Choose a Tab Above to View Frequently Asked Questions about Joining Burst Network or Burst Direct

 

 

Prospective and New Publishers

How does Burst Network sell advertising for its web site publishers?

Burst Network represents its publishers to national advertisers. Our sales force is located in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, London, New York City, and San Francisco -- home to the top advertising agencies in the US and the UK. Our in-market Account Executives frequently meet with advertising agencies and media planners to present the value of our network of high quality Long Tail publishers, with the intent of getting our publishers a share of online media budgets. Burst Network presents our publishers to hundreds of brand advertisers each month.

Burst Network’s primary focus is Brand Advertising, sold on a cost-per-thousand impression (CPM). Every targeted proposal we submit to a prospective advertiser contains a customized site list that reflects each advertiser's audience and content criteria. In addition, we present creative ways to communicate a brand advertiser’s message, and from time to time will ask if you can run customized advertising creative on your site. Your attention to quality and interest-based content helps us generate revenue and high CPMs for you.

How do I join Burst Network?

The first step in becoming a Burst Network web publisher is to submit a completed online application. After submitting this form, you will receive a confirmation email that your application has been received. Our Publisher Services team will review your application and reply with an email acceptance or rejection. If you are accepted into Burst Network, you will receive an account activation email containing a unique URL to your Burst Publisher Agreement. Once complete, an account will be automatically created and login details emailed to you so that you may access your account center, select campaigns, get source code, and view campaign info, stats and reports.

What are the eligibility requirements to become a Burst Network publisher?

We provide a complete listing of our minimum eligibility requirements for potential publishers to review before submitting an application. Simply meeting the minimum eligibility requirements does not guarantee acceptance into Burst Network.

In addition to the eligibility requirements, what are the rules of membership?

Please review our Publisher Agreement and Advertising Conditions for the complete requirements of membership in the Burst Network.

How long will it take before advertising appears on my site?

It may take up to 24 hours after your account has been created for advertising to appear on your site. For this reason, we recommend setting up a test page not connected with the live sections of your site to ensure that your Burst source code is deployed correctly before placing the code on your live site.

back to top

Targeted Campaigns

What is meant by a "Targeted" campaign?

Targeted campaigns are those ad campaigns that advertisers buy to run on selected sites, based on the audience they have determined to be receptive their message. For example, say a sporting goods advertiser wants to target their advertising message specifically to young women interested in sports. We call this approach content or audience targeting. To fulfill the Advertiser's goals, we search Burst Network for appropriate web sites, and then propose these sites to the advertiser. Depending on the advertiser's specific goals this might be a very focused list of web sites that reach young women interested in sports, or it might be a combination of general web sites with content focused on the two broader categories of "Sports" and "Women."

Advertisers often wish to buy targeted campaigns based on demographics. In order to find the sites that best meet the advertiser's target demographic, we rely on data collected by our demographic survey. Because of the importance of this data, we require that all publishers run the demographic survey, either as a link from their site or as part of their default ad rotation when a paid ad is not available. Targeted advertising carries a higher value and therefore results in higher CPMs to the publisher. Non-targeted advertising campaigns are priced at a lower CPM, or on a performance metric like cost per click (CPC) or cost per action (CPA). An Advertiser may want an ad campaign to reach a broad range of audiences and we meet this demand by making the ad campaign available to a broad set of publishers. Burst Publishers are able to decide whether or not to accept targeted campaigns in advance of the sale, and can select non-targeted campaigns by logging into their Account Center.

back to top

 

Revenue And Terms

How much will I make?

Earnings vary greatly between publishers as a result of a number of factors. Your earnings are based on the pricing for each ad campaign and the number of campaigns you select to fill your inventory. Other factors, such as the geographic location of your visitors, the demographics of your visitors, the number of unique views versus total page views, and your overall traffic levels can also play a part in determining your overall revenue potential. Campaigns with certain ad sizes and rich media units command higher CPMs than other campaigns. Market conditions for pricing are constantly changing. Please contact us for more information about current prices and conditions.

How much of my inventory will you fill?

This depends on a number of factors, especially the number of campaigns you choose to participate in, the creative units you choose to run, the geographic location of your visitors, your unique views versus total page views, etc. Our suggestion is that you join Burst Network to get the best sense of how well we can fill your inventory, since it is difficult to predict. Please also keep in mind that we offer a number of options for customizing your defaults to maximize the use of your advertising space.

How does Burst Network set prices?

Burst negotiates pricing with advertisers based, in part, on the depth of targeting requested, i.e. how broad or narrow is the desired audience. The more targeted, the higher the price to find those select visitors. The competitive marketplace also impacts price. . For Burst Network, our sales team will negotiate either a cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC) purchase with an advertiser. Burst publishers can decline any advertising for any reason, including price or pricing model. You can track your ad revenue and each campaign's payment status via an online Campaign Report in your personal, password-protected Burst Publisher Account Center.

