August 4, 2009 at 12:23CrowdA - A Practical Guide
An article has already been published on Habr, introducing webmasters to CrowdA - a new system that allows you to effectively distribute advertising revenue on the site between the site owner and content authors. The philosophy of such a system and its competence is a separate topic for discussion, which is hotly discussed at the mentioned links. The specific purpose of this publication is to provide technical guidance for working with CrowdA for those webmasters who still decide to try working with it. I’ll add that attacks on the system, in my opinion, are incorrectly directed: CrowdA is nothing more than a tool for a webmaster who decided to reward authors for content. If someone doesn’t like this idea, then you need to turn your grudge to the webmasters, and not to the CrowdA system.
So, in order for your site to work with CrowdA, you need to follow a few simple steps that we will now demonstrate: registration, several stages of integration and subsequent monitoring of our activities.
Registration
Integration, part A (definition of the zone)
Integration, part B (definition of the profile)
Integration, part C (implementation of the advertising code)
Integration, part D (registration of authors)
Monitoring
Accounts of authors
Register
Go to the CrowdA website, click on the green button and register as the owner of the site, writing down the address of our site in the profile. Later, the system will allow us to register other sites on the same account, but at this stage at least one site is required in order for the CrowdA support team to make sure that the site really contains the author’s content.
Within 24 hours we get a response that the site is registered. We go to the account.
The main functions of the system so far will not show us anything interesting, because we have just begun work. Nevertheless, we will go through these functions to get a general idea of the system. So, the menu:
Configuration → Contributors
list of registered authors working on your site. While the list is empty. Authors will be sent from your site (below we will explain how).
Configuration → Profiles
list of income distribution profiles. The system allows you to define quite flexibly how many percent of advertising revenue, to whom exactly and for what you are willing to pay. By default, the system starts working with a standard profile, advanced users will be able to change this profile later.
Configuration → Sites
list of sites registered under your account. At the beginning, it contains only the site you entered during registration. Here you can add new sites.
Configuration → Zone s
list of advertising space (zones) participating in the profit distribution program. With the definition of such a zone, we will begin the next stage.
Report → Contributor Earnings
profit report given to the authors. So far, unfortunately, it’s empty.
Publisher Integration
technical guide for service integration. In fact - what you are reading now, but in a condensed form.
Settings
settings for your account.
Logout logout
.
Please note that in the upper right corner are your username and CrowdаId, your unique identifier in the system. They will need to be used during integration, more about this below.
Integration Part A (Zone Definition)
The initial approach is painfully familiar with working with ad networks - we get the ad code and place it on the site.
The idea is this: for each advertising space (zone) with which we are ready to share revenues, we need to create an appropriate zone in CrowdA, generate its advertising code and implement it on the site instead of the advertising that was there before. After that, CrowdA will control the ad impressions in this area and distribute the income from this ad to your users. You have at least two natural questions:
Question: How does CrowdA know which user owes income?
Answer: In the process of integrating the code into your website, you provide CrowdA with this information, it will be described below.
Question:But what if I want to share only half of the zone’s income?
Answer: When you define a zone, you determine its default code in the system, i.e. it is the very code (yours, original) that CrowdA will call in cases where the proceeds go to you, and not to your authors. Thus, CrowdA allows you to deduct revenue from part of the impressions to the authors, and to twist your ads in the remaining impressions.
So, in order to create a new zone, we go to Configuration → Zones , click on the New button and enter all the characteristics of the new zone:
All the fields are clear enough, but nevertheless explain:
Name the
name of the zone for your convenience, then to distinguish between zones
Site
zone site address. You can have several sites recorded, so you need to select the one on which the
Size zone is located; the
size of the
Status zone;
by default; active; enabled;
Default ad code
; default advertising (discussed above). Most likely, here you will copy the advertisement that runs in your area before integration with CrowdA.
Click the Save button , save the zone. Now that we have a list of our zones, the Get ad code button gives us the CrowdA code, which we must integrate into the site.
