Mark Ad Locations
Alexander Brewington avatar
Written by Alexander Brewington
Updated over a week ago

See below for step-by-step instructions, followed by a video tutorial.

Megaphone’s AdLocator allows you to place ad insertion points into your podcast. There are three types of insertion points (Pre-Roll, Mid-Roll, and Post-Roll). You can insert up to 15 ad points (5 Pre-Rolls, 5 Mid-Rolls, and 5 Post-Rolls), though most podcasts have a standard set of insertion points (such as 2 Pre-Rolls, 2 Mid-Rolls, 1 Post-Roll). The key benefit of placing insertion points versus recording ads as part of your episode is that you have the ability to change out the ads later - keeping your inventory fresh and ultimately unlocking more revenue potential (also known as dynamic ad insertion).

1) Find the AdLocator

You can find the AdLocator by navigating to an episode or draft episode page. You find the episode page by navigating to your Podcast library (click on the Podcast tab on the left side), select your show, and then by clicking on the relevant episode or draft. In the top right you’ll see this button:

Click on “AD LOCATOR” to open up the AdLocator for that particular episode.

2) Place ad insertion points

Ad insertion points tell Megaphone where ads can be inserted into your episodes. Because there are three types of insertion points (Pre, Mid, and Post) there are three ways to place the insertion points. 

To ad a Pre or Post-roll, you can simply click on those buttons and they will be added to the start and end of your audio file:

For Mid-roll ad locations, you can click directly in the lower waveform to insert. The top, smaller waveform shows your entire audio file. Clicking throughout will adjust which portions are displayed in the lower waveform:

Another option to add Mid-roll ad locations is to use list a specific timestamp:

3) Adjust or increase your ad insertion points

Once you’ve placed your insertion points you can modify their exact placement. You can do this by dragging them around the waveform. For example, you may want to have your Pre-Roll start 10 seconds into the episode as opposed to having the Pre-Roll start immediately at the beginning.

You can also add multiple insertion points to the same location by increasing the number from one to your desired amount (2 in the example below).

4) Select which ad source you would like to fill the ad location

Once you’ve inserted your ad locations, you will be able to select what logic fills the ad location in the table below. These options can be set at both the podcast-level and episode-level:

  • Auto: When an impression from that specific ad location is ready to be filled, it will go through the standard waterfall of delivery to determine which ad should fill it. You can learn more about the standard waterfall here.

  • Spotify Audience Network Only: With this selection, impressions in the identified ad location will only be filled by ads coming from the Spotify Audience Network. Direct sales campaigns nor promos will be eligible to fill this slot.

  • Promo Only: With this selection, impressions in the identified ad location will only be filled by promos. Direct sales campaigns nor the Spotify Audience Network will be eligible to fill this slot.

5) Hit “Save” and you’re done! 

6) Deleting an ad insertion point


If you no longer want an ad insertion point, you can delete it by simply clicking the "X" on the colored bar:

Cuepoints

Cuepoints will provide you with additional ad location types. For more information on these new types, please refer to the Enabling Cuepoints article.

 

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