AnonymousAds v2 staging server (and some documentation)

[arsenische]

The staging server of AA2 is available at http://s.a-ads.com. The site is far from being complete (this is just a preview of basic functionality) but you are welcome to play with it. There is no content on the site yet, so I am putting some info here.

Advertiser
1. creates ad, selects categories, sets campaign params (including goal tracking and daily_budget) and receives an unrecoverable password
2. deposits money to campaign (small amounts require just 1 confirmation) and waits for impressions from ad units that satisfy campaign's conditions

Every day up to daily_budget btc will be distributed from campaign to ad units with respect to their weights (weight is currently estimated as amount of daily unique IPs).

If goal tracking for campaign is enabled, then the param <campaign.id>_<ad_unit.id> will be injected into ad's link and advertisers will be able to track visitors.

Advertisers can register goals (either through web interface, or using simple API).

If campaign's balance is enough to pay for registered goal, the goal will be paid and corresponding ad unit will start receiving bitcoins (possibly giving you more impressions during <goal's duration>).

Publisher
1. creates ad unit, sets few params, receives ad unit's HTML code and embeds it on his/her site
2. embeds it on his/her site and waits for profit

Publishers can organize "traffic exchange" if they specify that they want to withdraw to their advertising campaign upon ad unit creation (in that case withdrawal threshold is negligibly small).

Publishers can customize colors adding GET params to their code, e.g.:

Code:

<iframe data-aa='17' 
src='//ad.s.a-ads.com/17?background_color=000000&text_color=ffffff&title_color=ffff00&title_hover_color=ff0000&link_color=00aa00&link_hover_color=00ff00'
scrolling='no' style='width:160px; height:600px; border:0px; padding:0;overflow:hidden'></iframe>

would look like this.


Affiliate program
Also affiliate program should work. That means if you invite somebody who creates an ad with your affiliate link (that is just http://s.a-ads.com?partner=<your ad unit id>), you should receive 10% of all deposits for campaigns that use this ad. This link is also present on ad unit code.

AA2 fees

We aim to make a fully transparent service, we have nothing to hide. The following info is preliminary and can be changed any moment:

1. we take 20% of each deposit (or 10% of each ad unit's withdrawal to campaign)
2. we take 20% of daily_budget every day

So we hope to earn 10-36% of money paid for campaign.

If advertiser is invited via affiliate link and pays for goals only, our profit is ~10% (because 10% goes to referral).

If advertiser comes from google and doesn't pay for goals, our profit is ~36% (i.e. 20% + 20% of the remainer).

Warning

Please remember, that this is a staging sever with software that is under development. If you are sending bitcoins to it, you take the risk. Your money and data may disappear anytime. It won't be migrated to production server.

Feedback is appreciated

If you place ad unit code on your site, you have a chance of getting some btc. We can't guarantee you will ever hit withdrawal threshold, but we will definitely spend some btc to test. Also if you invite advertisers, you can receive 10% of deposits to campaigns that use their ads.

If you are an advertiser, you can loose some money and maybe even get some impressions. It is likely that I will be spending small amounts to support your campaign, so you don't need to pay if you don't want to, just create a campaign.

If you are a publisher and advertiser at the same time, you can create a campaign and ad unit with "withdraw to campaign" parameter. In that case you don't need to spend money, you don't even need to have a bitcoin address.

Please participate!

Thanks!

Update 2013-02-03: we launched it on our production server

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[localhost]

1. for each deposit (or withdrawal to campaign) we take 20% of deposit (or withdrawal to campaign)
2. for each day with daily_budget > 0 we take 20% of daily_budget
3. for each withdrawal we take a fixed fee of 0.001 btc

So we hope to earn 10-36% of money paid for campaign.

If advertiser is invited via affiliate link and pays for goals only, our profit is ~10% (because 10% goes to referral).

If advertiser comes from google and doesn't pay for goals, our profit is ~36% (i.e. 20% + 20% of the remainer).

