Most ad platforms have more features than any one account ever finds. An advertiser who started with two banner campaigns may never open the capping settings; a publisher with ten ad zones may not know Smart Zones exist. The panel now points each member to one feature their own account can use but never has, based on what the account actually does, and steps aside once the feature is in use. Network operators get the same kind of tip in the admin panel, and can write tips of their own.
October 2026
One small card, one tip at a time
The tip is a small Did you know? card at the bottom of the side menu (in the menu drawer on a phone, and in the account dropdown when the panel uses the top menu). It names the feature, says in one line why it fits this account, and has two buttons: Show me opens the right page, and Not now puts the tip away.
The pace is deliberately slow, so the card never turns into noise:
- Nothing in a member's first seven days. New accounts have the setup steps to work through first.
- At most one new tip a week. A tip that still applies keeps its place for that week.
- Not now snoozes a tip for 30 days. Dismiss it a second time and it is gone for good.
- A tip disappears by itself as soon as the feature is used.
Every tip is decided on the server from the account's own data. When a check can't be answered, no tip is shown rather than a wrong one. Tips never appear while an admin is working inside a member's account.
Tips for advertisers and publishers
The built-in tips cover features that make a visible difference once switched on:
- Frequency capping: for an advertiser with two or more running campaigns, none of them limiting how often one visitor sees the ad.
- Day parting: the same advertisers, when every running campaign serves around the clock.
- Campaign templates: after three or more campaigns without ever saving a template, so the next campaign can start with its settings filled in.
- Smart Zones: for a publisher with ad zones but no Smart Zone, where Smart Zones are open to them. SmartZones let a zone also serve ads from other networks when that pays more.
- Conversion tracking: for an advertiser who spent on ads in the last 30 days and got no conversion back, where tracking is switched on. See how conversion tracking works.
- Cleanup: for a member with five or more campaigns or ad zones that served nothing for 90 days. The Cleanup page lists them with what they did over their lifetime.
- API and AI assistants: for an account owner who never created an API key, with a link to API keys and their scopes.
Where a feature is an option on the campaign form, Show me opens the member's newest running campaign with every form option visible. That matters for members who chose a shorter form: hiding options keeps the form tidy, and the tip makes sure a useful one isn't forgotten for ever. A member who hid that very option themselves sees its tip once at most.
Tips for the people who run the platform
The admin panel has its own card at the same pace, pointing operators to network features that are not set up yet. Each one only shows to admins with the rights to act on it:
- Agentic Media Buying, when it is switched on but no ad zone uses it yet.
- Simpler forms for members, when members create many campaigns and no form defaults are set.
- Your own tips (below), when you haven't written any.
- Slack, Teams, Google Sheets and webhook connections, when none is set up.
- The admin API and AI assistants, for an admin without an admin API key.
Write your own tips
An operator knows best which of their own services members overlook: a managed-campaign offer, a new traffic type, a support channel. Under Settings → Menu Layout → Feature tips a network can add up to ten tips of its own, each with a title, a short text, a Show me link (a page in the panel or an outside address, which opens in a new tab) and an audience: everyone, advertisers only or publishers only. Your tips come before the built-in ones and follow the same weekly pace and snooze rules; a click marks the tip as done for that member.
You decide what shows
- The network can switch the whole card off, or any single tip, for the user panel and the admin panel separately. Each tip in that list says in plain words who sees it and when, so you can judge which ones fit your members.
- Every member and every admin can switch tips off for themselves under Feature tips in the account dropdown.
See which tips work
The Results tab in the same dialog shows, per tip and per week, how many members were shown it, clicked Show me, dismissed it, and started using the feature within 14 days after clicking. A last column counts members who started using it without clicking, as a baseline, so you can see whether a tip actually moves people or only tells them what they would have found anyway. Use is counted only on real evidence, such as a capped campaign, a saved template or a new API key. The same report is available through the admin API for your own dashboards.
About GoAdserver
GoAdserver is white-label ad serving software for ad networks, ad management setups, publishers, advertisers and affiliates. Feature tips work on every GoAdserver platform and are on by default. Want to see them on your own network? Talk with our team.