Support
Find answers to the most common Brand Experiences Questions
1
Integration
Using your CDN

Stories can be delivered via your CDN. For context, a content delivery network, or content distribution network, is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. This allows for optimal delivery so you can serve your users using the fastest local infrastructure.

Team Training

Training Sessions can be arranged with any members of your teams. The recording of initial kick-off sessions is recommended. Please reach out to your account manager for additional information.

MOAT Integration

MOAT Brand Safety and Viewability data is available with all Brand Story campaigns, typically, at no additional cost. Please reach out to your account manager for additional information.

Integration with your CMS

Typically, there is no CMS integration required. Stories are published alongside existing content using custom subdomains or reverse-proxy configurations. Some integrations may be possible so that for example, users are logging in with existing credentials. Please get in touch for additional details.

Connecting your domain

Stories can be published directly to your domain on a custom subdomain (i.e. stories.domain.com/story-slug) or in a subfolder on the root domain (i.e www.domain.com/stories/story-slug).

Connecting multiple domains

Currently, only one domain can be set up per account. A new domain has to be set up on a different Studio account.

Can I add custom fonts?

Yes, custom fonts can be added via the admin panel. Preferred formats are .woff or .woff2 but .ttf and .otf are also supported. Fonts will then be available for your entire team.

Adding third party analytics

Most third party analytics providers can be included with your story. Tracking can be added on the story level or, for more granular segmentation, on scene level via the 360 Writing mode. Please note that Moat trackers are automatically fired with all Brand Stories and data is available via your Account Management team.

Adding team members

Depending on your plan, you can invite 5, 10 or more team members in the Studio. You can assign different roles, such as Admin, Editor or Member.

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Using the platforms
Who will be operating the platform?

Any team member invited to your account can create Brand Stories. Typically, graphic designers are the best suited to create the content. Members of the ad-operations team can monitor campaign performance, while commercial teams can monitor assets creation and submit for client approval.

Who will be creating Brand Stories?

Any team member invited to your account can create Brand Stories. Typically, graphic designers are the best suited to create the content.

What are the specs for creating Brand Stories?

There are no distinct specifications for building Brand Stories. You are free to use any available assets: images, videos, shapes, fonts.

Using assets from Instagram

Instagram Stories content can be re-created with Newsroom Studio, provided all assets are available. These can be downloaded as a .zip file from Instagram and then uploaded to the ‘my Library’ section.

Previewing your stories

(To preview your stories) Go to the My Stories page, select the story you wish to preview and then click the Preview button on the top right side.

Preview vs. production URL

The Preview URL should be used only for testing purposes as it is not served by a CDN. It is not cached so updates show immediately. The Production URL serves via a global CDN, optimised for high traffic and low latency, wherever your users are so updates may take a few minutes to become visible.

How are Brand Stories different from Web Stories?

The Web Stories format is generally more appropriate for editorial content with regard to search engines and discovery while Branded Stories (NWS) is better fit for branded stories allowing for more engagement via social cards, shoppable scenes and such.

Generating an ad-server tag

Depending on the ad server, the platform generates a 3rd party delivery tag for each Branded Story. If your ad server is not already on the approved and tested partners list, the Newsroom team can assist with the accreditation process and all the technical details (the type of tag - JS or Iframe, click macros, etc)

Create your own template

First you need to create a Kit that will act like a folder for your future templates. Then you can create scene templates, one at a time in this kit. To do so, go back to your story Click the 3 dots menu on top of the scene you want to save as template. You need to create separate templates for each scene type (cover, standard, quiz, poll) - and they will show up once you switch the category at the top.

Can I share stories on social media?

Click the share icon on the cover. You can share directly on Linkedin, Twitter or Email, for the other social networks you can simply copy the link.

Can I outsource Brand Story creation?

Yes, please ask your account manager about the approved vendors or creators available for hire. Turn around time is typically 24 to 72 hours.

Can I generate a sitemap.xml?

All published stories are automatically submitted to the sitemap. To access the sitemap go to Dashboard > Domain & Hosting. All stories published on the stories.nws.ai domain become part of the NWS.AI global sitemap and automatically get submitted to Google Search Console.

