Frequently Asked Questions
Advertisers
What are TYPE-IN™ ads?
TYPE-IN™ advertisements are Solve Media's propriety engagement technology that utilizes cognitive science to achieve brand lift. Users are presented with branded messages or security phrases to solve in order to move forward. TYPE-IN™ ads can be found on display and video CAPTCHA, mobile, and pre-roll platforms.
What is CAPTCHA?
CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". It is used to distinguish between human and bot traffic and block non-human activities. CAPTCHA implementations are widely spread and can be found on more than 3.5 million sites globally, and served more than 300 million times a day. You can learn more about it here.
Why is the TYPE-IN™ so effective?
The TYPE-IN™ uses a cognitive approach to deliver digital branding at scale. By typing your brand message, users remember it. TYPE-IN™ technology applies this science to drive message recall. As a result, our campaigns outperform all industry norms. We see between 5-20X comScore norms for brand lift metrics.
What platforms are the TYPE-IN™ ads available on?
TYPE-IN™ ads are available on display and video CAPTCHA, pre-roll, and mobile.
Can you use my creative or will I need to create a new ad?
Since Solve Media's ad unit is so unique and delivers your brand message in a cognitive way, it is best to create an ad that will deliver the best results for the format. You can use your own creative team or utilize Solve Media's experienced and talented design team free of charge.
What is so unique about your network?
Solve Media's exclusive network of publishers consists of over 6,000 publishers across many verticals, including Ticketmaster, Bauer and Meredith Corporation. Our IAB-compliant network will serve any of your targeting needs. You can view more of our publisher partners here.
What kind of reporting metrics will I receive?
Our world-class advertising operations team will help you optimize your creative executions to maximize results. You will receive weekly reports updating you on the progress of your campaign.
Do you have any case studies of past campaigns?
Yes, you can view the case studies here.
Can you work with our tracking pixels or DFP tags?
Our system works with all major tracking tags.
What targeting capabilities do you have?
We can target as broad or granular as necessary. We work with our advertisers to customize a plan to fit their needs. In general, we can target by location, demographic, purchase patterns, and vertical interests. Retargeted opportunities are also available. Contact us to learn more.
What is your minimum ad spend?
Trial campaigns start at $15k per month
Publishers
What are TYPE-IN™ ads?
TYPE-IN™ advertisements are Solve Media's propriety engagement technology that utilizes cognitive science to achieve brand lift. Users are presented with branded messages or security phrases to solve in order to move forward. TYPE-IN™ ads can be found on display and video CAPTCHA, mobile, and pre-roll platforms.
What type of sponsored TYPE-IN™s does Solve Media provide?
What is CAPTCHA?
CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". It is used to distinguish between human and bot traffic and block non-human activities. CAPTCHA implementations are widely spread and can be found on more than 3.5 million sites globally, and served more than 300 million times a day. You can learn more about it here.
Where can I implement Solve Media's TYPE-IN™ ads?
CAPTCHA TYPE-IN™ ads can be implemented everywhere that requires human verification. For example, they can be found on comments, registration, contest entry, password reset, or to make a secure download.
Pre-Roll TYPE-IN™ ads can be implemented on any vast- or vpaid-compatible stream
Mobile TYPE-IN™ ads can be placed in any app as an interstitial ad or in any typical CAPTCHA placement on the mobile web.
What are the advantages for publishers when implementing Solve Media's TYPE-IN™ ads?
Display and Video CAPTCHA TYPE-IN™ ads block bot traffic, monetize a new ad placement and improve user experience. TYPE-IN™s take an average of 7 seconds less to solve than the leading CAPTCHA providers.
Mobile TYPE-IN™ ads help monetize mobile traffic. Mobile TYPE-IN™ ads integrate with responsive design and guarantee revenue on all sized screens.
Pre-Roll TYPE-IN™ are premium ads that allow publishers to monetize video content by letting viewers type a brand message and skip the pre-roll ad directly to content without sacrificing revenue.
What are the security benefits for publishers when partnering with Solve Media?
Solve Media takes security very seriously. When you implement our proprietary technology, we go to work to block bot traffic from your site. We've even formed the first security advisory council for online advertising. You can view more about how we approach security on our security page.
Do you have any case studies of past partners?
You can view a recent case study with Egreetings.com, an American Greetings property, here.
What publishers are you currently working with?
We work with thousands of publishers of all sizes. Whether you just launched your website or have your own advertising sales team, we can help. You can view more about our publisher benefits here.
What kind of commitment do I need to make?
Partnering with Solve Media is commitment-free. You can take us off at any time.
How do I get paid?
