Introduction

Getting your server noticed is the hardest part of running an Open Tibia server. You might have the best custom map, the most balanced PvP system, and a dedicated team — but if nobody sees your server, none of that matters.

That's why we built a complete advertising system into OpenTibiaServer.com. It's designed to be fair, transparent, and most importantly, real. No inflated numbers, no fake impressions, no bots clicking on your server. You pay for actual visibility from real visitors, and you have full control over every aspect of your campaigns.

In this guide, we'll walk you through everything you need to know: how each promotion method works, how you pay, how we verify that every impression and click is genuine, and where you can track all your statistics in real time.

Table of Contents

• Three Ways to Promote Your Server
• Advertising Locations
• Shared Budget Across Locations
• Naming Your Campaigns
• Bulk Campaign Actions
• Global Invoice
• Ended Campaigns View
• How Pricing Works
• Genuine Traffic — No Bots, No Fake Numbers
• Our Verification System
• Budget Control
• Admin Oversight
• Where to See Your Stats
• Requirements to Get Started
• Quick Access

Three Ways to Promote Your Server

We offer three different promotion methods, each designed for different goals and budgets. You can use one or combine them — it's entirely up to you.

1. Sponsored Listing

This is our most popular and flexible promotion method. Your server appears highlighted with a golden crown icon in the main server list, making it stand out from all other servers. Visitors immediately know that your server is featured and worth checking out.

With Sponsored Listings, you pay only for what you actually use. There are two pricing components:

• CPM (Cost Per Mille) — You pay a small amount for every 1,000 times your server is visible on a visitor's screen. The minimum CPM is 0.10 OTC. This means that for every 1,000 genuine impressions your server receives, you pay your chosen CPM rate.
• CPC (Cost Per Click) — You pay a specific amount each time someone actually clicks on your server in the list. The minimum CPC is 0.01 OTC. This ensures you're only paying when someone shows real interest in your server.

You set your own CPM, CPC, and total budget when you create your campaign. The minimum budget is just 1 OTC, so you can start small and scale up as you see results.

2. Countdown Banner

If your server is about to launch or has a major update coming, a Countdown Banner is the perfect way to build hype. Your banner appears on the homepage with a live countdown timer, creating urgency and excitement among potential players.

Countdown Banners work on a simple fixed-price model: 30 OTC per day. You choose the dates through our calendar system, select how many days you want the banner to run, and submit your request. Each countdown banner requires approval from our team before it goes live — this ensures that all banners meet our quality standards and that the content is appropriate for our community.

Once approved, your banner will automatically appear on the homepage at midnight on your selected start date and count down to your chosen opening time. When the countdown ends, the banner disappears automatically — no manual cleanup needed.

3. Auto-Promoted Slots

When there are no active Sponsored Listings in the carousel, OpenTibiaServer.com automatically fills the promotional space with featured servers. This keeps the homepage looking active and vibrant at all times. If you buy a Sponsored Listing, your server will take priority over any auto-promoted server in that slot.

Advertising Locations

Sponsored Listings aren't limited to a single spot anymore. OpenTibiaServer.com now offers five different advertising locations across the site, so you can choose exactly where your server appears — or let it appear everywhere.

Here are all the available locations:

• Home List Inline — A horizontal banner that appears between servers in the main list, every 8 positions. This is great for catching the eye of players who are actively browsing servers.
• Home Carousel — A golden rotating banner on the homepage. This is the most visible spot on the entire site, perfect for maximum exposure.
• Server Detail Top — A horizontal banner displayed right below the server's header banner. Visible to anyone who clicks into a server's detail page.
• Server Detail Bottom — A horizontal banner shown below the player statistics section. Catches visitors who are already reading server details and checking stats.
• Promoted List Card — A promoted position in the top 4 of the main server list. Your server gets a premium spot right where most players start looking.

You can choose one specific location, or select All Locations to maximize your reach across the entire site.