Integration Part B (Profile Definition)
This part of the integration is optional - if you completely skip it and move on to the next, then everything will work, and later you can return and make up for lost time. Nevertheless, following the correct logic, determining the deduction profiles is appropriate right now. Each profile determines which percentage of revenue you are willing to pay to the authors and for what content. For each author, you can specify as many profiles as you like and CrowdA will choose the one that matches the parameters of the current ad display (content type, profile exclusivity). By default, the default profile is used. To define a new profile, we go to Configuration → Profiles , click the New button and fill out the profile form.
Name
the name of the profile for your convenience, then to distinguish between profiles
Content Type The
type of content that is associated with this profile. You can choose from a list of predefined content types (blog, picture, video, etc.). In fact, the value selected in this field is intended exclusively for you. Below, in the subsequent integration, we will inform for each advertising display exactly what types of content are present on the page. Having received a certain type, the system will search for a profile corresponding to this type. And exactly how it is called, or what is on the page, the system doesn’t care.
Percentage
Percentage of earnings paid to the author within this profile.
Default
If this flag is enabled, then if there are several profiles corresponding to a certain type of content, this profile will be selected
Exclusive.
If this flag is enabled, then if there is a page with several types of content and, accordingly, several profiles, an exclusive profile will be selected automatically.
Status
by default active (enabled)
Please note that the system already has one standard profile for default content. You don’t need to erase it, it is it that will allow you to work with the system before you thoroughly determine all the deduction profiles for your needs.
Integration Part C (Ad Code Implementation)
Now we need to learn how to inform CrowdA during each ad display, which of our users is the author of the imperishable content, to which the income is due. There are two ways to do this: light and heavy.
Easy - this is if your site runs on a well-known CMS platform. Plug-ins have already been prepared for common platforms in CrowdA - contact the support team (tech@crowda.com) and you will be sent a plug-in and instructions. At the moment, plugins have already been written for phpBB, vBulletin, WordPress, MediaWiki, etc.
The hard way is to write the integration yourself if you have a home-made site or platform for which there is no plug-in. No need to be afraid, the severity is relative - a few lines in JavaScript. Let's get started. Our task is to inform the code that you recently copied to the site who the author of the content on this page is. Perhaps there are several authors if, for example, the page contains materials from different authors or if you are willing to pay for the article to its author and for comments to everyone else.
You must place the code on the page before calling the CrowdA ad code (which we generated in the first part of the integration) in accordance with the following example:
For each author receiving a percentage of advertising on this page (there are two in the example), you need to add an array of three fields to the contributors variable.
We will explain each of these three fields separately:
CrowdaId is the
unique identifier in your author’s CrowdA system (not yours!). As a rule, this field remains empty, because you don’t need to keep it at home, we just write “”.
ContentType is the
type of content created by this author. In the example above, the first author wrote an article and the second a blog. Options for content types can be taken from the list of profiles that we described above.
Username
is the author username on your system.
Attention:the first and third parameters are interchangeable and it is enough to inform only one of them. Your task is to identify your author in the CrowdA system and this can be done in two ways: transfer its unique CrowdAId in the first element of the array (how it will be received will be described below) or transfer its unique username on your site in the third element. The second method is much simpler, because then you do not need to store CrowdAId of your authors anywhere.
Having finished working with the ad code, we can breathe a sigh of relief. Our ad unit now looks something like this:
We are almost there. The last thing left is how your authors will begin to receive long-awaited earnings.
Integration, Part D (registration of authors)
If the site works at this stage, then the advertisement will pass through the CrowdA system safely, but all the money will go to you, because the system will twist your default code without finding your authors among its users. Therefore, the last stage of integration is to notify the authors of a new service and give them the opportunity to open an account in the CrowdA system. Here, too, the creators of the system tried to do this with the slightest difficulty for the authors themselves. And we have to work a little. First of all, we post on the main page, or where it is more convenient for you, the information that our favorite resource is now working with the new CrowdA service, old and young can make money and explain the principle of work. Now, in order for the author to register with CrowdA, we must give him a link where he can do it. But this link is not simple, and gold. Following it, your author does not just get to the main page in CrowdA and scratches his turnips for a long time, thinking what he should do there. This link contains all the information that the author came fromyour resource and its username with you, so that the system will automatically link it to your site after it enters its personal data. We can get this link from the CrowdA system using the following standard HTTP GET call:
The parameter values are for example, we will explain each of them:
publisherId
your (site owner) identifier CrowdAId
publisherUsername
your username (e-mail) in the CrowdA system
publisherPassword
your password in CrowdA system
Your username and password are required to identify you on the system. Otherwise, attackers could generate such links allegedly on your behalf and receive money from your authors.
site
the site from which the request is being sent (in case you have more than one site)
localUsername
your author’s username on your site
Obviously, in order for the last parameter to be known, the author must be logged on to the site. This is logical - the link is unique to him and apparently should be accessible from a personal profile page or similar.
