To create a new line item in a brand new order, use the Create new line item button on the top right corner, or the button in the middle of an empty order dashboard.
First things first, let’s set the name for our new line item. Then, you must decide if the line item is native or display. Once the line item is created, you CANNOT change these settings.
Warning: Depending on the selection, you will only be able to select the inventory that allows native/display placements. Bear in mind that some inventories accept both types, but some might be set to accept only one. Those that do not accept native ads will be visible in the inventory, but not available for selection for this line item unless it is a native line item type.
The form for submitting your creative varies if the ad is native or display!
Additionally, you can set a reference ID of the line item for your line item. Reference ID enables third-party software such as OMS or a data platform to track and analyze the performance of your line item.
For example, the reference ID of an ad when this line item is placed in the Vogue newsletter would be EUCP25HC-VG, where EU is the ID of the Eucerin advertiser, CP25 is the ID of the order Cosmetics Products 2025, HC is the ID of our line item Women hand creme promo, and VG is the reference ID for Vogue brand newsletter.
A line item can have budget limits set for the delivery of this line item within an order. If these fields are not filled, a limit set for order will apply across all line items.
Budget parameters you can set are the volume of impressions OR clicks, and the value spend (CPC, CPM, or CPD). Select Impressions or Clicks from a dropdown menu Event, and type the volume number on the left.
You can set the budget limits for:
- CPM (cost-per-mile) for impressions;
- CPC (cost-per-click) for clicks;
- CPD (cost-per-day) for sponsorships.
Another cool feature from Emperor helps you decide on the Pacing – whether you want your ads to deliver as soon as possible (default), to have an even delivery distribution over the course of the campaign, or to use our smart feature and optimize ad performance based on the achieved results.
Select the pacing from a dropdown menu. Note that you can change these settings later on, even during ad delivery.
- Deliver as soon as possible - pacing mode ensures that a line item serves impressions as quickly as possible. If a line item meets all selection criteria, it will be prioritized for immediate delivery until the total volume is exhausted. Remember to set Volume.
- Even Pacing - The total volume will be distributed across the number of days the line item is running, limiting the daily impressions accordingly. For example, if the total volume is 1,000 impressions over 10 days, the daily cap will be 100 impressions. Remember to set Volume.
- Performance Optimization - We first frontload the line item to all selected placements, and then restrict them so that they can run only on high performing placements that are performing better than Impression/Click Efficiency Ratio, which is calculated (Impressions(Clicks)/Budget Limit *1000).
Next, decide the priority level which determines the order in which ads are served. You will see the options available in a dropdown menu, and here is what they mean, from the lowest priority up:
- Exclusive High – The highest priority on the list is exclusive high ads, ensuring they serve first in eligible placements before any other campaigns.
- Exclusive Standard – Ads with exclusive targeting or placements but at a standard priority level. They might block other campaigns from serving specific inventory or audiences.
- Guaranteed High – High-priority guaranteed ads, typically given preference over lower-priority guaranteed or non-guaranteed campaigns.
- Guaranteed Standard – Ads that are contractually promised (guaranteed) delivery but at a standard priority. These might be part of a broader, less urgent commitment.
- Optimized – This is the silver lining priority you should use for ads, where our algorithm balances the delivery across line items or optimizes for a specific goal (e.g., revenue or click-through rate). They may compete dynamically with other campaigns.
- Backfill High – Higher-priority backfill ads. These are still considered fallback options but are given precedence over standard backfill.
- Backfill Standard – Ads are served when no other campaigns meet targeting or priority criteria. Use these line items to fill unsold inventory with remnant ads or ads from external networks.
- House High – The lowest priority ads that you, as a publisher, serve for your own purposes (e.g., promoting your own services or filling unsold inventory). These run only if no higher-priority campaigns are eligible.
Furthermore, another option you can use is the Forced switch. If the forced switch is activated, the line item will have mandatory delivery on all impressions, with respect to the set budget, priority, and targeting.
Set delivery dates – Default delivery date settings for each line item are copied from the delivery date for the Order to which they belong. If you want to shorten the delivery timeframe, switch the Override the order’s runtime for this line item switch.
