C-S Studio is a codeless environment designed for easily setting up any type of ad video creatives.
C-S Studio is made up by two windows: one on the right and one on the left side. The right side window shows you the video ad in its entirety while in the left side you'll be able to see the video with the interactive widgets you decided to add and to modify them directly on the screen.
To insert one or more widgets on your video you need to click on the bottom "new event" and a window like the one below will open.
Interactive widgets can be easily assembled through more than 15 templates available and will help you to create the most dynamic and engaging stories for your target audience.
Here you have to type the name of the widget you want to add and assign to it a specific timecode. Timecodes determine when the events are to be triggered on the video ad.
An event can contain an unlimited amount of interactive widgets but all the widgets inside one event must have the same timecode.
So, if for example, you want to insert in your video ad two widgets at a different timecode, then you must create two different events. While if all of your widgets will appear at the same time you can create just one event.
In the image above you can see an example of how your widgets list will look like once it's completed.
Once setup, each widget can be placed anywhere on the video through a precision editing tool.
Pick up the widget you want to modify from the widgets list and then decide its position and dimensions.
Click on the bottom "preview" to watch your changes on the video ad in real time.
Once the video ad has been completed and enriched with some interactive widgets, you can export the ad tags through a one-click method and upload them on any DSP or Ad Server as full-redirect tags.
C-S Forkflow
The workflow is then defined into 4 stages: Plan, Create, Deliver, Live.
1) Plan: Define the Consumer Journey
Thanks to Connected Stories' Journey Designer visual tool, you can define all the stages of the consumer path and how to transition from one stage to another.
To see how to setup a sequence see the Journey Designer section.
2) Create: Build Your Stories
Collect, gather or create the needed assets for your campaign sequence as defined in step 1.
Upload these identified assets (videos, images, etc.) into the Connected-Stories media library and then start building the actual ad units that will be used for your story.
After uploading your creative assets, you can begin to build your stories: Connected-Stories offers a variety of ready-to-use templates to help you create the most dynamic and engaging stories for your target audience.
The story creation process is organized into four main steps:
Add a Campaign: The campaign houses all your interconnected ad units and this is the first piece needed to get started. In each Campaign you'll be able to add as many formats and stories you want;
- Add Formats: Under a campaign, you can include as many formats as planned. Connected-Stories supports a wide variety of ad formats according to your needs (mobile, desktop, smart-L and split screen).
To see a complete list of the formats supported and how to set them up visit the Ad Formats section.
Add Stories: Stories are the individual ad units that are created within each ad format and that you connect into a sequence; these are what users will end up watching. According to the sequence setup, each story will serve a different purpose at each stage of the consumer journey. To make stories more dynamic and engaging, Connected-Stories offers a variety of widgets that can be added to them. It is possible to design a widget sequence based on user interactions and add as many widgets to a story as you see fit.
To see how to setup and edit a story visit the Stories section.
Storyboard: Just as the Journey Designer is to define the stories' sequence in the consumer journey, the storyboard is a tool that allows to design a sequence of widgets within a single story. Through the storyboard, you will be able to define how widgets behave within a story according to the users' interactions with it.
To learn more on how to use the Storyboard, visit the Storyboard section.
3) Deliver: Ad Export
Our platform allows you to generate ad tags and deliver them to any ad server and/or exchange to easily traffic your new Connected-Stories campaign.
Once your creative is finalized and ready to be trafficked all that is left to do is export the tags.
Connected-Stories provides different exporting options for its units:
HTML5/JS Tag: These kinds of exports allow to traffic the stories in a dynamic way. Here you will be able to leverage all the magic of Connected-Stories in terms of both widgets and message sequencing;
JavaScript Tag: This ad tag provides a higher level of interaction on the ad unit such as an expandable unit;
VAST/VPAID Tags: These types of exports allow to deliver ad units for compliant Video Players and are only used for Preroll and Fullscreen video formats;
MRAID Tag: This type of tag allows to traffic Connected-Stories' interactive ads within any kind of mobile app;
Tracking Pixel and Click Command Tag: This type of tag allows to keep track of impressions and clicks for unsupported third party redirect.
To learn more about generating ad tags see the Ad Export section.
4) Live: Real-Time Optimization
Connected-Stories allows you to effortlessly analyze and optimize your strategy and creativities at any point in time during your campaign. We make data available to you the moment your campaign goes live, so that you can see which formats, stories and sequences are yielding the best results.
When your campaign goes online, the status in the "Campaigns" page will be set on "LIVE", while once that the campaign is over, the status will be changed in "EXPIRED".
To learn more visit the Real-Time Optimization section.