By sending this request to CrowdA, we get a unique link in response to our author, which we place in a convenient place for him. Authors will read about the new service, click on the link and register.
This is the end of the process - we placed the CrowdA ad unit on our website, set the profiles for the distribution of advertising profit and made it possible for our authors to register on CrowdA and start making money. Having spent an hour or two on integration, we achieved a lot, allowing us to distribute income between us and our authors. Returning to what was written at the beginning of the article, if a system such as CrowdA has the right to exist, then the process of connecting to it is quite simple, given the non-trivial tasks facing it.
Monitoring
Having completed technical integration and watching how crowds of satisfied authors rushed to earn money on your site, you can monitor the process using reports provided by CrowdA. By logging into your account and clicking on Contributor EarningsYou will receive the following report:
By default, the report shows the total daily impressions and earnings of your authors for the last week. You can get the same report for the last month, year, etc., and also get a breakdown by authors or by sites.
Author Accounts
We have described in detail what CrowdA service looks like from your side - from the owner of the platform. The last topic that we will briefly cover is how the service looks from your authors. By going to the CrowdA website using the link that you placed on the personal page of your author, he provides personal data and gets access to the system. Starting from this moment, all earnings that are deducted to his account and which you see in your report (previous topic) become visible to the author in a similar report. If the author has signed up at several sites working with the service, then in the reports he will see earnings for each site and total earnings. In addition to earnings, the author sees impressions of his content on the site.
At a time when the author’s total earnings exceed the agreed amount (minimum wage, in other words), which is currently defined as $ 10, the author may demand payment of money. Payment is currently being made through three payment systems - PayPal, WebMoney and Payoneer debit cards.
This concludes the description of the technical manual for working with the CrowdA service. I will be glad to answer questions, leave comments. Good luck!
So, in order for your site to work with CrowdA, you need to follow a few simple steps that we will now demonstrate: registration, several stages of integration and subsequent monitoring of our activities.
Registration
Integration, part A (definition of the zone)
Integration, part B (definition of the profile)
Integration, part C (implementation of the advertising code)
Integration, part D (registration of authors)
Monitoring
Accounts of authors
Register
Go to the CrowdA website, click on the green button and register as the owner of the site, writing down the address of our site in the profile. Later, the system will allow us to register other sites on the same account, but at this stage at least one site is required in order for the CrowdA support team to make sure that the site really contains the author’s content.
Within 24 hours we get a response that the site is registered. We go to the account.
The main functions of the system so far will not show us anything interesting, because we have just begun work. Nevertheless, we will go through these functions to get a general idea of the system. So, the menu:
Configuration → Contributors
list of registered authors working on your site. While the list is empty. Authors will be sent from your site (below we will explain how).
Configuration → Profiles
list of income distribution profiles. The system allows you to define quite flexibly how many percent of advertising revenue, to whom exactly and for what you are willing to pay. By default, the system starts working with a standard profile, advanced users will be able to change this profile later.
Configuration → Sites
list of sites registered under your account. At the beginning, it contains only the site you entered during registration. Here you can add new sites.
Configuration → Zone s
list of advertising space (zones) participating in the profit distribution program. With the definition of such a zone, we will begin the next stage.
Report → Contributor Earnings
profit report given to the authors. So far, unfortunately, it’s empty.
Publisher Integration
technical guide for service integration. In fact - what you are reading now, but in a condensed form.
Settings
settings for your account.
Logout logout
.
Please note that in the upper right corner are your username and CrowdаId, your unique identifier in the system. They will need to be used during integration, more about this below.
Integration Part A (Zone Definition)
The initial approach is painfully familiar with working with ad networks - we get the ad code and place it on the site.
