McClatchy Ad Manager - FAQ

McClatchy Ad Manager is a self serve advertising portal that allows you to unlock the power of local.  Access print and digital products that will help you grow your business and drive results on your time and when most convenient for you.

McClatchy is made up of over 30 local news-driven communities where readers discover new ideas, products and trends.  Access your local media properties or expand your message to neighboring markets and complementary search, social and display platforms.

McClatchy Ad Manager lets you choose between a number of different campaign types to reach your target audience. You can choose from the following options when building your campaign:

1. Print Campaigns: Place an ad or ads in your selected Newspaper of choice.  Choose this option if you are advertising a limited time offer/event that needs maximum exposure to a local audience or if you are looking for branding and reach/frequency with a loyal and local audience. 

2. McClatchy Digital Campaigns: this impression based banner option allows advertisers to reach our online readers through McClatchy's sites, apps and E-Editions

3. Search Engine Marketing (PPC): this pay per click option allows advertisers to convert consumers searching Google for businesses like yours.  Your allotted budget is only spent when a consumer clicks on your ad and is directed to your website. 

4. Facebook & Instagram: these social media advertising options allow you to engage potential customers with targeted ads on Facebook & Instagram

5. Programmatic Display and Native: Target users based on factors like age, household income, location, content interest and others on a vast network of more than 55,000 trusted sites. Your ads can appear as banners or in flexible native positions.

6. Email Marketing: Reach thousands of new potential customers in their email inboxes with a dedicated message.

Using McClatchy Ad Manager, you will build a campaign that can be viewed on desktop and mobile platforms. You will have a variety of targeting options as well, including run-of-site, geo-targeted, and section targeted.  For McClatchy Digital Campaigns we recommend choosing a run of site placement, as it ensures your campaign will reach the most users.

For Display Network, Search Engine Marketing and Facebook & Instagram, choose the targeting that best fits your desired target audience.  Limit selections to 1 or 2 options as the more targeting that is layered the more narrow your potential reach becomes. 

Your campaign price is determined by the type of campaign you select, the size and the frequency. You can choose between the following campaign types on McClatchy Ad Manager:

1. Print Campaigns: Place an ad or ads in your selected Newspaper of choice.  Choose this option if you are advertising a limited time offer/event that needs maximum exposure to a local audience or if you are looking for branding and reach/frequency with a loyal and local audience. A minimum frequency of at least 3 times is recommended to generate results.  

2. McClatchy Digital Campaigns: this impression based banner option allows advertisers to reach our online readers through McClatchy's sites, apps and E-Editions. Campaigns start at $600 per month for 60,000 impressions. 

3. Display Network Campaigns: this impression based banner option allows advertisers to target your audience on thousands of popular sites, powered by Google.  Campaigns start at $600 per month for 60,000 impressions.

4. Search Engine Marketing or Cost per Click: this cost per click or (CPC) option allows advertisers to convert consumers searching Google for businesses like yours.  Your allotted budget is only spent when a consumer clicks on your ad and is directed to your website. Campaigns start at $600 per month.

5. Facebook & Instagram: these social media advertising options allow you to engage potential customers with targeted ads on Facebook & Instagram.  Campaigns start at $600 per month for 60,000 impressions.

The rates found in McClatchy Ad Manager, as well as any offers and promo codes offered through the McClatchy Ad Manager platform, only apply to campaigns purchased through the platform.

McClatchy Ad Manager allows you to reach the visitors on our websites, across all of our brands. Advertisers can advertise with our platform by creating a Campaign. Creating a Campaign through McClatchy Ad Manager is easy, it just requires choosing the marketing tactic, targeting options and uploading at least one creative.

Targeting allows you to show your Campaign to a selected group of visitors, while the Creative is the image or text that the Advertiser will see in the selected advertising channel. Don’t worry if you don’t have a Creative, you can build one from scratch in our easy-to-use Creative builder!