How much does Burst charge its publishers?

Nothing! There are no fees to join Burst Network. Revenue is split after the campaign runs, between the publisher and Burst based on the publisher's contract rate.

What are your contract rates?

We have different levels of agreements with our publishers. The standard offer is month-to-month non-exclusive with a contract rate of 50% - which means revenue is split 50% to the publisher and 50% to Burst.

If you allow us to be the exclusive ad network for your inventory for one year, our contract rate is 55%. Publishers earn 55%, and Burst's revenue is 45%. We also offer a three year exclusive agreement with a contract rate of 60%. Publishers earn 60%, and Burst's revenue is 40%.

What do you mean by exclusive and non-exclusive?

Exclusivity simply means that you, your staff, and Burst will be the only sales agents for your site, and that you agree not to work with any other advertising networks. Regardless of exclusivity, you are always free to sell ad space directly for your site. New publishers can start off on a non-exclusive contract that is automatically renewed monthly unless your account is closed or you request an exclusive contract. A non-exclusive contract gives you the option to offer your impressions for sale through as many third-party sales organizations as you desire. Although you are casting a wider net, marketplace dynamics can result in advertisers seeking to purchase your impressions from the lowest-cost provider. By giving us exclusivity, we are able to get you higher CPMs.

When and how will I be paid?

We pay our publishers on the 15th of each month for campaigns with end dates 45+ days prior. Our minimum payment size is $50.00 (unless you have chosen to set a higher minimum for your account). If your balance is less than $50.00, it will carry over until the time that you have a balance greater than $50.00.

Payments are made 45 days after the end date of a campaign. This means that campaigns that completed in July will be accrued to your account September 15, 45 days after the July 31 end date.

Payment is made by EFT (available for US/UK/Canada), PayPal, or check. If you choose to receive a check there will be a $5 processing fee.

back to top

Tracking and Statistics

What will Ad stats tell me about advertising on my site(s)?

We offer a robust suite of Reporting Tools listed in the Reports Section of your Publisher Account Center.

"The Report Builder" offers customized reporting and the ability to save reports.

"Yesterday's Campaigns" highlights the campaigns served on your site on the prior calendar day.

"Past Year's Summary Report" will show you all data for each year you've been a Burst Publisher. Reports will appear in your account after you've been a Burst publisher for 12 months.

"Campaign Reports" gives you a more detailed view of campaigns that you are currently running, or have completed running, and campaigns by check.

Click here to see a demo of the Publisher Account Center.

When are my ad stats available?

Reports are built based on information imported from our ad-hosting server to our database. This is done on an hourly basis, and reported in U.S. Eastern Standard Time.

How does Burst count visitor traffic?

Burst's tracking methods count how many times an advertiser's banner is viewed. We base our statistics on the number of times an ad is downloaded from our server onto your web page(s). This “impression” number will typically be higher than the number of page views if you place more than one ad on each page.

What type of statistics do I receive about my site's visitors?

Burst supplies you with two types of statistics on your site visitors: Site Demographics and Geographic Statistics.

Site Demographics

Every publisher is required to run the Burst Media Site Demographic Survey. The data from completed surveys is shared with you in your Burst Publisher Account Center under the link “Demographic Survey". The results of the demographic survey are updated within the first five working days of each month with the data collected during the previous month. You may also add up to three questions of your own to the survey to better understand your audience.

Geographic Statistics

Geo-targeting works on the simple principle that every web user and the network they use to access the Internet has an address – called the Internet Protocol (or IP address) that can be mapped to their geographic network point of origin. Burst provides this site traffic geographic information to its publishers in their password protected pages as GeoStats. The results shown are twenty-eight day averages captured through the previous day.

back to top

Coding and Creative Ad Units

What Creative Units does Burst Network offer publishers?

Burst offers the following creative units; all of which conform to IAB standards:

• 468 x 60 Above-the-Scroll Banner

• 728 x 90 Above-the-Scroll Leaderboard

• Flexible Above-the-Scroll Size - Displays both 728 x 90 and 468 x 60

• 120 x 600 Skyscraper

• 160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper

• Flexible Skyscraper Size - Displays 120 x 600, and 160 x 600, and 300 x 600

• Pop-Ups, Pop-Unders, and Layer Ads

• 468 x 60 Below-the-Scroll Banner

• 125 x 125 Box

• 300 x 250 Box

• Flexible Box Sizes – Display both 300x250 and 300x600
  

What is source code?