The idea is this: for each advertising space (zone) with which we are ready to share revenues, we need to create an appropriate zone in CrowdA, generate its advertising code and implement it on the site instead of the advertising that was there before. After that, CrowdA will control the ad impressions in this area and distribute the income from this ad to your users. You have at least two natural questions:
Question: How does CrowdA know which user owes income?
Answer: In the process of integrating the code into your website, you provide CrowdA with this information, it will be described below.
Question:But what if I want to share only half of the zone’s income?
Answer: When you define a zone, you determine its default code in the system, i.e. it is the very code (yours, original) that CrowdA will call in cases where the proceeds go to you, and not to your authors. Thus, CrowdA allows you to deduct revenue from part of the impressions to the authors, and to twist your ads in the remaining impressions.
So, in order to create a new zone, we go to Configuration → Zones , click on the New button and enter all the characteristics of the new zone:
All the fields are clear enough, but nevertheless explain:
Name the
name of the zone for your convenience, then to distinguish between zones
Site
zone site address. You can have several sites recorded, so you need to select the one on which the
Size zone is located; the
size of the
Status zone;
by default; active; enabled;
Default ad code
; default advertising (discussed above). Most likely, here you will copy the advertisement that runs in your area before integration with CrowdA.
Click the Save button , save the zone. Now that we have a list of our zones, the Get ad code button gives us the CrowdA code, which we must integrate into the site.
Integration Part B (Profile Definition)
This part of the integration is optional - if you completely skip it and move on to the next, then everything will work, and later you can return and make up for lost time. Nevertheless, following the correct logic, determining the deduction profiles is appropriate right now. Each profile determines which percentage of revenue you are willing to pay to the authors and for what content. For each author, you can specify as many profiles as you like and CrowdA will choose the one that matches the parameters of the current ad display (content type, profile exclusivity). By default, the default profile is used. To define a new profile, we go to Configuration → Profiles , click the New button and fill out the profile form.
Name
the name of the profile for your convenience, then to distinguish between profiles
Content Type The
type of content that is associated with this profile. You can choose from a list of predefined content types (blog, picture, video, etc.). In fact, the value selected in this field is intended exclusively for you. Below, in the subsequent integration, we will inform for each advertising display exactly what types of content are present on the page. Having received a certain type, the system will search for a profile corresponding to this type. And exactly how it is called, or what is on the page, the system doesn’t care.
Percentage
Percentage of earnings paid to the author within this profile.
Default
If this flag is enabled, then if there are several profiles corresponding to a certain type of content, this profile will be selected
Exclusive.
If this flag is enabled, then if there is a page with several types of content and, accordingly, several profiles, an exclusive profile will be selected automatically.
Status
by default active (enabled)
Please note that the system already has one standard profile for default content. You don’t need to erase it, it is it that will allow you to work with the system before you thoroughly determine all the deduction profiles for your needs.
Integration Part C (Ad Code Implementation)
Now we need to learn how to inform CrowdA during each ad display, which of our users is the author of the imperishable content, to which the income is due. There are two ways to do this: light and heavy.
Easy - this is if your site runs on a well-known CMS platform. Plug-ins have already been prepared for common platforms in CrowdA - contact the support team (tech@crowda.com) and you will be sent a plug-in and instructions. At the moment, plugins have already been written for phpBB, vBulletin, WordPress, MediaWiki, etc.
The hard way is to write the integration yourself if you have a home-made site or platform for which there is no plug-in. No need to be afraid, the severity is relative - a few lines in JavaScript. Let's get started. Our task is to inform the code that you recently copied to the site who the author of the content on this page is. Perhaps there are several authors if, for example, the page contains materials from different authors or if you are willing to pay for the article to its author and for comments to everyone else.
You must place the code on the page before calling the CrowdA ad code (which we generated in the first part of the integration) in accordance with the following example:
For each author receiving a percentage of advertising on this page (there are two in the example), you need to add an array of three fields to the contributors variable.
We will explain each of these three fields separately:
CrowdaId is the
unique identifier in your author’s CrowdA system (not yours!). As a rule, this field remains empty, because you don’t need to keep it at home, we just write “”.