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In-feed Content
Using extended programmatic supply
Running on desktop

Brand Stories can run in desktop environments too with additional parameters attached to the tag.

Running into your ad-server

Brand Stories can deliver via standard creative tags via most ad-servers or DSPs, certified under platforms such as Google’s DV360 and Xandr. The unit can target any display unit and no specific inventory allocations need to be performed. The 300x250 for example is an ideal size as long as it allows Friendly or Safe Frame technology.

How does the story unit expand?

The story ad-unit can render in both Friendly iFrame and Safeframes environments. They auto-expand to the full viewport width X height when Friendly Frames are available and full viewport width x 700 pixels if Safeframes are present.

4
Landing Experiences
Why Landing Pages

Campaign landing pages are typically text-heavy experiences that consumers tend to abandon in under 45 seconds. Brand Stories are stand-alone web destinations, allowing for their URLs to be used as destination pages with any display, video or social campaign.

Sharing on Social Media

Brand Stories can be shared on Social Media using their production URL. Please make sure you set up all Poster images so they preview correctly when shared.

Running on desktop

Although a mobile-first experience, Brand Stories render well on desktop as well.

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Reporting
Video tracking events

Video tracking is not available on the platform. Conceptually, the Story format is different from the video-ad formats as it encourages active consumption, breaking down content into individual scenes that make it much easier to track progress and depth.

Is there a reporting API?

All data presented in the UI is available programmatically via APIs. Please reach out to the account management team for additional information.

Impression Trackers

Impression trackers can be added on the Story level via Tags and Analytics, or on Scene level via the Writing mode in the Story editor.

How fast do stories load?

The story and all assets are highly optimized for mobile and served by a global CDN. However, the load time also depends on number of scenes, layers and images/video used in the story as well as on network speeds.

How are Brand Stories impacted by Google's Heavy Ads program?

Brand Stories measure all impressions lost due to Heavy Ads content removals. We recommend to keep the content in the cover scene (typically video) under 4mb to avoid Heavy Ads removals.

Collection GDPR consent

GDPR consent is typically collected by the publisher running Brand Stories on site level. That generally implies consent is given for all content and third parties allowed to run. Some eser added trackers/embeds/attachments may require GDPR consent. This can be gathered by including your own CMP in the story code.

Click Trackers

Click trackers can be added as custom ad-server URLs with any CTA elements in the story.

Benchmarks

Please see Media Solutions pages for Benchmarks on each individual product.

Ad-server Integration

The platform uses industry-standard macros to pass information between its internal ad-serving components and any external ad-server or DSP. All communications is carried via creative tags, available for export with every Brand Story created on the platform.

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Metrics Definitions
Story Impressions

The number of times a story has been loaded, whether in or out of view.

Scene Impressions

Total sum of all scene views, including views resulting from auto-advance.

Interactions (engagement rate)

The number of users that interacted with the story (only the first interaction is counted for each story load). This could mean they went to the next scene, opened the share menu, or unmuted a video. It is generally fairly similar to the second scene impressions, since going to the next scene is the most common first interaction.

Interaction rate (IR)

The Interaction rate is calculated as number of interactions / number of story views and shown as a percentage.

Heavy-ads

The number of times there was a heavy ad intervention (the story ad was removed by the browser for using too many resources).

Average Story Time

The average time spent on a story, which is recorded independently from scene time and capped at 100 seconds if the browser is left open.

Average Scene Time

The average time spent on individual scenes. Every time a user changes a scene, we send a time e.g. 5 seconds, and it's the average of those. Auto-advance implies a maximum for this value. The timer is capped at 20 seconds, to prevent skewing the average when the page is left open, and there is no auto-advance.

Average Engaged Depth

The same as AVG Depth except excludes first scene impressions (excludes users who didn't interact with the story). This is calculated as: (next scenes / story impressions) / number of scenes * 100.

Average Depth

How far (number of scenes) is reached into a story on average. This is calculated as: (scene impressions / story impressions) / number of scenes* 100. In the case of auto advance, it may not be due to user interaction.

Attachments (swipe-ups)

The total number of Attachments that were opened in a story. Attachments are tracked separately to CTA actions, despite the buttons often looking similar.

Actions (click-outs)

The number of CTA taps that open a URL, call a phone number or open an email client.