SideSpot.

Run a desktop ad campaign.
Pay for eligible displays.

Reach participating Mac users with a square or banner ad. Choose your audience and maximum bids, then track completed impressions and clicks in your dashboard.

Build a campaign How billing works

This editor uses simulated data. It won’t publish an ad or take payment.

Your campaign setup
Example SideSpot banner creative
Placement
Three square sizes or an 8:1 banner
Audience
Supported countries, with optional local targeting
Spending
Per-size maximum bids and campaign budget limits
Launch
Creative review, funding, then your go-ahead
Check the ad requirements

What counts as a billable impression

You’re charged after a display completes 60 continuous eligible seconds. Loading or an interrupted display doesn’t count.

Completed displayReady → 60 eligible seconds
One billable impression
Interrupted displaySleep, lock, offline, or eligibility lost
No charge for that display

Explanatory diagram. Loading, partial, and unsupported displays are unpaid. A motion loop is not another impression.

Your maximum, by size.

Set a separate maximum CPM for each placement. The auction determines the actual price, up to that maximum. CPM covers 1,000 validated impressions.

A share for the person making space.

The Mac user receives 60% of the actual advertiser charge as base earnings. Eligible bonuses are funded separately by SideSpot.

Eligibility checks use necessary app and device states. They do not prove attention or guarantee visibility.

Create artwork for your campaign

Bring your logo, a short message, and a destination. Start with a branded template, or use your own image or silent motion creative.

SideSpot displays your approved creative in a separate desktop window. One click takes someone to your website.

  • Three square sizes, one shared creative.
  • A separate 8:1 banner for a wider idea.
  • Check each format before you submit.
See dimensions and formats
Illustrative SideSpot square creative
Illustrative SideSpot creative in the wide banner format

Set your audience and spending limits

A campaign needs approved artwork and funding before delivery. Set its audience and spending limits, then choose when to enable it.

  1. Step 1

    Prepare your artwork

    Build a simple branded template or upload square and banner artwork. Check the actual format, add your HTTPS destination, and save your draft.

  2. Step 2

    Select your audience

    Reach supported countries, select particular countries, or choose a local city or postal area. Add optional language preferences to your audience.

  3. Step 3

    Set limits and submit for review

    Choose a maximum CPM for each size, a total budget, and a schedule. Add an optional daily limit. Creative and destinations need approval before delivery.

  4. Step 4

    Enable the approved campaign

    An approved campaign needs funding and your explicit go-ahead. Follow its reporting, adjust bids and budgets, or pause the campaign from your dashboard.

Local areas and languages come from optional, self-reported preferences. Radius matching uses approximate area centres, never precise device location. Audience availability varies.

Track impressions, clicks, and spend

Your dashboard separates eligible display starts from completed billable impressions, and connects accepted clicks to validated spend.

Filter by date, time zone, country, and placement. Export authenticated reports to CSV for a closer look.

Optional conversion reporting

Connect advertiser-reported signups and purchases with seven-day click attribution. These reports do not change billing or user earnings.

Explore the campaign workspace
Your report, explainedMetric guide
Display starts
Accepted eligible displays, including those that do not finish.
Billable impressions
Completed, validated 60-second displays.
Accepted clicks
Deduplicated clicks. A legitimate early click can count before a display is billable.
Display CTR
Accepted clicks divided by eligible display starts.
Spend, CPC & CPM
Validated charges, with average cost per click and effective cost per 1,000 impressions.

A guide to report definitions, not campaign results. CPC is a derived metric; billing remains impression-based.

Campaign requirements

Where does my ad appear?

In a floating SideSpot window on a participating Mac desktop. People choose one of four fixed placement sizes and can move the window within their active display. Square artwork serves the three square sizes; the wide banner uses separate artwork. A click opens your approved HTTPS destination in the browser.

How is the price decided?

You set a separate maximum CPM for each placement size. CPM means the cost per 1,000 validated impressions. Eligible campaigns compete in an auction: the winning price uses the next independent advertiser’s bid plus $0.01 CPM, subject to the placement floor and the winner’s maximum. A sole eligible bidder pays the floor. Actual charges can be lower than your maximum; delivery is not guaranteed.

What counts as a billable impression?

One approved creative must complete 60 continuous eligible seconds after it is ready. The Mac must remain awake, online, unlocked, recently active, and in a supported placement state. Loading, interruptions, incomplete displays, and unsupported states are unpaid. Replaying a motion loop does not create an extra impression. Eligibility signals do not prove that someone paid attention.

How specific can my audience be?

Choose all supported countries, selected countries, or local city and postal areas, with optional 25, 50, or 100 km radii around approximate area centres. Local matching and understood languages use optional preferences people provide themselves. Country checks use approximate network information. SideSpot does not use precise device location, interests, or browsing history for targeting, and audience selection does not guarantee available inventory.

Can I change a campaign after approval?

You can adjust budgets and bids without another creative review, and pause the campaign. Changing the artwork or destination creates a revision for review; your previously approved revision can keep running while that happens.

Can I try the campaign editor?

You can explore the editor with simulated data; it does not purchase delivery or publish an ad.

More questions, answered

Try the campaign editor

Try the campaign editor. Give your brand a canvas and see how it fits.

Explore the campaign editor Read the ad policy

Nothing is purchased or published