ContentType is the
type of content created by this author. In the example above, the first author wrote an article and the second a blog. Options for content types can be taken from the list of profiles that we described above.
Username
is the author username on your system.
Attention:the first and third parameters are interchangeable and it is enough to inform only one of them. Your task is to identify your author in the CrowdA system and this can be done in two ways: transfer its unique CrowdAId in the first element of the array (how it will be received will be described below) or transfer its unique username on your site in the third element. The second method is much simpler, because then you do not need to store CrowdAId of your authors anywhere.
Having finished working with the ad code, we can breathe a sigh of relief. Our ad unit now looks something like this:
[Рекламный код полученный от CrowdA для этой зоны]We are almost there. The last thing left is how your authors will begin to receive long-awaited earnings.
Integration, Part D (registration of authors)
If the site works at this stage, then the advertisement will pass through the CrowdA system safely, but all the money will go to you, because the system will twist your default code without finding your authors among its users. Therefore, the last stage of integration is to notify the authors of a new service and give them the opportunity to open an account in the CrowdA system. Here, too, the creators of the system tried to do this with the slightest difficulty for the authors themselves. And we have to work a little. First of all, we post on the main page, or where it is more convenient for you, the information that our favorite resource is now working with the new CrowdA service, old and young can make money and explain the principle of work. Now, in order for the author to register with CrowdA, we must give him a link where he can do it. But this link is not simple, and gold. Following it, your author does not just get to the main page in CrowdA and scratches his turnips for a long time, thinking what he should do there. This link contains all the information that the author came fromyour resource and its username with you, so that the system will automatically link it to your site after it enters its personal data. We can get this link from the CrowdA system using the following standard HTTP GET call:
adserver.crowda.com/api?publisherId=ca-943244439-73216&publisherUsername=publisher@my_site.com&publisherPassword=p1ssw3rd&site=my_site.com&localUsername=JohnThe parameter values are for example, we will explain each of them:
publisherId
your (site owner) identifier CrowdAId
publisherUsername
your username (e-mail) in the CrowdA system
publisherPassword
your password in CrowdA system
Your username and password are required to identify you on the system. Otherwise, attackers could generate such links allegedly on your behalf and receive money from your authors.
site
the site from which the request is being sent (in case you have more than one site)
localUsername
your author’s username on your site
Obviously, in order for the last parameter to be known, the author must be logged on to the site. This is logical - the link is unique to him and apparently should be accessible from a personal profile page or similar.
By sending this request to CrowdA, we get a unique link in response to our author, which we place in a convenient place for him. Authors will read about the new service, click on the link and register.
This is the end of the process - we placed the CrowdA ad unit on our website, set the profiles for the distribution of advertising profit and made it possible for our authors to register on CrowdA and start making money. Having spent an hour or two on integration, we achieved a lot, allowing us to distribute income between us and our authors. Returning to what was written at the beginning of the article, if a system such as CrowdA has the right to exist, then the process of connecting to it is quite simple, given the non-trivial tasks facing it.
Monitoring
Having completed technical integration and watching how crowds of satisfied authors rushed to earn money on your site, you can monitor the process using reports provided by CrowdA. By logging into your account and clicking on Contributor EarningsYou will receive the following report:
By default, the report shows the total daily impressions and earnings of your authors for the last week. You can get the same report for the last month, year, etc., and also get a breakdown by authors or by sites.
Author Accounts
We have described in detail what CrowdA service looks like from your side - from the owner of the platform. The last topic that we will briefly cover is how the service looks from your authors. By going to the CrowdA website using the link that you placed on the personal page of your author, he provides personal data and gets access to the system. Starting from this moment, all earnings that are deducted to his account and which you see in your report (previous topic) become visible to the author in a similar report. If the author has signed up at several sites working with the service, then in the reports he will see earnings for each site and total earnings. In addition to earnings, the author sees impressions of his content on the site.
At a time when the author’s total earnings exceed the agreed amount (minimum wage, in other words), which is currently defined as $ 10, the author may demand payment of money. Payment is currently being made through three payment systems - PayPal, WebMoney and Payoneer debit cards.
This concludes the description of the technical manual for working with the CrowdA service. I will be glad to answer questions, leave comments. Good luck!