Shared Budget Across Locations

When you choose All Locations, a single campaign is created for every available spot, but your budget is shared across all of them. This means you don't need to manage five separate budgets — you set one total budget, and it's distributed automatically as impressions and clicks come in from any location.

This is the recommended option for most server owners, as it ensures maximum visibility without the hassle of managing individual campaigns for each spot. If you prefer to target a specific location only — for example, just the Home Carousel — you can do that too.

Naming Your Campaigns

You can now give each campaign a custom name when you create it. For example, you might call it "Summer 2026 Promotion" or "Weekend Boost" — whatever helps you organize your advertising efforts.

This is especially useful if you run multiple campaigns over time and want to keep track of which promotion corresponds to which event or season. The campaign name appears in your dashboard and in your invoices, making everything easier to identify.

Bulk Campaign Actions

If you have campaigns running across multiple locations, you don't need to manage them one by one. From your campaign dashboard, you can perform bulk actions that apply to all campaigns for a server at once:

• Edit All — Update CPM, CPC, or budget for all campaigns in one action.
• Pause All — Temporarily stop all campaigns. You won't be charged while paused.
• Resume All — Reactivate all paused campaigns at once.
• Deactivate All — Permanently stop all campaigns. Any unspent budget is refunded to your wallet immediately.

This makes managing multi-location advertising simple and fast.

Global Invoice

When your campaigns end — either because the budget was fully spent or because you deactivated them — you can view a Global Invoice that consolidates all advertising activity for your server in one place.

The Global Invoice includes:

• Campaign name, start date, and end date
• All locations (spots) where your server was advertised
• Impressions, clicks, and CTR for each individual location
• Amount spent per location
• Totals section — Total impressions, total clicks, global CTR, total spent, initial budget, and any unused budget that was refunded

This gives you a complete, transparent summary of everything that happened with your advertising — all in a single view.

Ended Campaigns View

Campaigns that have finished — whether because the budget ran out or because they were deactivated — are grouped in a separate Ended Campaigns section in your dashboard. This keeps your active campaigns clean and easy to manage, while still giving you full access to review past campaign performance and invoices at any time.

How Pricing Works

When you create a Sponsored Listing campaign, you set two rates:

• CPM (Cost Per Mille) — The amount you pay per 1,000 impressions. Minimum: 0.10 OTC.
• CPC (Cost Per Click) — The amount you pay per click. Minimum: 0.01 OTC.

You also set a total budget — the maximum amount you want to spend. The minimum budget is 1 OTC. Every time your server receives an impression or a click, the corresponding cost is deducted from your budget. When your budget is fully spent, the campaign automatically ends.

If you chose All Locations, the budget is shared across all spots — so a click on the Home Carousel and an impression on Server Detail Top both draw from the same pool.

Genuine Traffic — No Bots, No Fake Numbers

This is the part we're most proud of. Every single impression and click that gets counted toward your campaign comes from a real visitor using a real browser. Here's how it works:

Impressions: We only count an impression when your server's card is actually visible on the visitor's screen. If it's below the fold and the user never scrolls down to it, it doesn't count. We use the visitor's viewport to determine true visibility — if they can't see it, you don't pay for it.

Additionally, each visitor only counts as one impression per visit. If someone scrolls up and down past your server multiple times, it still counts as a single impression. This prevents any artificial inflation of your numbers.

Clicks: We register a click only when a visitor physically clicks on your server's link or button in the list. There's no way to generate fake clicks — each click must come from a real interaction with the page.

