We are happy to announce that we are entering our new version V.2.1!

The new features are already being worked on and will become available as we go.
The most important part is that starting at August 1st, 2014 00:00 (GMT+2) our brand new tracking mechanism has become active.

From now on all ad clicks will be tracked in a way that advertisers will be able to view the following statistics regarding their ads.

1. Views Received (That's already known based on our 24h reset basis but will become easier to view)
2. Clicks Received
3. Unique Clicks Received (based on a 24h basis)

We will enable the system right after midnight (GMT+2) so all clicks are gonna be tracked starting at 1st of August 2014.
Tomorrow we will create the interface on which each advertiser will be able to view his ad's details, and provide the instructions on how it works.

Coming up next are the following features as they were announced in the Celebration Promo Thread :
[list bull-greenball]

Details on how many views/clicks your ad has received.-Done!-Will add some additional data and possibly charts in the future

Ability to change your ads in a much simpler way than contacting support-Done!

Better ways to get support

Faster loading page, improved layout and possibly refreshed design

Longer duration packs (3 months at once) - Postponed for V3 as it will require a major reconstruction

Additional Combo Packs at cheaper prices (2 of the same type) - Postponed for V3 as it will require a major reconstruction

This thread is dedicated to the new version updates and will be updated accordingly.

We will keep an updates calendar in this post just like we did in our previous site updates.

2014-08-01

Tracking System Implemented (No user interface yet). Ad clicks have started being tracked now being logged and tracked.

2014-08-22

PTCBox.Me Ad Manager has been implemented.
Users can now view how many clicks their ads have received and how many of them are unique (along with all other details of their order)
Users can now directly edit their ads and featured links and submit the updates for approval by editing fields in a form. The process is now much easier and almost fully automated while before it had to be done through emailing.
Fixed a bug in the queuing mechanism. Until now all ads were receiving an additional free day of advertising taking longer to expire.

2014-08-25

Added number of views, unique views and conversion rate in the single ad details page of the Ad Manager. Along with the clicks and unique clicks these statistics give you a better overview of how successful your advertising was.
Ad Manager now includes a full order history viewing feature.
Users can now easily view, compare and manage their ads in groups based on their status (submitted, confirmed, approved and queued, active, expired and all together).
Browsing through the Ad Manager has been improved with buttons.
Ability to Re-Use ad details from an old order to a new one.

2014-09-01

Added a description of each order status on the Ad Manager.

2014-09-03

Added our custom refurbished MySQL engine which is now fully dynamic and unlimited when it comes to inserting or retrieving data. It is SQL injection safe and the code lines have been reduced to almost 1/4 making it much easier to load and faster than ever.
Started coding a more organized traffic sources management control panel in the administration section that would help me keep better track of my traffic campaigns and keep me on schedule when it comes to renewing them.

*** Reserved Post ***

SolidSnake wrote on 31^st Jul, 2014 at 11:57pm:

Tomorrow we will create the interface on which each advertiser will be able to view his ad's details, and provide the instructions on how it works.

This took a while longer than expected.. I'm still working on it but it might take some more work, sorry.
However the clicks have already started being logged and I can view them all. Beautiful feature.. I'll complete this ASAP.

Hello again! Holidays are over and thankfully this time I have some exciting updates!
Let's see what's up..

1. Tracked Clicks

The click tracking system has been working nicely since the beginning of the month and the script is finally ready to show you how your ads are actually performing on our site. To view how many clicks your ads have received you will need your Order ID and personal Pin Code (it's included in your order's confirmation email).

To take a look at your ad details and view the clicks it has received you can use our brand new PTCBox.Me Ads Manager!

In case you have lost your confirmation email you can get your Pin Code resent to your email using this form.

2. Editing Ads and Featured Links

Editing your ad has become a lot easier for both advertisers and us also using our PTCBox.Me Ads Manager!

