After Creating a video template, an ad version must be set up for filtering products and creating your final, deliverable dynamic video ads. As a reminder, an ad version is the final product when you combine your template with filtered product data.
Once you have created a template, follow these steps to create an ad version:
Click on the “+ Ad Version” Text in the far right “Actions” column of the template.
Give the ad version a name and choose an initial data source to filter from. You can filter from “All Inventory,” or, if you have already created a feed in our custom feeds tool that you would like to use, you can choose “Pre-Built Feed.” (note: The only time you will want to choose “Pre-Built Feed,” is in the circumstance that you want to utilize Hoot’s historical data. This would include “price drop feeds,” and “aging inventory.” For any other application, you will want to choose “All Inventory.”).
In addition to choosing a name and data source, make sure to fill out the required fields of “Start Date,” and “Ad URL.” Ad URL will be the landing page for the ad version.
Lastly, choose the distribution for this ad version. If choosing Facebook distribution, you will be required to provide the ad set ID you wish to associate the ad version with. After this initial information has been provided, hit “next.”
You will now be able to add filter options to this ad version. Each individual product criteria is defined by a single filter group.
Within each filter group, attributes are added and stacked to create unique filter combinations. As an example, you may want your ad version to contain new Nissan Sentras. So, within your first filter group, you might add the attributes of “condition = New,” and “Model Contains Sentra.” Since we’ve added both of these attributes to the filter group, both criteria must be met in order for a product to appear in the ad.
After deciding on filters, you have the option to tell the system how you want it to prioritize which products to show first by adding a new sorting option. By default, it will sort by “Title Ascending,” which will generate a relatively arbitrary sort.
Let’s revisit the example above when we filtered for New Nissan Sentras. Since the advertiser may have 10 Sentras in stock, there is a chance that you will want to exercise more control over which particular Sentras are being advertised. In this scenario, we may choose to add “Price Ascending,” as a sorting option, which would highlight the least expensive Sentra first, and ascend in price from there.
An ad version does not have to be limited to a single filter group. New filter groups can be added to define new products, or existing filter groups can be duplicated and edited. Adding additional filter groups will add additional products into the video ad while also setting a pattern in which these products appear.
Once you are satisfied with your filter choices, you can save as a draft or hit the “Submit,” button. Reminder: Monthly billing for video is based on whether or not there is an active ad version for this advertiser.
After submission, you will be able to preview your inventory selections and verify that your filters were set up properly. To do this, simply click the magnifying glass icon in the actions column for this ad version.
Additional Notes: Ad versions can be edited as often as you like without incurring any additional charge. Hypothetically, the inventory could be changed on a daily basis if you chose to do so. Making changes to a VAST distributed ad version will never change the tag, as long as the ad version exists in the system, the tag will never change. You will be able to edit the filter criteria as many times as you like and will not have to re-traffic the tag.