 McClatchy Ad Manager lets you choose between a number of different campaign types to reach your target audience. You can choose from the following options when building your campaign:

1. Print Campaigns: Place an ad or ads in your selected Newspaper of choice.  Choose this option if you are advertising a limited time offer/event that needs maximum exposure to a local audience or if you are looking for branding and reach/frequency with a loyal and local audience. A minimum frequency of at least 3 times is recommended to generate results.  

2. McClatchy Digital Campaigns: this impression based banner option allows advertisers to reach our online readers through McClatchy's sites, apps and E-Editions. Campaigns start at $600 per month for 60,000 impressions. Choose this option if your goal is to capture traffic to your webpage or market your event/business to a local newspaper reader audience.

3. Display Network Campaigns: this impression based banner option allows advertisers to target your audience on thousands of popular sites, powered by Google.  Campaigns start at $600 per month for 60,000 impressions. Choose this option if you are offering something as a limited or one-time offer, or advertising an event that needs maximum exposure.

4. Search Engine Marketing or Cost per Click: this cost per click or (CPC) option allows advertisers to convert consumers searching Google for businesses like yours.  Your allotted budget is only spent when a consumer clicks on your ad and is directed to your website. Campaigns start at $600 per month. Choose these options if your goal is for your consumers to take a specific action.

5. Facebook & Instagram: these social media advertising options allow you to engage potential customers with targeted ads on Facebook & Instagram.  Campaigns start at $600 per month for 60,000 impressions. Choose this option if your goal is to reach as many consumers as possible and increase brand awareness.

McClatchy Ad Manager offers local marketers the opportunity to launch campaigns quickly, control all aspects of your advertising and optimize performance. The process of creating your campaign allows you to select the advertising channels and targeting options to best reach your key audience.  Read more in the Targeting Options section.

When creating your campaign, you will add one or more creatives. A Creative is the image that will be shown to the visitors you target. You can either upload a completed Creative from your hard drive (like a JPG image), or create one from scratch through our easy-to-use Creative builder. Read more in the Creative section.

When you have finished creating your Campaign, you will be taken to the Checkout. From here you can choose to pay for the Campaign, or add more Campaigns. The Platform supports payments via credit card through our secure payment provider, and accepts many major credit card brands. If your Campaign delivers an impression amount lower than what you budgeted for, the platform will automatically refund the amount that was not delivered to your credit card after the Campaign has ended. Read more in Billing.

After paying for your Campaign(s), the Campaign(s) will be organized under one Order. Use the Orders page to print a receipt for each transaction. You can also reach all Campaigns in the left hand side menu under Campaigns.

The product selector/products you select will determine the price per ad or impression for your campaign. The Product selector is where you pick the attributes to be added to your Campaign (i.e ad size, frequency, targeting options, placements, etc).

For print ads, you will select your ad size and frequency and see prices displayed.  
For digital ads, after selecting a Product, you will input your ideal budget for the Campaign. Based on your selected Product, the Platform will calculate the amount of impressions or clicks you will get for your budget amount. The price used for the calculation is displayed in CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) or CPC (cost per click). Each product has its own CPM/CPC, so the price will vary based on your choices.

The price for your campaign depends on both your budget and products selected. On McClatchy Ad Manager, you can choose from print, McClatchy Display, Digital Display, Search Engine Marketing and Social ad campaigns. Depending on the product you select, as well as the targeting options, your price will change.

You can check the status of your campaign to make sure ads and impressions are being delivered in the campaign by choosing a specific campaign and look through the tabs creatives and performance . You can also edit your campaign in this section.  View the final statistics of your campaign in the reports section.

You can change your budget on Draft campaigns.

Once you have payed you cannot change the budget and your campaign will run until the end date, or until you decide to cancel the campaign. You can of course cancel any of you campaigns at any time.

You can setup a campaign with budget per day and open end date, in which case the campaign will run until the goal is reached or until you cancel.