After loading your ad details, a link below the main table allows you to easily perform changes, provided that your ad is not expired. After performing changes you can click on "Submit Updates" button and we get notified. We will then manually check and approve the changes before they get activated.

3. Mailing server issues and delays -> Please read the following posts for an update

I am aware of a problem with our mailing server and I have contacted our host to figure out a solution. It seems that our automated emails take a bit too long (sometimes hours) to be delivered lately and sometimes they fail.

4. Slight drop in the incoming traffic

We are always on the look for new stable traffic sources since this industry is very unstable, and keep on adding more sources to achieve our 10.000 daily goal. Recently Probux disabled PayPal payments, which is the way we pay them for traffic and we are currently unable to renew our campaign there. This has caused a big drop on our daily traffic but we are doing our best to fill that blank with new sources until they offer PayPal again.

5. A weird bug has been fixed

Today I noticed a bug that has been there since PTCBox.Me Ads V.2 was launched. It seems that everyone who has advertised on our Page ever since has benefited by receiving a free additional day of advertising due no matter what he ordered.

Therefore all 7 Days packs sold, actually delivered 8 Days of advertising, 15 Days pack delivered 16 Days of advertising etc. That is mainly because an ad starts at 00:00 of the starting date and stays online until 23:59 of the ending date.

This bug has now been fixed and from now on packs sold will deliver what is ordered, except for the monthly packs (months with 31 days deliver 31 days of advertising instead of 30, that's normal and planned since the beginning).

We felt kinda sorry to fix this bug.. but unfortunately it had to be corrected..

..continuing from the previous post...

6. New Offline Job

As some already know, I've got accepted in a new offline job as a developer which will severely reduce my online time but I believe I will most likely be able to keep up with my daily maintenance, so hopefully this will not be an issue. Thankfully most of the work I have to do, apart form approvals, is fully automated.

Making a more stable offline income will also help me stabilize and improve my online services as well plus I will be able to extend my monthly budget for incoming traffic, so it is actually a good thing for the site as well.

Stay tuned for more to come!
I will keep you up to date here!

PS. Time for some rest (it's 3.30 am)..  :phew

[EDIT] Whops, never mind. Misread something [/EDIT]

ruicarlov wrote on 22^nd Aug, 2014 at 11:50am:

[EDIT] Whops, never mind. Misread something [/EDIT]

Pff.. I missed my chance to read it.. :P

I've added a small bonus to your Featured Link btw.. ;)
It's not malfunctioning or sth.. lol

SolidSnake wrote on 22^nd Aug, 2014 at 3:21am:

..continuing from the previous post... 6. New Offline Job As some already know, I've got accepted in a new offline job as a developer

Best of luck with your new job!

@Dan : Thanks man!

Off-Topic replies have been moved to this Topic.


Update on the Email delays issue :

After contacting our host we realized that delays on outgoing emails from us only happen with Google email accounts!

Other email types receive our automatically sent emails instantly so there's something wrong with the communication between our server and Google.

Therefore there is nothing we can do for now, so I would recommend using a Microsoft or a Yahoo email account as Contact Email when placing orders until we figure out a solution for this issue.

In case someone has not received a confirmation email after several hours and would like to speed up the process please contact me through this form and I will manually confirm and approve your ad.

We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience!
PTCBox.Me Administration

By distraction, this time I used my gmail account instead of the usual Yahoo. And I did notice that the confirmation mails did take a good while longer.

In contrast, I simply cannot receive any confirmation mails in Yahoo when I submit support tickets at sites using PTCevolution. I've observed this on Goldengroup and Twickerz, at least. Plus somewhere else a while ago (don't remember where), but it worked fine on gmail.

