Rules Setup

Rules allow you to configure a flexible setup for your ad serving activity with a set of multiple conditions. They are configured by Network Supervisor, and can then be applied by your network users.

Epom Ad Server includes two types of Rules: Inventory and Campaign. You can select which type to use according to your needs. We recommend to use only one of them (Inventory OR Campaign) for your network setup in order to make it easier.

Campaign Rules

When enabled for any Site, Zone, or Placement, the entity will be linked to all Advertisers, Campaigns, or Banners with the fitting Category or Label.

Inventory Rules

When enabled on any Advertiser, Campaign, or Banner card, the entity will be linked to the Sites, Zones, or Placements with the corresponding Category or Label.

1. Creating Labels

Labels can be created in two ways:

1. By a Network Supervisor in the Labels section of the Inventory & Campaign Settings group.
2. By any network user that has the Labels permission set to Enabled by the Network Supervisor, can type in the Label in the corresponding field on any entity card.

Keep in mind that there are separate permissions:

• For Banners: Labels in the Campaign Management group.
• For Campaigns: Campaign Labels in the Campaign Management group.
• For Placements: Labels in the Inventory Management group.

For those roles, who should only be able to view the existing Labels (and not create or add them), the aforementioned permissions should be set to Readonly.

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2. Enabling Rules for Network Users

Please follow these steps to enable Rules for your network users:

1. Log into your Network Supervisor account and click User Roles & Permissions from the Users & Accounts group of the side menu.
2. Switch to the permissions tab of the account which should be able to use the Rules functionality.
3. Set the Manage Rules permission in the Inventory Management group to ENABLED.
4. Set the Manage Rules permission in the Campaigns Management group to ENABLED as well.
5. Click Submit at the bottom of the page.
6. Repeat steps 2-4 for every role that should be able to use this functionality.

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3. Creating Rules

Please follow these steps to create Rules for your network:

1. Log into your Network Supervisor account and click Rules from the Inventory & Campaign Settings group of the side menu.
2. Click to add a new rule and fill out the following form:

• Name.
• Type:
• Campaign Rule: based on Advertising Categories and Labels.
• Inventory Rule: based on Inventory Categories and Labels.
• Active: defines if the rule will be activated in your network. Inactive rules won't be displayed to your network users.
• Default: identifies if the rule will be applied to newly created Sites and Advertisers automatically.
3. Click Save. The rules configuration pane will be displayed:

• Choose the Include or Exclude indicator:
• Include: Entities of a certain Category or marked with a certain Label will be linked.
• Exclude: All the entities that do not belong to a certain Category or not marked with a certain Label will be linked.

Exclude has a higher priority than Include. In case of a collision, the Exclude rule will be selected by the system.

• Advertising Category and Label (for Campaign Rules) or Inventory Category and Label (for Inventory Rules): these are custom parameters which define the rule behavior.
• AND/OR operators: define how the options in one line will be interconnected. For example, if you select multiple categories with the AND operator, the entities should correspond to all the specified Category types. Conversely, the OR operator would mean that an entity with either of the selected Category types would run under the specified rule.
• Separate lines of a single rule set are always connected with the AND operator.

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4. Defining Default Rules Behavior

As a Network Supervisor, you can apply Rules for the newly created entities right away:

1. Log into your Network Supervisor account and choose Inventory & Campaigns Settings from the corresponding group in the left side menu.
2. Set the Rules Panel Default Status to Active. Now the Rules pane will be activated when the entity is created, and all the applicable Rules will be applied right away.
3. Specify the Rules Management behavior:
• All of Inventory/Campaign Rules – The entity will receive traffic based on all applicable Rules that were set on Advertiser and Publisher side as soon as the Rules pane is enabled.
• None of Inventory/Campaign Rules – The entity will not receive any traffic unless specific Rules are selected and applied. In that way it is possible to stop all the traffic without disabling the Rules panel manually on each card.

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Network Users Setup

Once the permissions listed above are enabled, the Rules pane will be displayed on the entities' cards. To start using Rules, your network users should do the following:

1. Log into the network account and choose Site(s), Zone(s) or Placement(s).
2. Turn on the Site, Zone or Placement Rules pane and specify which rules should be applied to the entity in question.
3. Go to the Advertiser(s), Campaign(s), or Banner(s) of the same type and size and set up the Rules pane as well.

Now all the Banners will be linked to corresponding Placements. The interconnections of Banners and Placements made with the help of Rules functionality will be shown in:

• Banners Probability section of the Placement card.
• Matched Ads sections of Sites, Zones, and Placements cards.
• Matched Inventory of Advertisers, Campaigns, and Banners cards.

Please note, however, that the Banners section will remain empty as there were no manual links.

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Rules Use Cases

Let's consider Rules setup on the use case examples.

Use Case 1. Use rules to match Placements with certain Labels - Inventory Rules

Let's assume, that you have Publisher with Category Movies and several Placements with Labels Comedy, Fantasy and Horror created within this Publisher. And you want your Banners to be matched with these Placements according to the Placements' Labels. For this case you should perform the following setup.

Network Supervisor Setup:

• Set the Rules Management behavior in Inventory & Campaigns Settings as follows: All of Campaign Rules and None of Inventory Rules.
• Create Labels Comedy, Fantasy and Horror in the Labels section of the Inventory & Campaign Settings group
• Create Inventory Rules based on Placement Labels in Rules section of the Inventory & Campaign Settings group. The Rules should be as follows: Include Label Comedy, Include Label Fantasy and Include label Horror.
• In User Roles & Permissions section of Users & Accounts set the Manage Rules permission in both Inventory Management and Campaigns Management groups to ENABLED for the needed role.

Network Users Setup:

• Select Labels on the according Placements.
• Activate Rules tab on both Placement and Banner levels.
• Choose Rule on Banner level which you want to be matched according to this Rule. For example, on Banner you want to match Placements with Label Comedy please select Rule Include Label Comedy.

Use Case 2. Use rules to match Banners with certain Labels - Campaign Rules

Let's assume, that you have Advertiser with Category Vehicles and several Banners with Labels Car, Bus and Motorbike created within this Advertiser. And you want your Placements to be matched with these Banners according to the Banners' Labels. For this case you should perform the following setup.

Network Supervisor Setup:

• Set the Rules Management behavior in Inventory & Campaigns Settings as follows: None of Campaign Rules and All of Inventory Rules.
• Create Labels Car, Bus and Motorbike in the Labels section of the Inventory & Campaign Settings group
• Create Campaign Rules based on Banner Labels in Rules section of the Inventory & Campaign Settings group. The Rules should be as follows: Include Label Car, Include Label Bus and Include Label Motorbike.
• In User Roles & Permissions section of Users & Accounts set the Manage Rules permission in both Inventory Management and Campaigns Management groups to ENABLED for the needed role.

Network Users Setup:

• Select Labels on the according Banners.
• Activate Rules tab on both Banner and Placement levels.
• Choose Rule on Placement level which you want to be matched according to this Rule. For example, on Placement you want to match Banners with Label Car please select Rule Include Label Car.

Use Case 3. Use Rules to match Banners and Placements with the same type and size

Let's assume, that you want all Placements and Banners to be matched according to their type and size. For this case you should perform the following setup.

Network Supervisor Setup:

• Set the Rules Management behavior in Inventory & Campaigns Settings as follows: All of Campaign Rules and All of Inventory Rules.
• In User Roles & Permissions section of Users & Accounts set the Manage Rules permission in both Inventory Management and Campaigns Management groups to ENABLED for the needed role.

Network Users Setup:

• Activate Rules tab on both Banner and Placement levels.