Then, click the calendar button, select the start date and time, then click OK.
Note: The delivery timeframe must be within the set range for the order they belong to. Moreover, the end date and time cannot be ahead of the start date and time. The start date cannot be sooner than the current date when the line item is created.
Regardless of the delivery dates, you can set up the days of the week and time during the day when you’d like this line item to be delivered. If you do not alter these settings, the line item will be delivered by default – 24/7.
Select the days from the checkboxes to exclude certain days (eg to exclude the weekend), and enter a numerical value to restrict the ad delivery for a specific time during those days the ad is being delivered.
Just like limiting the order volume and frequency, you can do so for every specific line item. Unless you enter specific limitations, the restrictions will be automatically applied from the order settings, if applicable.
To set a volume limit, click the switch and enter the values in the boxes below.
You can decide which metrics to limit – in a dropdown menu under Event, you will find three options: Impressions, Clicks, and Pixels. For example, you can limit the number of impressions this line item gets over the course of 10 days. When the limit is reached for this line item, other line items from this order will continue delivery until order limits are reached for all line items.
The next stop in the line item settings is User frequency. User frequency is designed to limit the number of times a user can see or click on the same ad. Initially, no frequency cap is set. If you wish to add limitations, click on the purple button + Add user frequency.
There are two metrics you can use to set limitations: Impressions and Clicks. Choose the one you want from a dropdown menu under Event.
Then, decide the time period for which this limitation should be applied. You can limit the frequency for the entire period of the campaign, or a set number of hours or days. Choose one of the three options from a dropdown menu under Period.
If you select Hours or Days, a field for the numerical value will open. Enter the number of days or weeks for which the frequency is applied. Finally, set the frequency value itself by typing a number in the User frequency volume field.
Emperor allows you to set an unlimited number of frequency volume caps. Therefore, you are able to combine different metrics for an optimal ad delivery, as long as they make sense. For example, you might want to set a maximum number of ad clicks per user to 20 over the course of 20 hours, and margin for the impressions to 15 over 3 days, or 50 during the entire ad campaign.
One more thing you can adjust for this line item is the Delivery Type – whether the ad is on rotation or has a fixed place within the inventory.
Rotation of creatives is useful for evenly distributing impressions among several campaigns, testing ad performance (A/B testing), or optimizing for metrics like CTR or revenue. The creative rotation will rotate the creative through the selected inventory, which will optimize ad performance (CTR).
On the other hand, fixed ad placements are a better choice for premium campaigns where advertisers pay for guaranteed, uninterrupted exposure in a specific position. In that case, a specific ad is permanently assigned to a particular inventory slot, without sharing it with other ads.
Creatives are set for Rotation by default for all new line items unless you change that. Select the Fixed option from a dropdown menu to ensure a specific inventory slot for this line item.
Finally, the last essential piece of information we need to process your line item is the inventory in which the ad will appear.
Note: The inventory selector will allow you only to select the channels and brands that support the selected line item type – Native or Display. You must select at least one channel or brand in order to create a line item.
To choose the inventory, open the dropdown menu Inventory selector. Check all checkboxes for inventory items you wish to distribute this line item to. You will see that not all checkboxes will be available. For example, in our case, the channel Modern Politics is not available for a display type of ad.
If an inventory item consists of multiple subitems (eg a brand consists of multiple newsletters, and those newsletters have different placements available), you can click on the item name and open a dropdown menu of subitems to choose from.
There, you can choose whether to select the entire brand/newsletter or just a specific placement.
After you complete the selection, you will see all selected inventory in a box under the selector. If you wish to unselect a specific item, you can always open the Inventory selector and uncheck the checkbox next to the name of the inventory item.
The inventory selection can be updated later, even after the ad is active.
Here, you can click on the Create button in the bottom right corner, or open a new set of settings for an even more sophisticated targeting.
Below, we will see what happens when you expand the Advanced targeting settings section, and how you can additionally optimize your line item delivery.
Advanced targeting settings
Advanced targeting settings in Emperor are powerful tools designed to ensure your ads reach the right audience with maximum precision and impact.
