Advertiser Self-Serve

Advertiser Self-Serve lets the businesses that advertise on your captive start their own campaigns, instead of you creating every advert for them. An advertiser signs in to your captive dashboard, presses Request a campaign, uploads their pictures or video, picks a plan, a budget and a number of days, and sends it. You decide whether each request waits for your approval first, or goes live at once and is checked by you afterwards, like most social apps.

It is off by default. While it is off, nothing changes: only you add adverts for your businesses, exactly as before, and advertisers do not see a Request a campaign button at all. You switch it on and off whenever you like, and you can add card payment so an advertiser pays before a request is even sent.

What an advertiser can never decide: the price per view, the number of views, who the advert belongs to, or the skip rule. Those come from your own settings and are applied by the server when the advert is made. An advertiser only chooses what to show, who it is for, which plan, how much to spend and for how long.

1. Add your advertisers. Under Add Business create a business profile for each advertiser (business name and login email). They receive an invite, set a password and sign in on your own captive dashboard. See the ad guide for how advertisers are added and priced.
2. Open the window. On the Campaigns tab, press Advertiser Self-Serve (next to Add Campaign). A number on the button shows how many requests are waiting for you.
3. Press Settings (collapsed until you need it) and tick Advertiser Self-Serve is on.
4. Choose the mode (see the next section) and press Save setting.
5. Optional: set an Age Lock on any advertiser that sells age-restricted goods, and tick Advertisers pay by card if you have a card gateway connected.

The summary line at the top of the window always tells you the current state: Off: only you add adverts, On: you review each one first, or On: live first, you check afterwards (with advertisers pay by card added when that is on). The settings stay closed by default and the window does not redraw when you change tab, so nothing jumps around while you work.

You can change the mode at any time. A request already waiting stays waiting; only new requests follow the new mode.

On their Campaigns tab an advertiser sees Request a campaign (only when you have switched Self-Serve on) and, below it, My campaign requests with the status of everything they have sent. The form has these parts:

Plans offered: Standard (skippable after 15 seconds), Skip Disabled (cannot be skipped), Aggressive (shown about twice as often, skippable after 15 seconds) and Aggressive + Skip Disabled (maximum exposure, no skip). Prices and the minimum spend are yours: they come from your own ad pricing settings. Homepage Takeover and Custom plans are not offered here; you create those yourself.

The form is the same size and style as your own Add Ad Campaign form, works on phones and tablets, never closes when someone clicks beside it by accident, and asks before throwing away something the advertiser has typed.

An advert is exactly one of these three. The advertiser switches between Pictures and Video with a toggle; the link option sits under “Already have it online? Use a link instead”.

Your own address. Pictures an advertiser uploads are stored and served from your captive's own address (for example yourcaptive.isnfreewifi.co.za/ad-media/...). Neither the advertiser nor you nor your guests ever see the storage service's address. Opening a picture on its own in a browser tab shows it on a clean page with your captive's tab icon.

Mixing is refused. A request cannot contain pictures and a video, or a video and a link. An uploaded picture or video can only be used by the advertiser who uploaded it, and an uploaded video can only be used by one request.

The advertiser's own age range. In Who Should See This Ad an advertiser can set a minimum and a maximum age, for example 18 and over. Leave both blank to show the advert to every guest. If a number is typed that is outside the advertiser's allowed range, the form puts it back inside at once and says why.

The age lock (set by you). For a business that must always stay in a range, such as an alcohol or betting brand, give the account an Age Lock. You can set it when you create the profile (Add Business Profile has an Age Lock section with 18+ and 21+ shortcuts) or later with the Age lock button in the business list, where a badge such as Ages 21+ shows who is locked. A locked advertiser sees a note on the form, starts at their locked range and cannot go wider. The business cannot change its own lock.

How strictly it is enforced. The lock narrows every advert that business has, however it was made: a Self-Serve request (when sent and again when you approve it, so a lock you set later still applies), an advert you create for them, and an edit. It is also applied again when adverts are handed to guests, so an advert made before the lock is covered too. A range that cannot overlap the lock at all is refused with a plain message.

Which guests see an age-restricted advert. Only a guest who is signed in and whose date of birth is stored on their profile, and is inside the range. A date typed into a request is never trusted. A guest whose age is not known never sees an age-restricted advert. Surveys posted by a locked business follow the same lock.

The Advertiser Self-Serve window has these tabs:

Switching tabs shows card-shaped loading placeholders at once and then the list. Each request is a card showing: the advert name and its state, who sent it and when, the budget, days and about how many views, the plan, the price per view, the button, any age range, the description, and how the advert is doing if it is live (views so far against its goal).

