All Collections
Advertiser Help Center
Setup and Basics
Budgeting for your Mantis ad campaigns
Budgeting for your Mantis ad campaigns
Paris Holley avatar
Written by Paris Holley
Updated over a week ago

"What does it cost to advertise with Mantis?"

The simple answer: "It depends."

Because Mantis is a second-price, real-time bidding (RTB) platform, vCPM and CPC rates fluctuate every second based on inventory supply and demand.

Mantis will prompt you to enter a maximum bid rate for each rotation when creating a new display ad campaign. Mantis will use your maximum bid rates for each rotation to auto-optimize and bid for the appropriate inventory. For example, if an ad zone has historically low viewability metrics, Mantis will attempt to serve the ad on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis rather than on a cost-per-viewable-impression (vCPM) basis so that advertisers only pay when users are interested enough to click their ads. When historical viewability of an ad zone is better than average, or viewability is trackable due to direct integrations with Mantis tags, advertisers can expect to bid on a vCPM basis for this premium inventory.
​
---

Calculating the total cost for your ad campaign

There are 2 main costs incurred by advertisers to plan/budget for:

  1. Monthly seat cost (view pricing options here)

  2. Allocated amount of ad spend (i.e., deposits of funds into an ad credit balance)

There are a large number of factors that influence the final cost of your advertising campaigns on the Mantis platform, including (but not limited to):

  • Campaign type (e.g., display, content, video, retargeting channel differences)

  • Ad rotation (e.g., vCPM and CPC hybrid pricing model differences)

  • Max vs. actual winning bids (i.e., what it takes to win bids for your target market)

  • Targeting requirements (e.g., local campaigns tend to cost more to win bids)

---

Choosing a payment plan (i.e., seat type)

Regardless of the route you choose to take once you get into Mantis, you'll need to pick a payment plan for your account before running creative across publications included in the Mantis ad network.

Payment plans are based on your estimated spend over the subscription length. For example, if your budget exceeds $5,000 for the next 30 days, the Business plan for $1,000/mo is the best option for your business. Please contact us to speak with an expert that can help you find the right plan based on your specific marketing needs.

The longer you subscribe to Mantis, the bigger the discount we can offer! For example, monthly subscribers pay standard subscription prices, quarterly subscribers save 10%, and annual subscribers save 25%.

Note: Once you select a payment plan within your account, all you'll need to do to get started with your first ad buy is deposit ad credits to your account balance. Your ad credit balance holds the funds that will be ultimately spent with publications included in your target market as you win bids on the network. More on that below.
​
---

Making a deposit for ad credits

All advertisers, regardless of the selected payment plan, must have a positive balance of ad credits before launching a campaign on the Mantis ad network.

Click here for step-by-step instructions to make or schedule a deposit for ad credits.

---

Daily spend limits

Setting a maximum daily spend limit

For each campaign you create, you'll be prompted by the system to set a daily spend limit for the campaign. In other words, you'll need to enter the maximum amount of dollars you want to spend in a 24 hour period before the campaign is automatically paused until the next 24 hour interval begins. Click here for step-by-step instructions to implement a daily spend limit for your campaign(s).

Minimum daily spend limit

All campaigns regardless of ad type have a required minimum daily spend of $10.00 or more.

---

Benefits of using the Mantis DSP

  • No intermediary fees - With Mantis, you pay absolutely no middleman fees (saving you an average of 33-50% when switching to Mantis from another DSP).

  • Flexible pricing options - Choose from 4 different payment plans.

  • Built-in fraud protection - All traffic goes through various safety checkpoints including multiple 3rd party, industry-leading fraud vendors. Rest assured knowing you’ll only pay for premium ad inventory and receive campaign performance insights in real-time.

  • Only pay for premium ad inventory - The truth is over half of the ad impressions served on the internet are not tracked as viewed, resulting in 50% or more of ad budgets going to waste. That’s why Mantis only charges its advertisers for guaranteed viewable impressions and valid clicks.

  • Upload unlimited creatives - As an advertiser, you can A/B test as many IAB-compliant creatives as you desire. Simply upload your artwork and let Mantis handle the rest.

  • Track conversions with ease - Implement the Mantis pixel on your website to monitor campaign performance, track conversions, and learn which publications and creatives are driving the best leads.

  • More reach in the US and Canada - Mantis is by far the largest ad network of its kind, offering unrivaled access to reach cannabis and CBD enthusiasts, even at a hyper-local level in North America.

---

FAQ

Is there a minimum monthly or annual commitment?

No, there are no monthly or annual minimum media spend requirements regardless of the payment plan you go with. With Mantis, you can control the pacing of your ad campaigns by setting a daily spend limit. However, to drive consistent delivery for your ads, all active campaigns are required to set a minimum daily spend limit of $10 USD per day or more.

How much do impressions or clicks cost?

As a real-time bidding (RTB) platform, you have the ability to set both a maximum 1,000 verified viewable impressions (vCPM) bid and a maximum cost per click (CPC) bid. Learn more about the benefits of vCPM advertising.

How much does it cost to renew once my ad credits run out?

There is a $250 minimum deposit to replenish your account balance with more ad credits.

Are there discounts available for bulk ad buys?

Mantis offers an Enterprise plan with the lowest exchange fee in the industry for media buyers managing higher volumes of spend. Please contact us to learn more.

Can our company test the Mantis network for less than $250 USD?

No. The minimum deposit amount of $250 USD is based on a test budget and covers account set up and support costs associated with on-boarding a new advertising partner. Most ad platforms have restrictive, large buy-ins and require long-term commitments just to get access to their DSP.

Important: Although we do allow you to get started for less, any budget under $25,000 does not provide enough of a runway to fairly evaluate the audiences of our many network partners, nor give you enough time to collect campaign data that will be used to make actionable decisions to improve your campaign’s performance. For example, a $10,000 budget across 75,000 publications equates to pennies per publication (on average) during the test run, which does not provide media buyers with enough data to determine how an audience is truly performing.

I’m sold. How do I get started?

Click here to create your free Mantis account.

Did this answer your question?