With key value targeting, you can use data like first-party customer segments, third-party user IDs, or specific send-out dates to customize delivery and align ads with audience behaviors or campaign goals. Geolocation targeting allows you to control where ads are delivered geographically, ensuring relevance to users in specific regions or cities.
Targeting by devices and proxies helps optimize campaigns by delivering ads only on selected device types, such as mobile, desktop, or tablet while avoiding unwanted proxy traffic.
Moreover, Emperor protects your traffic quality and ROI with a non-bot feature – traffic filtering uses fraud detection tools to block invalid clicks and impressions, ensuring your ads are served to genuine users.
Beware that some email clients may pass insufficient geolocation information to our servers, or no information at all. For example, Google Mail (Gmail) reports every server request as if coming from the location “California” due to their image proxy. This means that targeting a campaign towards any geolocation other than California will remove all Gmail users from the delivery pool as our servers can not determine where these users are actually located. On the other hand, targeting a campaign towards California will not just include people who are actually located in California, but potentially ALL Gmail users!
Set your key value targeting in one of the three ways:
- Add new key values specifically for this line item (click + Add new key value button);
- Leverage an existing key value template you have created in Emperor (click Load template);
- Use an advanced editor (Click the Switch to advanced editor switch button).
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Add new key value
Adding a new key value includes inserting:
- Key name (eg Age) – type a name in the Key box;
- An operator selected from a dropdown menu;
- Value typed in the Value box.
Emperor allows for the following operators in your key value targeting settings:
- = is
- != is not
- < is less than
- > is greater than
- <= is less than or equal to
- >= is greater than or equal to.
Once you add a key value, you are able to add new key values, add a condition group, or load a template instead of these key values.
If you want to add a new key value, you’ll have to choose an operator to add it with. The operator can be OR or AND.
Moreover, you can add a condition group and make a complex key-value structure for very narrow and effective targeting. For example, in the structure below we are targeting two target audiences by using two conditional groups with 3 key values per group:
- Men of the age 18 - 30
- Women of the age 25 - 35
In this case, each key value within the group is connected with the operator And, while the two condition groups are divided with the operator Or. Note that all these values and operators are easily changeable by rewriting the value or selecting another operator from a dropdown menu.
At the bottom of each condition group you have the following options – Add new key value and Add new condition group. The opportunities for optimizing targeting with Emperor are exhaustive and you can play with as many key values as you need to perfect the ad targeting.
However, repeating these exact steps from one line item to another can be quite time-consuming and prone to human error. This is why Emperor supports creating Key Value Templates and inserting them with just a click into a new line item.
If you have any templates created, you can insert them by clicking the Load template button at the bottom of the key values.
Important: Adding a key value template after you’ve already created key values and conditions from scratch will override the key values you have added manually.
2. Load a key value template
If a set of key values is often used for your line items, it is handy to save them as a template and use them to save time when creating a new line item. Click the Load template button and then expand the Template list dropdown menu to select the template you are looking for.
Once you choose the template, click the Apply button in the dialogue box, or Cancel if you changed your mind and wish to add key values manually.
When your template is loaded, you can further optimize its values and operators. Moreover, you will be able to complement the template with additional key values or condition groups. Finally, if this is not the template you were looking for, simply click the Load template button again, and select another template from the menu. This step will override the current key values and conditions, and replace them with another set.
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Switch to the advanced editor
An Advanced Editor is a space for your lines of code when describing the first-party data information imported from third-party software. If the Emperor template is not sufficient for your desired targeting settings, you can switch to the advanced editor by turning on the switch on top of the value boxes.
You can turn this switch on from the start, or you can override the changes you have made so far using templates or by adding key values manually. To be sure you are making the right choice, in this case, a dialogue box with a warning will show. Therefore, if you have clicked on the switch by mistake, you can choose the Cancel button and remain in the current settings.
If you want to switch to the advanced editor, click the purple Yes button.
In the Advanced Key Value Editor, the format of the code depends on how the software expects key-value pairs to be structured. Typically, such editors accept data in a format similar to JSON, key=value pairs, or another structured syntax.
