Web Ads API

Introduction

As a CityGrid partner, you can publish CityGrid advertisements on your mobile and web applications and get paid when your users interact with these ads. This document explains how to display templatized, pre-rendered CityGrid ad units in web applications using JavaScript and HTML.

If you are looking to display templatized, pre-rendered ads for mobile applications (native or web), see the Mobile Ads API. If you are interested in obtaining ad data which you then render on your own, see the Custom Ads API.

Obtaining Web Ads

To enable the display of ads, you must include the CityGrid loader script in the page:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.citygridmedia.com/ads/scripts/v2/loader.js"></script>

To obtain the actual ad, invoke the CityGrid.Ads constructor with two arguments: the id of the div element that wraps the ad unit, and a JavaScript object that holds the ad parameters.

<script type="text/javascript">
  new CityGrid.Ads(containerDiv, callParameters);
</script>

The ad image will be rendered into your div. The following example adds an ad to a div with the id of sidebar_ad_slot, and ad parameters that specify an ad relevant for sushi and a given longitude and latitude:

<div id="sidebar_ad_slot"></div>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.citygridmedia.com/ads/scripts/v2/loader.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  new CityGrid.Ads('sidebar_ad_slot', {
    collection_id: 'web-001-630x100',
    publisher: 'citysearch',
    what: 'sushi',
    where: '90069',
    lat: 34.088188,
    lon: -118.37205,
    width: 630,
    height: 100
  });
</script>

Ad Call Parameters

The following is the complete set of JavaScript properties for the ad call parameters object.

Parameter	Description	Required	Valid Values	Examples
publisher	The publisher code that identifies you. This parameter is required so that we know who to credit.	Yes	Contact your account manager for your publisher code.	acme
collection_id	Used for rotation or targeting. A publisher can have multiple collections and is required to pass one collection id per request.	Yes	A predefined id that holds template information. See Collection IDs for more information.	web-001-630x100 web-003-468x60
width	The width of the ad slot.	Yes	An integer in pixels.	300
height	The height of the ad slot.	Yes	An integer in pixels.	250
what	What a user is searching for. For multi-word searches, simply put a space between the words.	Yes		pizza sporting%20goods plumbers
where	The geographic location, generally a zip code or city-state pair.	Yes, if lat and lon are not provided.	A zip code, city-state pair, or street address. Spaces are optional following the comma between a city and state.	91011 Pasadena,%20CA Cambridge,MA
lat	Latitude of the center of a circle for a geographic search.	Yes, if where is not specified	A decimal between -90 and 90.	37.65056
lon	Longitude of the center of a circle for a geographic search.	Yes, if where is not specified	A decimal between -180 and 180.	-119.03639
radius	Radius of a circle search, in miles. Defaults to 5. If radius is larger than 25, it will be clamped to 25.	Yes, if lat and lon are specified	An integer between 1 and 25, inclusive.	2
raw_what	The original user search phrase if available.	No		italian%20food plumbing%20work
raw_where	The original user search phrase if available.	No		los%20angeles
max	The maximum number of results to return. The default value is 10. Values over 10 will be clamped to 10.	No	Integers in the range 1 through 10.	3
i	The impressionId that you obtained from a previous CityGrid API call.	No		0007000008b8b6fd23eb3c463ab3fdcc5b04f6ad13
placement	An optional property for storing additional information you would like CityGrid Media to log for this view. For example, if you are re-syndicating advertisements, you can use this parameter to record the ultimate destination for the advertisement. If you are placing CityGrid advertisements on your own site, you can record where on your site the advertisement will be placed.	No		google yahoo searchresults
client_ip	The IP address of your client.	No	IPv4 or IPv6	17.148.221.102
user_agent	The version of browser or device the ad is served on.	No		Mozilla%2F5.0+%28BlackBerry%3B+U%3B+BlackBerry+9800%3B +en-US%29+AppleWebKit%2F534.1%2B+%28KHTML%2C+like +Gecko%29+Version%2F6.0.0.246+Mobile+Safari%2F534.1%2B
serve_url	The URL of the requested page.	No		http%3A%2F%2Fnational.citysearch.com%2Fprofile%2F10843791 %2Fbremerton_wa%2Fgehring_brothers_guns.html
mapping_url	Click-throughs are mapped to the specified URL. See #Mapping URL for more information.	No		http%3A%2F%2Fwww.citygrid.com%2Fparse%3FimpressionId%3D %24%7BadImpressionId%7D%26referenceId%3D%24%7BrefId %7D%26listingId%3D%24%7BlistingId%7D%26cgRefId%3D %24%7BcgRefId%7D%26actionTarget%3D%2%7BactionTarget%7D

Arguments must be properly URL-encoded (spaces as %20 or +, ampersands as %26, and so on).

Notes

If all three of where, lat, and lon are provided, the lat and lon values take precedence.

If where is present but only one of lat and lon are present, the where value takes precedence.

Collection IDs

The collection_id property allows you rotate different themes to change the look-and-feel of the ad. Several examples follow:

Collection Id	Samples
web-001-630x100
web-002-300x250
web-003-468x60
web-004-400x187

Mapping URL

The mapping url is an optional ad callback URL.

The mapping_url parameter is not commonly used. Work with your account manager if you are interested in using a callback.

The mapping url must have the following form:

    http://<hostname>/<path>?impressionId=${adImpressionId}&referenceId=${refId}&listingId=${listingId}&cgRefId=${cgRefId}&actionTarget=${actionTarget}

Here <hostname> and <path> are provided by you; the API will generate the tracking information and replace the ${...} placeholders to provide the actual callback URL. You must provide parameter names and placeholders, exactly as specified above, for impressionId, referenceId, listingId, and cgRefId. Only actionTarget is optional.

The URL should be encoded before passing it as a parameter in the request.

Errors

Errors are indicated in the HTTP response as follows:

HTTP Status Code	Type	Message	Description
403	Status report	publisher is a required field.	Access is forbidden because of a missing publisher property.
403	Status report	collection_id is a required field.	Access is forbidden because of a missing collection_id property.
403	Status report	what is a required field.	Access is forbidden because of a missing what parameter.
403	Status report	either where or lat/lon is required.	Access is forbidden because of missing location information (where or lat and lon).
403	Status report	Invalid publisher parameter	Access is forbidden because of an invalid publisher property.
403	Status report	Invalid collection_id parameter	Access is forbidden because of an invalid collection_id property.

House Ads

If the request cannot be satisfied, a house advertisement image is returned. The API randomly selects one house ad from those available for the collection id supplied.

The following are examples of house ads for collection id web-002-300x250: