The Distribution service gives you the ability to create and edit advertising campaigns to promote your applications using the Distribution Manager. This tutorial will walk you through the steps of setting up a campaign.

Requirements

In order to make the most of this article, you need the following software:

Distribution Manager

The Distribution Manager is available from the installer badge on the Distribution Service product page.

• Visit the Distribution Service product page

Prerequisite knowledge

This tutorial is intended for:

• Anyone who wants to learn more about shared applications and the Distribution service
• Application creators and owners who have completed the tutorial, Tracking applications

Registering an application

In order to create an advertising campaign for an application, it must be registered. When you first see the application in the Distribution Manager, it appears with a default icon and is listed as Not Registered (see Figure 1).

Note: You must have a registered application in order to complete this tutorial.

Figure 1. A newly shared, unregistered application displayed in the Distribution Manager

If you do not choose to register an application, it will still be tracked; however, registration is required to use the promotion and the ad-hosting services. Registering an application also saves a copy of the embed code for that application so that you may retrieve it in the future.

Registering an application is quick and easy

1. Select the application and click on the Register button. The New Application Registration dialog will open (see Figure 2).

   

   Figure 2. New Application Registration dialog box

   Next, you need to enter the HTML embed code that the developer generated in Flash Professional, Flex Builder, or Dreamweaver. The HTML embed code is the small snippet of HTML code that is used to embed your application within a web page. The embed code is also available at the bottom of the Share menu within an application if the creator of the application has made it visible (see Figure 3).

   

   Figure 3. The embed code at bottom of the Share menu

2. Click the Copy button to copy the embed code from your application.

3. Paste the embed code into the HTML Embed Code field of the New Application Registration dialog box.

   It is important that you select the correct version of ActionScript that the application uses. Mismatching this setting will result in a non-functional application. For your applications, you should ask your developer to provide you with the correct version of ActionScript.
   

   Note: If you are using the sample application, select ActionScript 2.

4. Click the appropriate ActionScript button.
5. The Thumbnail image is not required and is only used so you can easily identify applications within the Distribution Manager. Thumbnail images must be less than 100K. If you have an image handy you would like to use, click the Browse button and upload the file. After you fill in the required fields for the application's registration, the Next button will become usable.

6. Click the Next button to open the Tags dialog box (see Figure 4).

   

   Figure 4. The Tags dialog box for the registration of a new application

   Within the Tags dialog box, you specify the categories that most accurately describe the content of your application. It is important to label the content of each application correctly or it will not be cleared to participate on the ad network. If an application's content falls into a category that is marked as having special rules or limitations, it will be prohibited from participating on the ad network.

7. Mark the User Generated Content field.
8. Click the Register button to complete the application registration.

If you decide that you need to edit the specifications of an application, you may select the application and click the Edit button located at the bottom of the Distribution Manager to open the registration dialog and change the embed code, ActionScript version, image, or content tags (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. You may edit an application's information by clicking the Edit button.

Establishing campaign credit

The Distribution Manager allows you to run advertising campaigns for each of your applications. An application campaign requires you to have a registered application for use within the Distribution Manager:

Open the Distribution Manager, and log in with your Adobe ID and password (see Figure 6).

Figure 6. Select Registered Applications from the left menu. A registered application will show Registered in the Status column.

Select the Account tab and then click the link that reads "Apply for Credit." Clicking this link will explain how campaigns work and provide a phone number and e-mail address for launching your campaign (see Figure 7).

Figure 7. Contacting Gigya to establish campaign credit

When you have successfully established credit with Gigya, you can view Account and Transaction data within the Account tab of the Distribution Manager.

Managing accounts

The Accounts view provides you with information about your account status with Gigya as well as a Balance Summary (see Figure 8). There are three fields used within the Balance Summary: Account Balance, Available Credit, and Buying Power. Buying Power is the sum of the Account Balance field and the Available Credit field. The Available Credit Field will not appear unless you have established credit with Gigya.

Figure 8. The Account summary located at the bottom left of the Distribution Manager campaign and Account views.

If your Buying Power is less than the cost of your active campaigns, it will turn red to indicate there are insufficient funds for that campaign; an alert message will notify you that your account has a low balance. You may temporarily hide the alert (Figure 9) until the Distribution Manager is restarted by clicking the check box within the pop-up message.

Figure 9. Account balance alert message

Creating a new campaign

The Distribution Manager allows you to create advertising campaigns to promote your application. Before you can create a campaign, however, you must first have a sharable application registered within the Distribution Manager.

You may begin the process of creating a new campaign in one of two ways:

• Within the Manage tab you can select the application for which you would like to build the campaign.

  Note: Each campaign is specific to one application. You can have multiple campaigns for an application.

• Click the New Campaign button located in the bottom right corner of the Distribution Manager.

  Note: Only applications that have been registered may be selected for campaigns; unregistered applications will be grayed out.

Setting up the campaign

Once you have chosen an application for the campaign, the Setup Campaign Basics dialog box will open (see Figure 10).

Figure 10. The Setup Campaign Basics dialog box

1. Enter a descriptive text for the Campaign name. This is used to identify each campaign within the Distribution Manager.
2. Specify the Start date. This is the day you would like your campaign to begin.
3. Specify the End date. This is the day you would like your campaign to end.
4. Specify the Daily Budget. This is the minimum daily budget allowed. The field represents the amount that you will spend each day promoting your application.
5. Enter Campaign Application for the Ad title. This is the title that will be seen by potential consumers when an application is advertised to them.
6. Enter a description in the Ad text field. The value of this field is used to tell consumers about your application and why they want to use it.
7. Upload an ad image that relates to the application content so that the consumer has an idea of what the application looks like.
8. Click the Next button to open the Define Targeting dialog box.

Defining your target audience

The Define Targeting dialog box is where you select your target audience for your campaign (see Figure 11). This includes age group, gender, activity interests, and geographical location such as country and state. You may uncheck content types if you wish to restrict your application from those areas.

Figure 11. The Define Targeting dialog box of a new campaign

Click the Create button to finish the new Campaign creation process. New campaigns will remain in the Pending state until your application can be reviewed for tagging accuracy (see Figure 12).

Figure 12. A pending campaign

Note: If a campaign does not change out of the Pending state within 24 hours, or you'd like to expedite the process, please e-mail applications@adobe.com with your Partner ID, Application Name, and Campaign Name.

Where to go from here

In this tutorial you were exposed to the advertising capabilities of the Distribution Manager. You can also learn how to create and share applications by following these tutorials:

• Tracking applications
• Using Dreamweaver to share existing Flash applications
• Creating a sharable application using Flash Professional
• Creating a sharable application using Flex Builder 3
• Sharing Flash applications to the desktop
• Using dynamic variables with Flash applications

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