For example, you can add values in a classic key=value format: age=25, gender=male, interests=travel,sports
Our reporting accepts JSON format, as most platforms do, so you can enter the key values in that structure:
{
"age": 25,
"gender": "male",
"interests": ["travel", "sports"],
}
Finally, the key values can be added in a URL query string style, which is also common in ad tech. For example: age=25&gender=male&interests=travel,sports.
The advanced editor enables you to copy-paste the values quickly from other software you already use, or to add a vast number of key values quickly.
Enable geolocation targeting
Refining your targeting by narrowing geolocation is another superpower of the Emperor.
To use this hot feature, click on the search bar under the Geolocation selector and start typing to open a dropdown menu of areas to choose from. Once you finish typing, click Enter on your keyboard to open a list and then select the button Target next to the location you want.
Once you finish the geolocation selection, the list of targeted locations will be listed under the search bar. Here you have an overview of all the locations you have chosen, and at anytime you can remove a location from your selection by clicking the gray X button on the left side of the location name.
Select devices and proxies
The next advanced option in the Emperor menu is to select/unselect the devices and proxies to which your line item is being delivered. Emperor default settings for every new line item is to select all options available:
- Desktop
- Phone and tablet
- Apple mail
- Apple proxy
- Google proxy
- Yahoo mail proxy
The option you have available here is to unselect a specific device or proxy.
Why do you need this option?
For example, if your advertiser has developed a mobile app and the intention of the ad is to motivate the users to download and install the app – excluding Desktop devices would result in more precise targeting and save their budget on pointless ad showing in the desktop emails.
In other words, serving ads on desktops would waste impressions and budget, as users cannot directly install mobile apps there.
Exclude a device by clicking the X button on the right side of the device name in the Devices menu.
On the other hand, for ad campaigns that require narrow geo-specific targeting such as a shop offering a discount only available in specific cities, you need to target users whose exact IP addresses and locations are known. Proxies, like Apple Mail Proxy, anonymize user location data, making it impossible to deliver ads accurately based on location.
Exclude proxies by clicking on the X button next to the proxy name.
You can always bring the unselected items back by opening a dropdown menu and reselecting excluded items.
IMPORTANT: At least one device must be selected in order for the line item to be successfully created.
Beware that some email clients may pass insufficient device information to our servers, or no information at all. For example, Google Mail (Gmail) reports every device as “Google Device”. This means that targeting a campaign only towards Phones will remove all Gmail users from the delivery pool as our servers can not determine if they are using their phone or another device to open the email.
Enable traffic filtering
To maintain the quality of traffic and protect advertisers from fraudulent activity, Emperor incorporates high-tech traffic filtering brought to life by Passendo’s extraordinary developers.
Emperor offers two types of filtering:
- Click filter – Detects and filters fraudulent activity after a user clicks on an ad.
Click filter essentially analyzes post-click behavior to identify suspicious patterns, such as automated clicks (e.g., bots) or rapid sequential clicks that don’t come from real user interaction.
These filters ensure that only genuine clicks are accounted for, and guarantee that the advertisers are paying for legitimate human clicks, protecting their ROI for each campaign. - Impression filter – Identifies and blocks fraudulent activity before an ad is displayed.
Impression filters constantly evaluate the quality of the traffic requesting the ad, such as identifying bot traffic or fake users. These filters also check if a user had suspicious pattern history. The result of applying impression filters is to exclude suspicious impressions from even being considered for ad delivery. Essentially, impression filters prevent wasted ad spend by stopping fraudulent impressions from being served in the first place.
Together, these filters ensure prevention by blocking fraudulent impressions at the beginning, and verification by ensuring the Emperor only counts valid clicks. This dual-layered approach helps safeguard the integrity of ad campaigns, maximizing value for advertisers while maintaining trust with your publishing house and your brand.
In Emperor, the Click filter switch of the Line Item depends on the status of the switch on your account level. If you wish to activate/deactivate it on the line item level, or to activate/deactivate the impression filter as well, click the switch off or on.
If, at any point, you are not sure what each filter represents, hover over the i information button on the right side of the filter name to get additional explanation on the spot.
Finish creating the line item
Now that you have your line item all set up, it’s time to finish the creation and get it ready for new creatives to arrive.
Simply click the purple Create button in the bottom right corner, or Cancel in case you have changed your mind about this line item.
