" checkbox was checked when you logged in. A log-in is required to return to the control panel.

Too keep the log-in cookie in the browser, check the "Remember log-in" checkbox when logging in and then do not click the "Log Out" home page menu item. Just close the window instead of clicking "Log Out."

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