Looking at the advert. A picture the advertiser uploaded is shown right on the card; several pictures show as a row of thumbnails with the slideshow time. A video an advertiser uploaded has a Play uploaded video button and plays in ISN's own video player on your captive's address, in your colours and with your logo (opened inside the window, or in its own page with Open the advert). An advert that is only a link is not loaded until you press Preview here, so opening the list never contacts the advertiser's server. Where its button goes opens the button's website in a new tab.

Deciding. Each waiting request has an optional note box (for example payment details or the reason for a decline) and two buttons:

• Approve and start makes the real advert straight away, at your current prices (everything is checked again: plan, price, minimum spend, budget, the advertiser's account and any age lock). If anything has changed so it can no longer be made, you are told to decline it and the request stays waiting. The advertiser receives the usual “your campaign is live” e-mail.
• Decline closes the request. Your note appears on the advertiser's request. If it was paid for, a refund is worked out for you (see the payments guide).

Two clicks, two admins, or approve against the advertiser's cancel can only ever do one thing: a request is claimed once, and an advert is made once.

In live-first mode an advert that started by itself waits in Live, to check until you have looked at it.

• Keep it live marks it as checked, with no question. It keeps running and moves out of the list.
• Take it down asks you to confirm, then pauses the advert for good (the same pause the platform already uses), moves it to the Taken down tab, and e-mails the advertiser, including your note if you wrote one. The take-down itself never waits for, or fails because of, the e-mail. If an advert cannot be paused, the check is put back so nothing is half done.

If the advert had been paid for, the part of the budget its views did not use is worked out and owed back, with a credit note. The views it delivered are kept.

Once an advert is live it also appears in the advertiser's normal My Campaign Performance, with views, progress and the proof-of-play reports every campaign has. An advertiser sees only their own requests, newest first, up to the last 50.

The server builds the advert itself from the request. Whatever the advertiser's browser sends cannot change these:

• Owner: the advertiser's own business account (its e-mail address links the advert to them).
• Price: your current price per view for the chosen plan, and the views it buys are the budget divided by that price, rounded down.
• Dates: it starts now and ends after the chosen number of days.
• Skip rule: skippable after 15 seconds for Standard and Aggressive, not skippable for the other two.
• Reach: every router of your captive, normal delivery priority, no frequency cap and no takeover. You can edit an advert later like any other.
• Button: the website and text the advertiser gave (a website button only when a website was given).
• Pictures and video: the pictures (with the slideshow time) or the video, as uploaded.
• Age range: the advertiser's range narrowed by their age lock.

• You: when requests arrive you get a notification e-mail, at most one a day however many come in. It can be switched off with your other notification settings. With card payment on, it is sent only after a payment is confirmed. The number on the Advertiser Self-Serve button always shows what is waiting.
• The advertiser: an e-mail when their campaign goes live, an e-mail when you take an advert down (with your note), and the usual campaign e-mails after that. With card payment on: an invoice as a PDF after each payment, a credit note when money is owed back, and a note when you have sent a refund. A decline is shown, with your note, on their request.
• All of these use your captive's name and your own e-mail sender if you have connected one.

• Your setting decides. Whether Self-Serve is on, and which mode, is read from your account every time. A request sent while it is off is refused.
• Nothing the advertiser sends can set a price, a view count, an owner or a skip rule. The server rebuilds the advert from your current prices.
• Each captive is separate. Requests, uploads, payments and invoices are tied to your captive and to the advertiser who made them. Another advertiser, or another captive, cannot read or use them.
• Pictures are real pictures. Each upload is checked by its contents, not its name, and stored on your own address.
• Videos are checked and processed. A file must really be a video before it is processed, the check happens before the file is even read, and the video service's own address is never shown to an advertiser.
• Links are inert until you press Preview, and are only accepted when they are plain https addresses to a picture or video file.
• Text is shown as text. Names, descriptions and notes are escaped everywhere they are displayed, so typed markup never runs.
• Limits stop floods. Waiting, daily, upload and payment limits (above) apply even when many requests are sent at the same moment.
• Decisions happen once. A request can only be approved, declined or cancelled once, even with simultaneous clicks.
• Age locks cannot be bypassed. They are applied when an advert is made, when you approve, on edits and when adverts are served.

For the payment side (how a payment is confirmed, refunds, invoices) see the Advertiser Card Payments guide. For what to do on your side to stay safe, see the security guide.