When you join Burst we ask you to add unique source code (depending on the creative units you post) into the HTML of the page(s) of your choice or your ad delivery software. We commonly refer to this unique source code as an “adcode” - this adcode is our lifeline to you and it serves two important functions:

• Once in place it triggers a statistics program on our servers. You must keep your source code posted if you want to be eligible for campaigns. Your site will not be included in proposals without the statistical information that the source code generates on Burst’s servers or if your stats drop below the minimum 25,000-page view-per-month requirement.

• Your adcode tells the Burst server exactly which ad to send to your page(s) based on the targeted and non-targeted advertising campaigns you have approved and their relative earning power on this adcode.
  

Where will the ad units appear on my page?

468x60 Above-the-Scroll | 728x90 Leaderboard

• The Burst Above-the-Scroll banner must appear without the need to scroll in any direction.

• The Burst Above-the-Scroll banner must appear first and above any other Above-the-Scroll advertising on the same page. By joining Burst you agree to give our advertising priority position.

• There can only be one insertion of the Burst Above-the-Scroll code per page, either the 468x60 Above-the-Scroll or the 728x90 Leaderboard, but not both.

• The 468x60 Above-the-Scroll/728x90 Leaderboard Combo Flexible code is recommended to maximize your revenue potential. This option will run both the Leaderboard and Above-the-Scroll banner in the same ad space.

• To allow intrusive advertising (Pops and Layer Campaigns) select the "Allow Intrusives?" checkbox in the "Campaign Preferences" section of the Publisher Account Center. If you select the "Allow Intrusives?" checkbox, you still control which intrusive campaigns run on your site in the Review Campaigns section of your account.

468x60 Below-the-Scroll

• All Burst Below-the-Scroll banners must appear adjacent to web page content and cannot be stacked with banners from any other advertiser regardless of the source.

• Burst Below-the-Scroll banners must appear first and above any other Below-the-Scroll advertising on the same page. By joining Burst you agree to give our advertising priority position.

• There can only be one insertion of the Burst Below-the-Scroll code per page.

120x600 Skyscraper | 160x600 Wide Skyscraper | 300x600 Half Page Ad

• The Burst 120x 600 Skyscraper or 160x 600 Wide Skyscraper banner must appear within the first 400 pixels of the web page or begin within the screen when viewed at 800 x 600 resolution, without scrolling.

• The Burst Skyscraper must appear first, and above any other Skyscraper advertising on the same page. By joining Burst you agree to give our advertising priority position.

• There can only be one insertion of Burst Skyscraper code per page; either the 120x600 Skyscraper or the 160x600 Wide Skyscraper but not both.

• The 120x600 Skyscraper/160x600 Wide Skyscraper/300x600 Half Page/ Combo Flexible Code is recommended to maximize your revenue potential. This option will run the 120x600 Skyscraper and the 160x600 Wide Skyscraper, and the 300x600 Half Page Ad in the same ad space.

300x250 Box | 300x600 Half Page Ad

• The Burst 300x250 Box must appear within the first two scrolls of the screen as viewed at 800 x 600 resolution.
  

• The Burst 300x250 Box must appear first, and on top of any other box advertising that may run on the same page. By joining Burst you agree to give our advertising the priority position on each page of your site that carries Burst code.

• There can only be one insertion of the Burst 300x250 Box code per page.

• The 300x250 Box/300x600 Half Page Combo Flexible Code is recommended to maximize your revenue potential. This option will run both the 300x250 Box and the 300x600 Half Page ad in the same ad space.

For additional details, please review our Advertising Conditions. Remember, only one of each creative type can appear per page.

Should I use the same adcode for all of my pages?

Burst must review and approve all sites on which you place your Burst adcodes. If you wish to add additional sites to your account, however, we ask that you complete the New Adcode Request Form via the Burst Publisher Account Centers so that we can review the site and issue a new adcode where appropriate. If your site has large sections that fall into very different categories, we may also recommend breaking up your site into multiple adcodes to properly categorize your site. We also require a seperate adcode for forums. Burst will work with you to provide as many adcodes as necessary for your site. However, the use of multiple adcodes should be carefully considered given the financial implications explained above and the maintenance of multiple adcode descriptions.

back to top

 

Sponsorship Ad Formats

Rich Media Categories

 

back to top

Burst Extras

How can I communicate with other Burst Network Publishers?

Once you are a Burst publisher, you will have access to the Burst Publisher Forums via your Publisher Account Center. The Publisher Forums are an excellent place to discuss advertising and publishing issues with fellow publishers. It can also be a great place to ask for help if you would like advice from your peers in the business.

Other Questions?

If your question is not answered above, please contact Publisher Services at support@burstmedia.com.


back to top