Targeting is the way in which you customize your campaign and decide who will see your ad. You determine which consumer groups will be able to see your ad through our targeting and digital tactic options. We recommend multiple tactics purchased per campaign to fully target your desired audience.  The more niche your targeting settings are, the higher the CPM for your campaign and vice versa. It is important to make sure your targeting options are not too specific so that your campaign can reach as many visitors as possible. Read more about this in our targeting best practices section.

The targeting options available are unique to each of the campaign products available to you in the Create a Campaign section, for example site, visitor location and audience behavior are all options dependent on the category. Note that the Product you set when creating your campaign will have an impact on the targeting options that are available to you. Read more in the Introduction to Campaigns section. 

The targeting options available are:
Geotargeting
Use geotargeting to reach users based on their geographic location. You can alter this by selecting countries, cities, states or designated market areas (DMA) regions.

Frequency Capping
Frequency capping limits the number of impressions that a single visitor will see over the course of a day. All campaigns will launch using McClatchy’s best practice frequency caps to ensure optimal reach, and may be optimized to help your campaign reach its delivery goal.

Schedule
Allows you to set a specific schedule for the Campaign to run i.e Monday 9am to 6pm. Dayparting options may be available depending on the campaign type selected as well

For advertising campaigns on the McClatchy network, if you do not set any targeting options, your campaign can be shown to any visitor who visits our websites and Apps. For other digital campaign types like social, ad words and extended audience targeting you will have to select at least a geographic target at minimum. 

When creating your campaign, you will add one or more creatives.

A Creative is the image or video that will be shown to the visitors you target. You can either upload a completed creative from your hard drive (like a JPG image), or create one from scratch through our easy-to-use Creative Builder.

You can either upload a completed Creative (JPG, PNG) from your computer or from your creative library (where previously used creatives are saved), or build a Creative from scratch through our easy-to-use Creative builder. 

All submitted creatives need to be approved by our team before the Campaign goes live. You will be notified by email if your creative is approved or rejected. You have the option to submit new Creatives if you are not satisfied with the submitted ones. 

Read more about best practices to consider when selecting your creative here McClatchy Ad Design Tips

The “Build a Creative” option is available in the Creative section. This option is great to use if you don’t have a Creative available. To use this option, you simply upload an image and fill in a few fields and the creative will be created for you.

Creatives can be submitted during the Campaign creation flow or added later. If you have unpaid Campaigns, you can edit them and add more Creatives. If you have paid for your Campaigns, you can go to Campaigns to reach the Creative section again, and add more Creatives.

Creatives will be approved or rejected by the McClatchy Ad Manager team within 2 business days.

You cannot edit an approved Creative on a running Campaign, but you can add new ones. This is a great choice if you’d like to A/B test your creatives and optimize whichever one seems to capture more clicks. You can pause or resume the creative you are using for the campaign at any time, but must have at least one active creative per campaign available.

You can manage the creatives on a campaign by entering the creative section under Campaigns, and pressing the edit button.

To see a copy of your approved print ad once it has been published please visit our McClatchy subscribe site to become an e-edition subscriber or pick up a copy of that day’s paper at one of our many single copy locations, like most major gas stations and grocery stores, in your area.  

NO CREATIVE: No creatives were added for this Campaign. The Campaign will not deliver until a creative is added and approved.

UNDER REVIEW: A creative has been added, and is waiting to be approved by the Publisher.

APPROVED: The creative was approved by the Publisher.

ACTIVE: At least one creative was added and approved, the campaign has started.

INACTIVE: The creative have been inactivated and is no longer shown to the audience.

REJECTED: The creative was rejected and if this was the only creative, the Campaign cannot deliver.

EXPIRED: The Campaign passed the End date before a Creative was approved.

To stop a Campaign from delivering, pause it from the Campaigns page. The Campaign will stop delivering impressions until it is un-paused.

Campaigns that have been submitted and paid for can be edited from the Campaigns page. Certain options are no longer available for editing compared to when you initially created your Campaign, such as the campaign budget and dates. In order to edit your budget or campaign dates, you can pause your delivering Campaign, copy it and submit a new Campaign with new dates. 