Go figure. :dontknow

ruicarlov wrote on 22^nd Aug, 2014 at 7:29pm:

By distraction, this time I used my gmail account instead of the usual Yahoo. And I did notice that the confirmation mails did take a good while longer. In contrast, I simply cannot receive any confirmation mails in Yahoo when I submit support tickets at sites using PTCevolution. I've observed this on Goldengroup and Twickerz, at least. Plus somewhere else a while ago (don't remember where), but it worked fine on gmail. Go figure. :dontknow

I've only used my yahoo on such support tickets and it worked pretty fine for me so far.. :-/
Some possible explanation is that when somebody uses a mailing server for excessive spamming and Google or Yahoo notices, they may put a time limit on the server to prevent the harm.. However this can cause such huge delays to anyone on that server.. and when we're talking about shared hosting it's affecting hundreds if not thousands of websites.. I hope that's not the case with mine..

Btw, Rui now you have a chance to let me know what you think about the tracking mechanism and the whole Ad Manager thing.. I could use some feedback..

Maybe I should ask MM to test (or destroy maybe) the whole system..  I'll think about the consequences first.. lol

SolidSnake wrote on 23^rd Aug, 2014 at 1:30am:

I've only used my yahoo on such support tickets and it worked pretty fine for me so far.. :-/ Some possible explanation is that when somebody uses a mailing server for excessive spamming and Google or Yahoo notices, they may put a time limit on the server to prevent the harm.. However this can cause such huge delays to anyone on that server.. and when we're talking about shared hosting it's affecting hundreds if not thousands of websites.. I hope that's not the case with mine.. Btw, Rui now you have a chance to let me know what you think about the tracking mechanism and the whole Ad Manager thing.. I could use some feedback.. Maybe I should ask MM to test (or destroy maybe) the whole system..  I'll think about the consequences first.. lol

I was sniffing around back there. Very tempted to press buttons  ;D

OK that was funny. I hit send on my last post and the 'site unavailable' message came up. We really shouldn't test fate here

moneymarketing wrote on 23^rd Aug, 2014 at 2:09am:

OK that was funny. I hit send on my last post and the 'site unavailable' message came up. We really shouldn't test fate here

[smiley=lolx.gif] [smiley=lolx.gif] [smiley=lolx.gif] [smiley=lolx.gif]

Update on the Emailing delays issue :

It has now been fixed and working instantly just like before!

As for what was the issue, I think the tech of our host summed it up pretty nicely :
"Part of the problem was Google using port scanning, and part was that our server security blocks port scanning to safeguard our clients!"

So, feel free to use Gmail while placing orders from now on!  [smiley=12-party.gif]

I've just completed coding another great feature that was requested by one of our major sponsors Jacknz.

New Feature in Ad Manager : View your whole history of orders on PTCBox.Me Ads (Both Banner Ads and Featured Links)

To view your history of ads on our site please use to this form and enter your Contact Email and Pin Code.

You can now view there at which stage each one of your ads are right now (submitted, confirmed, approved and queued, active or expired)

It's now much easier to view and edit your orders simply by clicking the order ID. The link will take you to the proper page.

Also getting a summary of all your orders will help you get a better view of which ones performed better than the rest and received more clicks.

You can also now easily access the details you had used in the past (spot, text, color, etc), and possibly reuse some of them in your future ad submissions.

There are more things to be added such as more details on the views your ad received and the conversion ratio(Added).
Also, we'll provide an easy way to reuse old ad details with a simple click and automatically fill the ad submission form.

Make sure you check this beautiful new feature out, let us know if you spot any bugs and stay tuned for future updates!  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

Snake over and out.. 8-)

New Feature in Ad Manager : Re-Use Ad Details

Users now have the ability of Re-using the details from previous orders with the click of a button.

Clicking that link will show the ad submission form filled up saving up a lot of time when an advertiser wants to submit the same ad again.

Also, the Ad manager now has better navigation using buttons instead of text links.

Also based on what Jacknz requested, there is now an option to show orders grouped by the current status (active is the default option).

I've started keeping a log in the second post of this thread and will add the list of the updates there as well.