Just a few thoughts:
1) I hope we'll at least be able to configure the withdrawal threshold (or trigger withdrawals manually), because 0.001 BTC per auto-withdrawal at 0.01 BTC threshold (as it is now on AA1) means another 10% fee. Still about the withdrawal: can several websites using the same BTC address be pooled? (it doesn't seem so) Also, maybe you could offer some reduced fees for "withdrawal to campaign", it's a nice way to encourage people to keep some money in the system.
2) If not using goals, this is more expensive than Google Adsense itself (which isn't really very competitive fee-wise already). Probably something could be done about the daily budget fee. I'm aware you want to encourage goals, but not many advertisers want to go through the whole list and pick sites on by one, all the more so since:
3) With all the complexity, I think it'd be nice to have an ability to log in and modify one's existing stuff. Not being able to modify one's stuff was already bothering in AA1, but in AA2 with all the weird customizations it seems like a major PITA. Accounts sound like a must-have if one wants to avoid creating duplicates just to fix previous mistakes or tweak some settings (as Captain Screwups, I already created a duplicate just to fix a few things ^^). It doesn't prevent you from still offering a no-login service to those who want it.
4) Something minor: maybe remove the padding from within the ads

[arsenische]

1. for each deposit (or withdrawal to campaign) we take 20% of deposit (or withdrawal to campaign)
2. for each day with daily_budget > 0 we take 20% of daily_budget
3. for each withdrawal we take a fixed fee of 0.001 btc

So we hope to earn 10-36% of money paid for campaign.

If advertiser is invited via affiliate link and pays for goals only, our profit is ~10% (because 10% goes to referral).

If advertiser comes from google and doesn't pay for goals, our profit is ~36% (i.e. 20% + 20% of the remainer).

Just a few thoughts:
1) I hope we'll at least be able to configure the withdrawal threshold (or trigger withdrawals manually), because 0.001 BTC per auto-withdrawal at 0.01 BTC threshold (as it is now on AA1) means another 10% fee. Still about the withdrawal: can several websites using the same BTC address be pooled? (it doesn't seem so) Also, maybe you could offer some reduced fees for "withdrawal to campaign", it's a nice way to encourage people to keep some money in the system.
2) If not using goals, this is more expensive than Google Adsense itself (which isn't really very competitive fee-wise already). Probably something could be done about the daily budget fee. I'm aware you want to encourage goals, but not many advertisers want to go through the whole list and pick sites on by one, all the more so since:
3) With all the complexity, I think it'd be nice to have an ability to log in and modify one's existing stuff. Not being able to modify one's stuff was already bothering in AA1, but in AA2 with all the weird customizations it seems like a major PITA. Accounts sound like a must-have if one wants to avoid creating duplicates just to fix previous mistakes or tweak some settings (as Captain Screwups, I already created a duplicate just to fix a few things ^^). It doesn't prevent you from still offering a no-login service to those who want it.
4) Something minor: maybe remove the padding from within the ads

1. Agreed. Withdrawal thresholds & fees are just to prevent possible losses due to excessive use of microtransactions. Ad units will be able to set up their thresholds. Withdrawals to campaign probably should have a lower fee, maybe 10%.

Regarding pooled addresses - why would advertiser want to pool ad units with the same withdrawal address? There is still an option to  search ad units by bitcoin address and add them to the basket one by one.

2. How much does Google Adsense get? Goals are not about picking ad units from list, they are about tracking visitors and rewarding them from sales (most likely it should be done automatically via API, probably we'll develop integration plugins for popular CMSs).

3. Currently when advertiser creates campaign, s/he receives a password that allows to modify campaign, adjust daily budget, register goals. So instead of user accounts we have unique unrecoverable passwords for each campaign. Ad units are not supposed to be modified that often, but I think same approach might be used because they might want to control their withdrawal threshold. Is it fine?

4. sure!

Thank you!

[localhost]

Just a few thoughts:
1) I hope we'll at least be able to configure the withdrawal threshold (or trigger withdrawals manually), because 0.001 BTC per auto-withdrawal at 0.01 BTC threshold (as it is now on AA1) means another 10% fee. Still about the withdrawal: can several websites using the same BTC address be pooled? (it doesn't seem so) Also, maybe you could offer some reduced fees for "withdrawal to campaign", it's a nice way to encourage people to keep some money in the system.
2) If not using goals, this is more expensive than Google Adsense itself (which isn't really very competitive fee-wise already). Probably something could be done about the daily budget fee. I'm aware you want to encourage goals, but not many advertisers want to go through the whole list and pick sites on by one, all the more so since:
3) With all the complexity, I think it'd be nice to have an ability to log in and modify one's existing stuff. Not being able to modify one's stuff was already bothering in AA1, but in AA2 with all the weird customizations it seems like a major PITA. Accounts sound like a must-have if one wants to avoid creating duplicates just to fix previous mistakes or tweak some settings (as Captain Screwups, I already created a duplicate just to fix a few things ^^). It doesn't prevent you from still offering a no-login service to those who want it.
4) Something minor: maybe remove the padding from within the ads

1. Agreed. Withdrawal thresholds & fees are just to prevent possible losses due to excessive use of microtransactions. Ad units will be able to set up their thresholds. Withdrawals to campaign probably should have a lower fee, maybe 10%.