Your campaign may no longer be delivering because it has passed the selected end date for your campaign. In order to continue to campaign to deliver more impressions, you will need to create a new Campaign. 

An additional reason a campaign might not be delivering is if you have no active creatives. You can view all of your submitted creatives in the campaigns page. Make sure at least one is active for the campaign to deliver. 

If you are still having issues, please contact the support team directly. The contact form is available through the Support button in the dropdown menu in the top right corner.

To view the status of your campaign, go to the campaigns page. Various statuses are available based on your campaign progress, these include the following:

• Draft: The Campaign has been submitted and is currently being created in the internal (Publisher) systems. This process can take up to 30 minutes after it has been submitted. 

• Inactive: There are no approved creatives added to the campaign. 

• Live (Ready): At least one creative has been approved and the campaign is ready to go live at the set start date.

• Live (Delivering): The campaign is currently delivering impressions. 

• Completed: The campaign has fulfilled the budget and is no longer delivering impressions.

• Cancelled: The campaign has been cancelled and will no longer deliver impressions. 

• Paused: The campaign has been paused and is no longer delivering impressions. The campaign must be resumed in order to deliver impressions. 

• Pending: The campaign has been set up and paid for but missing creatives

You can view various reports on the success of your campaign by selecting different header options at the top of the reporting tab. The Dashboard in each campaign presents real time data about the performance of a subset of your Campaigns. The Campaigns page will present a list of all your Campaigns and present performance numbers. 

The Reports section also allows you to download a report containing all performance related numbers from your campaign. You can additionally activate automated scheduled reports that will be sent to your email.

The following metrics are available in the exported Reports in the Report section. Note that some metrics may be filtered on a certain date range, depending on the settings you select when creating the report. The metrics listed in reports include:

• Booked impressions: The amount of impressions that were included in your budget when you created your campaign.

• Budget: The budget you set when creating your campaign.

• Clicks: The amount of clicks that occurred during the filtered period. 

• Delivered impressions: The amount of impressions that occurred during the filtered period. 

• CTR: The “click-through-rate” is the number of clicks received, divided by the number of delivered user impressions. The CTR is presented in percentages. 

• Spend: The total amount of the campaign budget spent based on the delivered impressions.

To see a copy of your approved print ad once it has been published please visit our McClatchy subscribe site to become an e-edition subscriber or pick up a copy of that day’s paper at one of our many single copy locations, like most major gas stations and grocery stores, in your area.  

When you have finished creating your Campaign, you will be taken to the Checkout. From here you can choose to pay for the Campaign, or to add more Campaigns. The Platform supports payment by credit card through our secure payment provider, and many major credit card providers are supported.

When you checkout, you will be charged for all of the booked impressions for all of the campaigns.

If your Campaign delivers an impression amount lower than what you budgeted for, the platform will automatically refund the amount that was not delivered to your credit card after the Campaign has ended. 

In the event of under delivery of impressions, the value of non-delivered impressions will be calculated and refunded. Please note that the validity period of the credit card used to purchase the Campaigns should cover the whole delivery period for all Campaigns that were part of the booking, as refunds can only be issued for the same card used for paying for the campaigns. Please refer to the

McClatchy Ad Manager Advertising Terms And Conditions for details about McClatchy Ad Manager refund policy.

You can update your payment information within the checkout page.

You unfortunately cannot edit the currency assigned to your account. For more information please contact us. A contact form is available through the Support button in the dropdown menu in the top right corner

Payment statuses are listed in the orders section. They include the following statuses: 

• Settled: Payment is confirmed and the budget has been captured from the credit card. 

• Sent for refund: Refers to when a refund is issued due to undelivered impressions in the campaign. It usually takes 2-5 business days to complete the refund.

• Completed: All campaigns that were part of the booking are completed. Any potential under-delivered impressions have been calculated, and a potential refund is issued.