I'm beginning to feel really well with how the Ad Manager looks and feels.  :cool1
Let me known what you think about it!  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

MySQL Engine Re-Coded

I have completed coding an upgraded version of my MySQL Database Access Engine.
The engine is now fully dynamic and unlimited while until yesterday it could only work with tables containing up to 20 different fields.

From now on there will be no limitation and also the code is much shorter in length :
Before it was ~1400 lines of code, now it is less than 400 lines.

Alexa says that the site's average load time is currently (1.199 Seconds) while 67% of sites are slower.

I've updated the list of updates in the second post of the thread.

Database Maintenance - Small Downtime

We will be doing some maintenance on the site's database in a couple of minutes and it will last for a few minutes.

During this time the Ads Page will not be accessible.

This is the first downtime after almost a year.

The Ads Page will be back online within a few minutes.

Everything is backed up so there's no data loss risk.

Thank you for your understanding!

Best Regards,
PTCBox.Me Administration

[edit]Edit : Maintenance is complete! The Ads Page was offline for less than a minute so the trouble was tiny.[/edit]

Same issue with the database it crashed due to hitting some limit.

It will be ready within a few minutes.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[edit]Ok things are back to normal.

Only damage is that almost another 4 hours of hit records were lost.
I'll try to make this the last time this happens.

I'll also make it notify me instantly just in case this thing decides to happen again.[/edit]

Our second version of PTCBox.Me Ads (V.2) is now 1-Year-Old!  [smiley=12-party.gif]

...and has proved to be rather stable in serving your ads! (PROMO DETAILS BELOW)

What we have achieved :
During this year (December 1st, 2013-2014) our Ads Page :

1. Has received 3,147,626 visitors
2. Has received 1,810,793 unique visitors on a 24h basis
3. Has served 113 different Banner Ad orders (not including our self-sponsored ones) for 28 different clients
4. Has served 18 different Featured Link orders (not including our self-sponsored ones) for 12 different clients

During the last 4 months (August-November 2014) that our click tracking system has been enabled we have tracked :

1. 3353 total / 3229 unique clicks on Banner Ads averaging at 838.25 total / 807.25 unique clicks monthly
2. 709 total / 697 unique clicks on Featured Links averaging at 177.25 total / 174.25 unique clicks monthly

V.2.1 has introduced our Ad Manager where you can view more detailed statistics such as :

1. How many views/unique views your ads have received
2. How many clicks/unique clicks your ads have received
3. What is your banner/text ad's click through rate

Also it provided the ability to re-use your ad details on a new ad placement saving you time from refilling the submission forms.
Of course, there are still lots of features to be added in our next version such as graphs and an even better interface to work on.

We've already collected a bunch of things to fix and upgrade in our next one along with a major visual redesign that would give us a fresh new look. Also, we're planning some reorganizing of the rest of the site as well, because the rest of our content has been left behind.

We whole-heartedly thank you all for advertising with us through all this time!

Best Regards,
SolidSnake
PTCBox.Me Administration

..So, to celebrate our V.2 successful year we are running a major promo that will last until the end of December 2014!

More specifically :

1. For every BC3 Combo Pack you purchase you receive 1 Bonus 1-Month Top Banner Spot Ad (Spots L1-R1-L2-R2)

2. For every BC1 Combo Pack you purchase you receive 1 Bonus 1-Month Mid-Top Banner Spot Ad (Spots L3-R3-L4-R4)

3. For every BC2 Combo Pack you purchase you receive 1 Bonus 1-Month Middle Banner Spot Ad (Spots L5-R5-L6-R6)

4. For every single Top or MidTop Banner Spot Ad you purchase you receive 2 Bonus FREE Featured Link Ads of the same duration!

5. For every single Middle or Bottom Banner Spot Ad you purchase you receive 1 Bonus FREE Featured Link Ads of the same duration!

We will contact you after your purchase to help you set up your bonus advertising!

Once again, [smiley=z01-thanx.gif] everyone!

Regards,
SolidSnake
PTCBox.Me Administration