Regarding pooled addresses - why would advertiser want to pool ad units with the same withdrawal address? There is still an option to  search ad units by bitcoin address and add them to the basket one by one.

2. How much does Google Adsense get? Goals are not about picking ad units from list, they are about tracking visitors and rewarding them from sales (most likely it should be done automatically via API, probably we'll develop integration plugins for popular CMSs).

3. Currently when advertiser creates campaign, s/he receives a password that allows to modify campaign, adjust daily budget, register goals. So instead of user accounts we have unique unrecoverable passwords for each campaign. Ad units are not supposed to be modified that often, but I think same approach might be used because they might want to control their withdrawal threshold. Is it fine?

4. sure!

Thank you!

1. I was rather thinking about publishers pooling several sites/ad units with same withdrawal address ^^

2. Google Adsense takes 34% I believe. I thought there was indeed something I missed about those goals (I believed it was like "relays" of AA1 at first glance, but was wondering why the name change to "goal" then). It makes much more sense like that indeed . But then it means that all displays have a 36% fee, while direct rewards still have a 20% fee, right? If I wanted to reward a publisher then, I'm not sure I'd find this more attractive than sending BTCs straight to their withdrawal address.

3. Yes, that would be nice this way I think (but not only to control withdrawal address: display size and accepted ads can also be useful to modify)

[arsenische]

Way too many Bitcoin-related websites already use the same ugly top-menu faceless template. Dare to differ.

It will be changed, thanks.

[arsenische]

Reduced withdrawal-to-campaign fee to 10%, updated original post.

1. I was rather thinking about publishers pooling several sites/ad units with same withdrawal address ^^

You should be able to use the same withdrawal address for different ad units, and then to query the site for ad units with that address (like here).

But then it means that all displays have a 36% fee, while direct rewards still have a 20% fee, right? If I wanted to reward a publisher then, I'm not sure I'd find this more attractive than sending BTCs straight to their withdrawal address.

Right.

If you send BTCs to withdrawal address, you are not likely to get additional impressions from that publisher, s/he won't even know why s/he received money. Also it would be pain to reward many publishers, and you would spend a lot on bitcoin fees if rewards are small.

However when you register goals in AA2, they are paid automatically from campaign's balance and you are likely to get additional impressions from publishers that increase your sales. And publishers can see that there are goals, they know who paid them.

Thanks!

[localhost]

1. I was rather thinking about publishers pooling several sites/ad units with same withdrawal address ^^

You should be able to use the same withdrawal address for different ad units, and then to query the site for ad units with that address (like here).

Ok, but what I mean is (maybe it's the case already though, haven't gotten the occasion to try it yet) if my ad unit #1 has 0.01 BTC and my ad unit #2 has 0.02 BTC and they're both on the same BTC address, can I get a single 0.03 BTC withdrawal or do I have to withdraw separately?

If you send BTCs to withdrawal address, you are not likely to get additional impressions from that publisher, s/he won't even know why s/he received money. Also it would be pain to reward many publishers, and you would spend a lot on bitcoin fees if rewards are small.

However when you register goals in AA2, they are paid automatically from campaign's balance and you are likely to get additional impressions from publishers that increase your sales. And publishers can see that there are goals, they know who paid them.

Ah, now I get how this works, goals aren't just for monitoring, they're targets to achieve. This makes a lot of sense this way indeed

[arsenische]

Ok, but what I mean is (maybe it's the case already though, haven't gotten the occasion to try it yet) if my ad unit #1 has 0.01 BTC and my ad unit #2 has 0.02 BTC and they're both on the same BTC address, can I get a single 0.03 BTC withdrawal or do I have to withdraw separately?

Oh, now I understand your question. Currently you have to withdraw separately. I like your idea of combining balances, but I need to think it over. The purpose is to minimize fees and reach withdrawal threshold faster, right? Maybe AA could afford daily free withdrawals without any thresholds for its publishers, would it solve the problem?

