How to use the promotion system

Owned by Orla Harris
Last updated: Oct 12, 2022
7 min read

kelleymcdonaldlacing An Order

Hi Promoter!

This is a lot of detail, but it is best to read it before or during your first campaign set up so you understand each part.

If you are stuck or unsure, join our Developer Discord and DM @kelleymcdonald

If we can see an obvious issue, we will reject the campaign and tell you why. You can also cancel your campaign on the system after it is approved.

Note: Once a campaign is approved, you can only change the CPM. So double check your date, your spelling and your spend before you get started.

 

1.Get Started

Open the Promotion System and create an account. (This is a separate system that requires a new account to use)

Select the promotion placements you want to use and click ADD then Select SET UP YOUR AD

Banner: This will show in Slot 1 of the banner reel at the top of the SideQuest homepage. It is the most prominent spot on the site.

Infill (Listing Thumbnail): This will show in the first spot on the reels under the banner. Users will see your promotion as first in line so it is more likely to be seen and clicked.

Quick Search: This will show as “Sponsored” in the search results within the top search bar. Please note the artwork used should be the same as the Listing Infill dimensions

Note: you can add as many promotions as you want!

Download Design templates here

 

2. Add Funds

Approved Developers can claim $100 Free credit to test the system. Currently you can only add funds by card. We do not take any further payments from you, you simply top-up & pay-as-you-go.

From time to time we may run special offers, we announce these in our Developer Discord. Join up so you don’t miss out on opportunities get better value for your spend.

3. Name your campaign & select when you want it to run.

You can run your ads continuously or specify a date range to run between.

If you set between two set dates, you need to create the campaign more than 48 hours in advance of the start date.

If you want to set your promotion sooner, simply choose ‘continuous’ then use the ‘day parting’ feature to highlight from the start time on the day you want the campaign to run.

If you use ‘continuous’ without ‘day parting’, the campaign will be queued once approved and start running when you win the bid.

 

4. Enter Bid/ Spend Limits

CPM Bid amount- the system will tell you the minimum bid, the average bid and the current highest bid. You are bidding for 1000 impressions. The system will tell you how many impressions you may get for your bid and budget.

The system queues all approved campaigns from the highest CPM bid to the lowest. When a campaign wins the bid, it will run until the spend limits are reached, or there are no impressions left. As the system moves down through the bids, if it is a busy day, it is possible that some lower bids may not have the opportunity to run. You can change your CPM on approved promotions if you want to increase your chances or benefit from lower CPM rates later in the day.

If you need your campaign to run at a certain time, then to increase your chances you should pick a higher bid or check the bid at the time to see what the highest is. Otherwise I recommend you pick a bid around or above average and it will hopefully run eventually.

You can also submit multiple campaigns with different bids to split your wallet spend and increase your chances of the campaign running at some stage in the day. This can be a good strategy and extend your budget.

Daily spend limit: To give you more control over the money in your wallet, you can limit how much you want to spend daily. You cannot change this after approval.

Total spending limit. You can also set a campaign limit spend, with or without a daily limit to give you more flexibility. You cannot change this after approval.

Note: If you don't set a daily or total limit, the campaign will run from the money in your wallet. If you don’t set an end date on the campaign it will use all of the money until spent. If you then top up it will reactivate the campaign, this can be really useful so you don’t need to submit for approval again, but it can also mean you spend money with out realising, so double check all campaigns are ended before you top up.

 

5. Add Target Audience (Beta)

We are testing the ability to target specific locations. Geo-locations may help you to learn more about how your app performs in different territories so you can start to narrow in on your target audience and split your ad spend accordingly. Right now there are not enough global users to break down further than continent. 80% of users are located in North America & Europe combined. We recommend you use either the Global Target or North America Europe to target the greatest % of SideQuest users.

 

6. Add Times

As mentioned above you can use day parting to target specific days in the week and/or specific hours in the day. This is useful if you are launching a campaign at a certain time.

If you use Day Parting and set very narrow windows to run, your CPM only enters the queue in those windows, meaning your chances of running are decreased. It is best to set to run all day or wider intervals and let the system work for you to get you impressions.

 

7. Set up this Ad

Add a URL: You can link to any URL. The system will show you views and clicks. In addition, most platforms like Oculus will show you the source of your traffic so if you also add a tracking URL you can benefit from additional monitoring E.g. add ‘?utm_source=sidequestpaid’ to the end of your URL.

You can track conversions to see how many of your clicks result in a purchase or final action. Check out how to use pixels to track conversions here

Add an image. Professionally designed images perform better. You can download templates to use from here. Think about how your banner will perform on PC, Tablet and Mobile. Do not add any text around images that may be cut off. Preview the placement to make sure it looks OK. Bear in mind the cropping may be different on different screens, that is why the templates are useful. It won’t always be perfect but images should have a centre focus. Avoid text on the banner - Use the title and tag line for info instead. Also avoid adding items around the edges as these will get cut off.

We want your ad to have the best chance so we will reject very poor quality or improperly sized images. Check for spelling and grammar errors before you submit!

 

8. Submit your order. It can take up to 72 hours for approval. If you want to run a campaign over the weekend we recommend you submit on a Thursday to make sure it is approved on time.

 

9. Good to Know! Tracking views and clicks across various platforms.

  • You can view the organic performance of your SideQuest listing by using this format - https://sidequestvr/my-app-analytics/'appid'/ (appid is the listing number in your URL) - in this instance ‘views’ are people who looked at your SideQuest listing, and ‘clicks’ are how many times people selected the pink download button. These numbers do not reflect sales. If you want to track sales you must view this data on the platform where you make the sale e.g. on Oculus, Itch or Steam. We cannot collect this data for you. If you find you get a lot of ‘views’ and ‘clicks’ but your sales are not increasing then it means the user has decided not to buy at the point of sale. In which case, think about how you can improve your listing to convince users its a good choice!

  • If you set up your campaign with an external link e.g. you use an Oculus App Lab link- you won’t see any impact on your SideQuest traffic because users are not being sent there AND unless you use a UTM-Source or a Pixel you won’t see the traffic coming from ‘Sidequest’ in your Oculus analytics. It is important to use tracking so you can see impact in your statistics. See point 7 above! Any traffic you see from ‘Sidequest’ or ‘sdiequest’ (spelling intentional) is traffic coming directly from the SideQuest website or the SideQuest desktop app so you do need to identify your paid advertising separately.

  • The promotion system is separate from SideQuest and from Oculus. The clicks and views will be different on each platform. On the promotion system - ‘views’ are the times that people seen your advert while browsing, ‘clicks’ mean people who clicked on your banner or listing infill. CTR- Click Through rate- is the % of people viewing vs clicking. A solid CTR is 2%. If you are not hitting this- have a think about your artwork- why are users viewing and not clicking? Ask the SideQuest community to give you feedback. Use Fiverr to get more assets in different styles and try different campaigns at the same time. Then when you see which is more successful think about using that graphic design style going forward. This is known as A/B testing and it is what a professional marketing firm would do. You can do it yourself!

  • The ratings systems on SideQuest and Oculus are separate. Each platform has its own way to score and list apps.


    Questions

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask us. Join our Developer Discord, you can ask other developers for advice or you can DM @kelleymcdonald

Thanks for you support! It is important to us that we work as a collective and a united front in order to push the industry forward in positive ways.

If you have ideas or suggestions to make the system better feel free to pop into the Discord and talk to us any time so we can make suggestions for improvements.