How to give an Advertiser access to their own statistics

in Revive Adserver

This article explains how to create a username for an advertiser, so that they can log in and review their own statistics.

Introduction

In addition to usernames for system administrators and account managers, the Revive Adserver software also has the capability to assign a username to an advertiser. This enables the advertiser to log in, and to review the statistics for their own campaigns online.

Advertiser properties

While logged in as an account manager, navigate to the Inventory tab, and make sure the Advertisers item is selected in the left hand menu. This will show you the list of all advertisers currently present in your Revive Adserver installation, for the currently selected account.

Advertiser overview

In case you don’t see the advertiser you’re looking for, check if the selector at the right says “Show All Advertisers” or “Show Active Advertisers”.

Switching between All Advertisers and Active Advertisers

Locate the advertiser for whom you want to create a username, and click their name in the list. This will take you to the Advertiser Properties page.

On this page, you’ll notice a row at three tabs across the top of the page, just under the Advertiser’s name. Click the “User Access” tab.

Advertiser - User Access tab

Assuming you haven’t created any usernames for the advertiser yet, an empty list of usernames will appear.

Now click the Actions button on the top right hand side of the page, and select the Add user option in the menu that unfolds.

Advertiser - User Access - Add

A small form will appear, in which you can type the username of the user that you want to add for this advertiser. When you start typing, the system will attempt to find any usernames that match. This is because the same username might have already been created for one of your other advertisers.

For this article, we’re assuming that the username is new. Once you’ve entered the desired username, click the Add user button.

Advertiser - User - Add username

On the following page, you need to enter the remaining information for the new user:

  • Username: this is already displayed from the previous form, but you can still edit it here.
  • Password: enter a safe and secure password, and then enter it again to confirm. Many browsers have a feature nowadays to suggest a safe random password automatically.
  • Contact name: the full name of the person you’re creating the username for.
  • Email address: this email address can be used by the user if they ever need to request a password reset in the future.
  • Language: this is the display language for the Revive Adserver software’s user interface. By default, this is set to English, but there are many other translations available. Keep in mind that these translations have been created by other Revive Adserver community members, and for many languages these are not 100% complete yet. Selecting any other language than English can result in parts of the UI appearing in the selected language and the rest in English.
Advertiser - Add user - user details

Next, there is a set of permissions that you can enable and disable for the user you’re about to add.

We recommend that you disable them all, unless you know exactly what you’re doing.

Once all the information has been, don’t forget to click the Add user button.

The list of users will now be displayed again, with the newly added user in it, and a notice at the top about the new user that was just added.

Advertiser - User access - User added

User interface for an Advertiser user

When an advertiser logs in with their own username, they will see a slightly different user interface with far fewer features than a regular account manager sees.

The Statistics tab enables them to view the statistics of their own campaigns, with several breakdown options.

Advertiser User - Statistics tab

The Inventory tab enables them to view their campaigns, the properties of the campaigns, and the banners in the campaigns. Assuming that the permission to make changes has been enabled, they will not be able to alter anything.

Advertiser User - Inventory tab

The Settings tab enables them to view and change some of their details, like the e-mail address associated with their username, their password, and some other preferences.

Advertiser user - Settings tab

Recommendations

If you’re considering enabling some of the extra permissions for an advertiser, we recommend that you first create a ‘demo’ username for your own use, with those permissions switched on.

Then, log in with that advertiser username, and take a close look at the functionality you’re about to hand over to your advertiser. This will enable you to view first hand what features they are about to get access to, and judge if that is a good idea or not.

You can even log out of the advertiser user, and back in as the account manager, make some changes to the permissions, and then log back in as the advertiser to see the effect.