Ah, now I get how this works, goals aren't just for monitoring, they're targets to achieve. This makes sense this way indeed

Yes, 2 in 1: reward + target. The purpose is to organize a positive feedback loop: advertiser pays daily_budget, receives visitors from ad units, registers goals and receives more visitors from ad units that perform better.

[localhost]

Oh, now I understand your question. Currently you have to withdraw separately. I like your idea of combining balances, but I need to think it over. The purpose is to minimize fees and reach withdrawal threshold faster, right? Maybe AA could afford daily free withdrawals without any thresholds for its publishers, would it solve the problem?

Well, most of it but actually it wasn't only about withdrawal fees, it was also about reducing the amount of transactions while keeping not too many BTCs waiting in the system (just like in AA1 ). Also I don't know if withdrawals are manual or automated (again, haven't tested long enough to know ), but if they are manual it would be nice to just withdraw from all ad units in one click and one transaction.

[localhost]

Btw, I forgot to mention it would be great to be able to filter ads by language in ad units (I saw advertisers get to specify the language of their ads, so lets us this ). One of my site is for a non-technical non-English audience, and seeing ads which are both Bitcoin-related and in English is probably a bit too much for them ^^

[arsenische]

Btw, I forgot to mention it would be great to be able to filter ads by language in ad units (I saw advertisers get to specify the language of their ads, so lets us this ). One of my site is for a non-technical non-English audience, and seeing ads which are both Bitcoin-related and in English is probably a bit too much for them ^^

Thanks for your proposal, but ads are being filtered by visitor's browser language. If visitors don't have English in their browser, they won't see English ads. They will see ads in their native language.

[localhost]

Thanks for your proposal, but ads are being filtered by visitor's browser language. If visitors don't have English in their browser, they won't see English ads. They will see ads in their native language.

Ah ok, nevermind then, it's great this way. I have all my software in English so I didn't realize that if I changed my browser locale the ads would match 

[arsenische]

Removed withdrawal fees for ad units. If ad unit doesn't receive or withdraw bitcoins during 24 hours, withdrawal happens automatically (even if its balance is below the threshold of 0.01 btc).

[localhost]

Removed withdrawal fees for ad units. If ad unit doesn't receive or withdraw bitcoins during 24 hours, withdrawal happens automatically (even if its balance is below the threshold of 0.01 btc).

A payout already, thanks However maybe no need to make withdrawals so frequent ; as I said I think it would be nice to be able to reduce the number of transactions, so maybe rather something like daily auto-withdrawal at 0.01 BTC + at least every week without threshold is more than enough IMO (although the shorter delay may be nice during beta testing to avoid accidental losses).

[arsenische]

We have 2 variants of ad unit's code: IFrame and JavaScript.

IFrame version should work almost everywhere, but it doesn't inherit CSS of your site. So we'll need to give you a way to customize its colors in future.

JavaScript version should work in most cases too (I hardly imagine browsing with Javascript disabled) and it is easy to integrate to your web site because it inherits its CSS. But in that case we can't guarantee that ads fit the space and look fine.

Probably there is no reason to leave both variants, of them should be enough. Which one would you prefer?

[localhost]

We have 2 variants of ad unit's code: IFrame and JavaScript.

IFrame version should work almost everywhere, but it doesn't inherit CSS of your site. So we'll need to give you a way to customize its colors in future.

JavaScript version should work in most cases too (I hardly imagine browsing with Javascript disabled) and it is easy to integrate to your web site because it inherits its CSS. But in that case we can't guarantee that ads fit the space and look fine.

Probably there is no reason to leave both variants, of them should be enough. Which one would you prefer?

I really, really prefer the iframe one, although I can imagine other people prefer the JS version for customization. Browsing without JS isn't that uncommon I think. At least I do that (browsing with NoScript and disabling it per site only when really required for proper functioning).
Also I want to avoid loading lots of JS on my sites: when possible I have only one big but minified js file and that's it.

[arsenische]

Added full support for different ad sizes.

Removed JS version of ad unit's code. It won't work anymore,  please switch to IFRAME version!

You can customize colors adding GET params to your code, e.g.:

Code:

<iframe data-aa='17' 
src='//ad.s.a-ads.com/17?background_color=000000&text_color=ffffff&title_color=ffff00&title_hover_color=ff0000&link_color=00aa00&link_hover_color=00ff00'
scrolling='no' style='width:160px; height:600px; border:0px; padding:0;overflow:hidden'></iframe>

would look like this.