How advertising works

OnTheList.Live is self-serve advertising software. A screen owner (we call them the host) sets up a board for their place and opens its screen link on a screen there. Businesses buy spots on that board by card. The board shows the spots in order of what each business has paid, on the screen and on the board's own web page.

You do not deal with an ad agency, sign a contract or book a sales call. You pick an amount, see the full price before you pay, and pay on a secure checkout page.

A spot is a placement on one board: your business's name, a short line about it if you write one, your website, and the place your total buys on the board. You keep that place for as long as your total holds it, for the rest of the board's cycle. A cycle is a day, a week or a month, set by the screen owner; some boards have no end date.

A spot is an ad, and it is labelled as one. The full rules are in the bid rules.

In two places:

• On the screen in the venue. The screen shows the board's top five spots. The #1 spot carries its own code that people can scan to reach your website; spots #2 to #5 show their website's address written out.
• On the board's web page. Every spot is listed there, the top five as large tiles and every other spot as a row below them. Your business name links to your website.

A spot below fifth place is still a spot: it is on the board's page, not on the screen.

By money, and nothing else. Spots are ranked by the total each business has paid in the current cycle, highest first. If two totals are equal, the one that reached that total first keeps the higher place. The screen owner cannot move a spot up or down. See ranking and outbids.

In words: businesses pay, each spot's payments add up to a total for the cycle, spots are ranked by total paid (a tie keeps its place), the top five appear on the screen with #1 carrying its own QR code, and every spot is listed on the board's page. Paying more adds to your total and can move you up; you pay only what you add. On a board that runs in cycles, the totals start again from zero when a cycle ends; a board with no end date never resets.

Each board has a minimum price for a first spot, set by its owner and never less than $5. You can pay more to take a higher place. On top of the amount you choose, you pay a service fee, shown before you pay. For example, at the platform's current fee and before any sales tax, a $50 spot costs $62.10 in total: $50 for the spot and a $12.10 service fee. The full breakdown is in prices and fees for advertisers.

No. You need a website address, an email address that receives mail, and a card. Your first payment creates a sponsor account for your email address, but you never have to use it: everything you need arrives by email, including a link that opens your spot's own page. See managing your spot.

You pay the screen owner. The payment goes through Stripe, a payment processor, straight into the screen owner's own Stripe account, and your card statement shows the screen owner's business name, usually followed by a short form of the board's name. OnTheList.Live never holds the money you pay for a spot. Our share is our fee inside the service fee.

In words: your card pays the spot price plus the service fee; Stripe's checkout page shows you the full total first; the payment lands in the screen owner's Stripe account, which pays out to their bank. On a US card the screen owner keeps the whole spot price. The service fee splits in two: our fee goes to OnTheList.Live, and the card processing pays Stripe for processing your card.

A new board starts with approval on: the screen owner approves each new website before its spot shows, unless they have turned approval off. On those boards your card is only held when you pay, not charged. It is charged when the owner approves your spot. If the owner turns it down, or the cycle ends before they look at it, the hold is released and nothing is charged. See approval and card holds.

In words: you pay the price plus the service fee, and on a board without approval the spot shows right away. On a board with approval on, your card is held until the owner decides; approved, it is charged and the spot goes on the board, ranked by total paid; not approved, it is turned down and nothing is charged. If another business pays more, you move down, and you can pay more to move back up. When the cycle ends, nothing renews on its own.

For the rest of the board's current cycle: until the end of the day, week or month the owner chose. On a board with no end date, it lasts for as long as your total holds its place. Nothing renews on its own, and your card is never charged again unless you choose to pay more.

You move down a place and stay on the board. While the cycle is open you can pay more at any time to move back up, and you pay only the amount you add, plus the service fee on it. If you tick the box for it when you pay, we email you when someone moves ahead of you. See ranking and outbids.

Payments for spots are final: being moved down by another business, or changing your mind, is not a reason for a refund. There are cases where money comes back by itself, such as a payment that completes after the cycle has ended. Those cases, and what is returned, are on refunds for advertisers and in the refund policy.

Yes. Every board opens with a line saying it is a sponsored board of paid ads, and the screen carries a shorter version of it under the board's name. The link to your website is marked as a paid link for search engines. A high place tells people you paid more, not that anyone recommends you. See the sponsorship disclosure.

No. A spot is a place on a board for the time your total holds it. Nobody can promise how many people will see it, scan it or visit your website, and we do not.

Yes. When someone clicks your spot on a board, or scans its code on a board's page or on a screen, they reach your website with three tags added to the address: utm_source=onthelist.live, utm_medium=board for a click or utm_medium=qr for a scan, and utm_campaign set to the board's name in its web address (the part after onthelist.live/). Google Analytics and most other analytics tools read these tags and show the visit under that source and campaign. If the address you give us already carries your own utm_ tags, we keep them: those visits arrive with your tags as you wrote them, and we add none of ours. Other tracking codes in the address, such as an ad click's gclid or fbclid, are left out of the address we store for your spot. The address stored for your spot never changes.

Three ways: scan the code on a screen that says "Scan to put your business here"; open a board's link that its owner sent you; or browse the boards listed in the board directory.