During the summer of 2020 we launched SNOAds.com, a new platform designed to make it easy for advertisers to buy ads on student news websites. Here are some tips on making the most of your SNOAds.com listing.
Here’s a little about how it works:
- SNO Ads is completely optional and free. By being a SNO customer, you are not automatically added in. Some staffs would rather sell ads on their own, others choose to opt into this program for a little help, and some schools don’t allow advertising at all. That’s all fine. You’re in control.
- It’s a 70-30 revenue share in which 70 percent of the profits from ads on your site go to you. Payments from advertisers are processed as credits on your SNO account.
- SNOAds.com becomes a destination for advertisers to purchase and upload ads to be displayed on your site or multiple sites. Advertisers can search for schools by name, location, estimated impressions, school level, ad prices, and ad sizes.
- There are three hard-coded ad spaces for sale, ranging by default in price (between $30 and $60), but you can set your own prices as you wish. (There’s a $10 minimum.)
- Every ad image and URL destination submitted by advertisers is reviewed by a member of the SNO team before it’s added to your site, so you can be assured that nothing inappropriate or controversial will appear.
Activate your SNOAds.com listing
Over 550 student news websites have opted-in to the SNOAds.com platform. If you’re not sure if your website has a listing, visit SNOAds.com and search for your school. If you don’t find your website, you can easily activate it by logging into your SNO website and clicking on the SNO Ads tab on the left side of your dashboard. Verify and edit the information there and click the green Install Site button. This will activate your ad positions. You must have SNO's Google Analytics plugin active for your ad listings to appear on SNO Ads.
Need help with this step? Drop our support team a line.
Activate/Deactivate positions and set prices
SNOAds.com currently allows you to have up three ad positions on your site: Header, Footer, and Sidebar. To give your advertisers the most options, we recommend activating all ad positions. When you sign up for SNO Ads, it will automatically activate all three ad spaces. If you don’t like how they look on the site, you can easily turn them off by returning to the SNO Ads tab in your dashboard and clicking the red Deactivate button for the ad area you'd like to make inactive.
Next, set your prices. If you’re not sure how much to charge, we pre-fill each ad spot with a recommended price, but you can easily change that to fit your preferred rates. Type in the price for each area, then click the Update Cost button. Be realistic in pricing and remember that advertisers can renew ad spaces each month, or set up campaigns for multiple months.
Personalize your placeholder ads
Each active ad position will display a placeholder ad on your site to let potential advertisers know that they can purchase an ad there. We have created several placeholder ads, but you can override those with your own placeholder ads by returning to the SNO Ads admin page in your dashboard and uploading a fill-ad for each position.
This is not the area to upload ads from your advertisers. Learn how to place your own ads in your Header or Footer or in Homepage and Sidebar widget Areas by clicking the linked words.
Promote your listing
Now it’s time to let your community know about your listing on SNOAds.com. Here are a few ways to get the word out about this new option for advertising:
- Share your listing on your social media accounts like this.
- Build an advertising page on your SNO website.
- Make it someone’s job on staff to promote your listing throughout the school year.
Get advice from other media advisers
You don't have to figure this all out on your own. Many of our member schools have been successful in online advertising for years. Join our new Facebook group to learn from them.