Newspack’s newsletter ad management tool offers an ad-server supplement for newsletters. You can quickly use the tool to create, preview, and track newsletter ads.
Creating a Newsletter Ad
- Navigate to Newsletters > Advertising > Add New Newsletter Ad.
- Give your ad a descriptive title. The ad title will not be displayed in the newsletter.
- Newsletter ads use the block editor, with the same blocks available as the newsletters. Image blocks are typically the standard for newsletter ads, linked to the advertiser, but a variety of blocks are available for use. Simple text is often quite popular for advertising in newsletters.
- Complete the “Ad settings” fields in the right sidebar.
- Price: It’s a good practice to record the value of the ad sale for easy recordkeeping and historical reference when approaching that advertiser for a new campaign. The field is free-form, so the input can be the total value, CPM, CPD — whatever you prefer.
- Insertion Strategy: This will be used to determine whether the ad can be automatically inserted or not (explained below). Choose between percentage (e.g., at the 50 percent point), block count (e.g., after the second block) of the newsletter, or placement for insertion via block.
- Custom Start Date and Expiration Date: Optional. If this ad campaign has an absolute beginning and/or end for when it should appear in newsletters, toggle on these settings and set the start and/or end date. If you want the ad to always be available for use, leave the date settings toggled off.
- Categories: If you have category-specific newsletters and only want the ad to appear in those, select the category to which the ad should be assigned. If you do not want to limit the ad to specific category newsletters, do not make a selection here.
- Advertisers: After you add advertisers under Newsletters > Advertisers, they can be selected when setting up an ad. There are two benefits to selecting an advertiser name.
- It will appear in the ads list and allow you to sort by advertiser.
- You can designate newsletters to only display ads from specific advertisers. This is handy for fully sponsored newsletters.
- Publish your ad. Once published, ads will automatically appear in your newsletters, positioned according to the insertion strategy setting. You can also turn them off on each newsletter individually, under the newsletter’s Ads Settings. There, you can toggle off “Enable automatic insertion of ads.”
Ad Insertion Options
Two options are available for rendering ads in your newsletters.
Automatic insertion
Automatic insertion is controlled by the individual ad’s insertion strategy that you set when creating the ad. Newspack will inject all active and eligible ads within the newsletter.
Manual insertion
You can manually place ads within newsletters using the Newsletter Ad block. Manually placing a Newsletter Ad block in a newsletter turns off auto-placement. You can then either select which specific ad you want to appear in that block, use placements configurable when editing the newsletter ad, or let Newspack select ads on the basis of the most prioritized injection strategy of all existing and eligible newsletter ads.
Previewing Ads in Newsletters
To preview how ads look in your newsletter and see where exactly your automatic placement ads are falling while editing your draft newsletter, save your draft and select the “Preview email” button in the block editor.
Newsletter Ad Tracking
Within Newspack Ads, you’ll see lifetime impressions and clicks for each ad. You can also sort ads by impressions or clicks, as this is sometimes helpful to view the most successful campaigns.
Ad impressions and clicks are tracked through the same tracking pixel mechanism as the newsletters themselves. Note: Impressions are recorded as measurable impressions, not viewable impressions.
Newsletter Ad Management