• Invalid credit card: There is an issue with your credit card. For more information please contact McClatchy Ad Manager support. A contact form is available through the Support button in the dropdown menu in the top right corner.

You can update your account information by clicking on the user icon in the top right corner, then clicking profile and then edit. 

You will be asked to enter your billing information when buying your first campaign. This information can then be edited anytime in the profile under the billing tab.

You can reset your password by logging out and completing this from the login page, or you can edit your password in the profile when you are logged in. 

In order to change the email address associated with your account, you need to contact McClatchy Ad Manager support. A contact form is available through the Support button in the dropdown menu in the top right corner.

For assistance with your account or to cancel your McClatchy Ad Manager account please contact us. A contact form is available through the Support button in the dropdown menu in the top right corner.

Targeting the correct audience for your campaign is integral to its success. To help with this, we are sharing our best practices to keep in mind when choosing your targeting options for your campaign:

1. Create buyer personas for the types of people you want to target with your campaign. 

Think about user behavior, demographics, as well as psychographic behavioral traits.

1. Utilize first party data.

If you have first party data (data that your company has collected about its consumers), use this to both craft your user personas and decide who to target, as conversion rates will be the highest with people that have already expressed interest in your product.

1. Utilize Geotargeting

Target consumers specifically based on their location. Narrow this to ensure your ad reaches the correct people.

1. A/B test personas and targeting options

Test different targeting options and channels (desktop, mobile) to find the optimal audience for your product, and test different options to ensure you’re reaching the maximum number of consumers. Keep in mind that if you select more niche targeting options, less people will see your ad.

1. Target by channel

Change or customize your targeting options to fit the channel in which you are advertising. For example, you may want to focus on targeting younger consumers with mobile campaigns, and older consumers with desktop campaigns. Their attention spans will also vary so it’s important to customize your ad and channel type accordingly.

1. Consider timing and sense of urgency when selecting your targeting options.

Consider your campaign’s timing to make sure you fulfil the number of impressions you have booked. You typically need to allocate a minimum of 1 week, but ideally four weeks of advertising time for each campaign. The targeting options you choose will determine how much time you need. If you choose more niche/narrow targeting options, you will need to allocate more time to the campaign since your target audience will be smaller and harder to find.

Creatives are the fun part of every ad campaign! This is your chance to visually show your consumers what your brand or product is all about. Ensure the success of your campaigns’ creatives by following our best practices for creatives. Read more below:

1. Use high quality images and videos
   The image or video you select is the first impression your consumers will have of your brand. Ensure that the creative you use is clear and high quality to add credibility and interest to your campaign.

2. Add a clear CTA (call to action)
   Add a short, succinct and clear call to action for every creative. The CTA should prompt the consumer on what to do next- should they click, read more, get excited? Your CTA will tell them the answer. Your CTA should also be short as the average span is only 8 seconds! If your message cannot be clearly conveyed in 8 seconds, take a second look and revise. Finally, be sure your CTA conveys a clear value proposition about your product or brand to let your audience know why they should be interested.

3. Simple Design and clear font.
   Add a creative with a simpler design and easy to read font so that your product and CTA are the main focus of your ad.

4. Consistency with design, style, and voice
   Make sure both your ad and landing page have a consistent design, voice and color scheme to demonstrate that it’s clear the two are related. Inconsistency here can cause your ad to look untrustworthy. 

5. Think across screens
   Choose a creative that can work on multiple devices and formats. You want to be sure your ad reaches as many people as possible, so having a creative that can work across devices ensures it will reach the maximum number of consumers.

6. A/B test your creatives
   A/B test and modify your creatives based on the results of your campaign, and on the users you want to target. Keep your user personas in mind when designing your creative, and test which creative is resonating with each persona. You can also test whether or not static or video campaigns are more effective with your audiences and customize your creatives and campaigns accordingly.

7. Have fun
   This is your chance to showcase your brand’s creativity and voice- add unique and fun copy and images to engage your target audience.