Our program is a revenue share. You get paid based on correctly completed TYPE-INs for advertising units only.
Payment for US Publishers:
1) Your account must reach a balance of at least $200 (and maintain it) to receive a payment. We pay our publishers on 60 days terms and our publisher payment cycle runs end of the month.
2) Submit a completed Form W-9 (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf) to accounting-dept@solvemedia.com. Instructions for completing the form can be found here: (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw9.pdf).
3) For publishers within the United States we only make payments through check or ACH. For billing and payment inquiries, you can email us at accounting-dept@solvemedia.com. We don't support Paypal payments.
Payment for foreign Publishers:
1) Your account must reach a balance of at least $250 (and maintain it) to receive a payment. We pay our publishers on 60 days terms and our publisher payment cycle runs end of the month.
2) Submit a completed Form W-8 BEN (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw8ben.pdf) to accounting-dept@solvemedia.com. Instructions for completing the form can be found here: (http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/iw8ben.pdf).
3) For publishers outside the United States we only make payments through bank wire only. For billing and payment inquiries, you can email us at accounting-dept@solvemedia.com. We don't support Paypal payments.
How long does it take to install?
It can take 15 minutes or less to install TYPE-IN™ technology in the CAPTCHA placement! If you are interested in installing our technology on pre-roll or as a mobile interstitial, please reach out to us here.
How do I sign up?
You can sign up here and start better monetizing your content today. Our plug-in technology is safe and easy to implement.
Common Technical Questions
I want to use your system while developing our new website; how do I enable a test environment?
You can create a separate configuration for you test environment in the Solve Media portal, which will give you another set of API keys. You can set your preferences for that site to "security" instead of "revenue" to avoid receiving paid advertisements. When you are ready to deploy the changes to production, simply replace the test environment API keys with the production API keys.
How do I set the variables adcopy_response and adcopy_challenge?
The adcopy_challenge and adcopy_response input elements are created by the javascript code that is requested from our servers.
Why am I unable to complete the puzzles and see a 'banned ip' error?
This error typically occurs when the IP address that is being passed during the verification step is not the user's IP. When a request comes in from the user's browser (on your site) to our systems for a Solve Media Puzzle, we log the IP address of that challenge request. Subsequently, when you validate that particular challenge, you also send us the same end user's IP. In this way we confirm that the person answering the puzzle is the same person requesting it. What we're seeing from your servers however is the following: lots of various IPs making the challenge request, and only a small set of IPs being used over and over on the verification step.
To our reputation management system, it looks like someone is trying to break into your site by bypassing our security, perhaps by outsourcing CAPTCHA solving to a 3rd party. However, this is often caused by a reverse proxy.
Why am I getting a "could not open socket" error?
The error that you are seeing means that your webserver is unable to establish a connection with our servers.
First, try pinging verify.solvemedia.com from your server. Your server must be able to communicate with servers associated with that address. If pinging fails, check your server settings (firewall, etc.) to make sure that connections to verify.solvemedia.com are not being blocked.
Some web hosting services have policies that restrict outbound requests on port 80, which our PHP library currently requires. Your hosting service's policy and restrictions are entirely up to them and beyond our control. We will continue to explore other implementation options, but for now you have to resolve the issue with your hosting service.
If your hosting service does not block requests on port 80 and all your settings are correct, but the problem persists, submit a trouble ticket.
What is a "ckey / domain mismatch" error?
A "ckey / domain mismatch" message appears when the domain of your page, and/or the challenge (public) key you are using do not exactly match the settings in the Solve Media portal.
Open "My Sites - Configure" and verify that the value in the Site field matches the domain of the page where you implemented the widget. If the address of your page is http://blog.mywebsite.com/page1.html then the Site field should read blog.mywebsite.com, and not www.mywebsite.com or Blog.MyWebsite.Com.
Confirm that you correctly copied the challenge key. If you added the HTML code yourself, make sure that you replaced <your_challenge_key> with your challenge key.
I cannot find a developer API or plugin that supports my site, what should I do?
If you need help implementing the widget on your site, please submit a trouble ticket.
I have multiple sites under the same domain, do I have to create a separate set of API keys for each one?
You can use the same set of API keys for all sites under the same domain. Open "My Sites - Configure" and set the value in the Site field to a dot followed by your domain. If your websites are blog.mywebsite.com and forum.mywebsite.com then set the value in the Site field to .mywebsite.com.
How do I use different security settings on different pages of my site?
You can create multiple sets of API keys for the same site. Open "My Sites - Configure" and create a new set of API keys. Use the set of API keys that corresponds to your desired security setting on the various pages.