Click the settings tab to set various options and settings on how your PPC Search Engine will function. Below is a description of the various settings available.
4.2.1 The User Manager offers a quick and effective method of searching, editing or deleting advertisers. In this section you will have full control over Advertiser details.
On the User Manager page you will see two distinct sections. The first lists the 26 characters of the alphabet and a "List All" tab. This quick find page will have an alphabet number hyper linked only if there are details in that section. The quick find page will list all users sorted by surname. So for example if the letter "A" is hyper linked, then there are surnames on your system that start with "A".
When you click on an letter or "List All" link you will get all the Advertiser accounts listed that match the letter you selected.
The second section allows you to search for an Advertiser. The first field, "Search Phrase", will allow you to enter a phrase to search for. This text can be a full word or only a partial word. So if you want to see all Surnames that start with "sm", you may typically get results such as, Smathers, Smith, Smyre and Smyth. The search is not case sensitive.
The second field is a drop down list. You can press on the down facing arrow on the right hand site of the box to expose the options. The options you may search on is the Surname, First name and 1st, 2nd and 3rd Extra Fields. Extra Fields are discussed here.
When you click on an alphabet letter or use the search option, the Advertisers will be listed by Surname, First name, 1st Extra Field and account balance. You may then edit the Advertiser details, change the state or delete the user. These options are explained below:
Editing Advertiser Details
Choose to edit an Advertiser account will bring up all the Advertiser's details. The details were completed by the Advertiser upon registration.
Setting Advertiser Accounts Active or In-Active
All Advertisers on the system will exist in one of two states, active or inactive. An active advertiser is an advertiser that can add listings, keywords and login to his/her account. This Advertiser is an active participant on the system. You may decide that an Advertiser should be suspended from using the system for a time or permanently. In this case an Advertiser's state can be changed to inactive. An inactive Advertiser's PPC Listings will not be displayed or returned with search results. To set an Advertiser inactive is a way to deny him/her access to the system without permanently deleting the his/her details, listings and/or keywords.
Deleting Advertiser Accounts
Deleting an advertiser account will erase the Advertiser from the system. In addition to deleting the Advertiser details, the Listings, keywords, impressions (searches) and click throughs related to this Advertiser will also be deleted.
If you are unsure about removing an Advertiser account, it's Listings or keywords you may set the Advertiser's state to inactive.
4.2.2 Sending Email to Advertisers
When clicking the 'Send Email to Advertisers' link when in the User Manager, you will be presented with a popup window. The functions inside this window enables you to send email to advertisers.
You can email advertisers according to the balance (amount of funds they have in their account) or you can email all advertisers.
Use the filter option to send email to advertisers when you would like to for example inform advertisers (with little or no money left) that the balance in their account is running low.
What is 'Number of Emails to send at a time:'?
The PowerSeek PPC Plug-in comes with a mailer to send email to your advertisers. The mailer uses your mail server to send email with. By sending a small number of emails at a time your mail server will not be bombarded to send email. In other words, it will take the load off your mail server by sending only a number of emails at a time, and then waiting 2 seconds to send the next batch. Decrease the number to lighten the load on your mail server or increase the number if you would like to decrease the time taken to send email. Note that increases in the number of email to send at a time can cause browser time-outs if the number is set too high.
Below is an explanation of payments and deductions of Advertiser Accounts. This can be done inside the PowerSeek PPC Control Panel >> Payments Tab.
Advertiser financial accounts in the PowerSeek PPC plug-in is under your full control. That does not mean that you are required to do everything yourself. The system handles all click through deductions. These deductions from the Advertiser accounts are made at the time the click through occurs. Any other additions or deductions must be handled by you.
4.3.1 How to Receive Payments from Advertisers
Within the Advertiser Control Panel there will be a link to your order processor. Please refer to the Settings section for more information on this. Click here to go there now. The Advertiser will use this button to add funds to his/her account. You have to make sure to setup the procedure in such a way that the user can easily be identified. This can be done by making some field with vital information mandatory. Please see your order processor setup documentation for more information on how to do this.
Any payments that are made from your order processor page must be added (Debited) to the User account manually by you. This can be done inside the PowerSeek PPC Control Panel >> Payments
To add a payment do the following. First select the user from the dropdown List in the payment screen. Add the amount in the first text field under the "Add Payment" section. There are two fields that can be used to enter vital information about the transaction. We suggest that you keep the same system for adding and reversing payment. You may decide that Field 1 will always be a description for the transaction and Field 2 will always be a invoice number or payment code. It would make life very easy if you stick to a system where payments are concerned. This will also ease any confusion in the reports. When you have completed all the field you can press the "Add Payment" button to process the request.
To reverse a payment you follow the same procedure as described above you only use the "Reverse Payment" section.
You can go to the Template Manager by going to the PowerSeek PPC Control Panel and by clicking the Template Manager tab.
When clicking on the Reports tab in the PowerSeek PPC Control panel you will be able to view various statistics of the PPC Links and Advertiser Accounts.
Below are the reports available and a description of each:
Impressions & Click Throughs
Lists the PPC Link clickthroughs and impressions for a date range specified. You can also choose to list statistics of all advertisers or individual advertisers.
Detailed Clicks Reports
Displays all clicks for all advertisers or individual advertisers. You also have to specify a data range. All click information also comes with an accompanying IP address. You can also ban/un-ban IP addresses by clicking on them. When an IP Address is banned, the clicks won't be recorded when some one is coming from the banned IP Address.
Daily Click Count Summary
Displays statistics of the number of clicks on a daily basis. You can also choose to list statistics of all advertisers or individual advertisers.
Account Report (Daily Summary)
This report displays all transactions (additions and deductions) of Advertiser accounts on a daily basis. When money is added to an advertiser account the transaction will be displayed. All deductions to advertiser accounts are also displayed here. Deductions take place when the Advertiser receives clicks on his/her PPC links or when you deduct funds from his/her account.
Account Report (Full)
This report displays all transactions (additions and deductions) on Advertiser accounts all the time. (Not on a daily basis like the Account Report - Daily Summary)
You can view the utility functions by going to the PowerSeek PPC Control Panel and by clicking the Utility tab.
4.7.1 Data Backups
This section allows you to make a backup of your data that can be stored off-site. You may keep it in a different location or write it to a CD or other media. This same section will allow you to restore the details you backed up previously, should anything catastrophic happen to your databases.
4.7.2 Table Repair Kit
This option uses MySQL's built in repair facility to check and repair the database tables. Run this facility every once in a while. Do not use this facility if you have more than 15 000 listings. Use ppc_dbrepair.cgi from Telnet or SSH. Your host will in most cases also have table repair utilities available. You can also use MySQL's myisamchk to repair your tables if you have access to it.
To use ppc_dbrepair.cgi instead of this utility, log into your host with telnet or SSH. Change directory to where your PowerSeek Admin scripts are located. they will be located somewhere in the herarchy under your cgi-bin directory. Locate ppc_dbrepair.cgi, and run the following command:
perl ppc_dbrepair.cgi
Speeds may increase by 100% or more if you run the utility in this manner.
4.7.3 Delete Logs
In order for you to manage your PPC activities successfully the Plugin records a lot of information like each impression of a PPC link, click through, IP addresses, etc. Overall database performance can be effected if too much information is stored in the database. To avoid this you will need to delete some of the older information from time to time, to ensure optimum database performance. It is recommend that you at least keep no less than 3 months of active data.
4.7.4 Ban or Un-ban IP Addresses
Enables you to ban or un-ban IP Addresses from the system. PPC Clickthroughs will not be counted when visitors comes from banned IP Adresses.