Our Verification System

We've built a multi-layered verification system to ensure that all traffic is genuine. Here's what we do — without getting into technical details:

• Bot detection: We automatically identify and block known bots, crawlers, scraping tools, and automated browsers. If a request comes from something that isn't a real person using a real browser, it's rejected.
• Rate limiting: Each visitor can only generate a certain number of impressions and clicks within a specific time frame. If someone tries to generate hundreds of events in a few minutes, they're automatically blocked.
• Daily limits: There's a cap on how many impressions and clicks a single visitor can generate in one day. This prevents anyone from artificially inflating your stats or draining your budget with fake traffic.
• IP blocking: When we detect suspicious behavior, the offending IP address is temporarily blocked from our tracking system. Repeat offenders face longer blocks.
• Full audit logs: Every single impression and click is recorded with information about the visitor (their approximate location, browser, and time of visit). This creates a complete audit trail that we can review at any time.
• Admin oversight: Our team actively monitors advertising activity. If we detect unusual patterns — like a sudden spike in impressions from a single location — we can pause the campaign immediately and investigate.

This system is constantly running in the background, protecting your investment and ensuring that every OTC you spend goes toward real, genuine visibility.

Budget Control

You have complete control over your advertising budget. Here's what you can do:

• Set your budget — Choose exactly how much you want to spend. The minimum is 1 OTC, and there's no maximum.
• Automatic stop — When your budget is fully spent, your campaign stops automatically. You'll never be charged more than what you allocated.
• Pause and resume — You can pause your campaign at any time and resume it later. While paused, you won't be charged for impressions or clicks.
• Edit your rates — You can change your CPM, CPC, and budget at any time during an active campaign. Want to bid higher to rank better? Just update your rates and it takes effect immediately.
• Bulk editing — If you have campaigns across multiple locations, you can edit all of them at once with a single action.
• Automatic refunds — If you deactivate a campaign, any unspent budget is immediately returned to your wallet. You can see the refund in your transaction history.

Manage your campaigns here.

Admin Oversight

Our team plays an active role in maintaining the quality and integrity of our advertising system:

• Countdown Banner approval: Every countdown banner request is reviewed by our team before it goes live. We check that the content is appropriate, the website link works, and the opening date is valid. This typically takes less than 24 hours.
• Campaign pauses: If we detect suspicious activity on a Sponsored Listing — such as unusual click patterns or potential fraud — we can pause the campaign and notify the owner. The owner can then respond with an explanation, and our team will review and decide whether to resume the campaign.
• Automatic refunds on admin pause: If a campaign is paused by our team and not resumed, any remaining budget is refunded to the owner's wallet.
• Full transparency: When we pause a campaign, we always provide a reason. The owner can see this reason in their campaign dashboard and respond directly through the platform.

Where to See Your Stats

We believe you should always know exactly how your advertising is performing. That's why all your statistics are available in real time, updated automatically as visitors interact with your server.

Here's where to find everything:

• Campaign Dashboard — This is your main control center. Here you can see every campaign you've created, along with real-time statistics: total impressions, total clicks, amount spent, remaining budget, and current status. You can also create new campaigns, edit existing ones, pause, resume, or deactivate campaigns (individually or in bulk), view ended campaigns, and access detailed global invoices for completed campaigns.
• Advertising Hub — This is where you start a new promotion. From here you can sponsor a server, request a countdown banner, view your active countdowns, and review your full transaction history. It's the central hub for all your advertising activities.
• Wallet — Your financial center. Check your current OTC balance, recharge your wallet, and review every transaction — including campaign payments, refunds, and deposits. Every OTC that goes in or out is logged here.

All statistics are updated in real time. You don't need to refresh the page — as visitors see and click on your server, the numbers update automatically.

Requirements to Get Started

Getting started with advertising on OpenTibiaServer.com is simple. Here's what you need:

1. Own a listed server — You must be the verified owner of a server that's already listed on our platform. If you haven't claimed your server yet, you can claim it here.
2. Have OTC balance in your wallet — You'll need OTCoins to fund your campaigns. You can recharge your wallet using PayPal, Stripe, or cryptocurrency. The minimum recharge amount depends on your chosen payment method.
3. Choose your promotion method — Decide whether you want a Sponsored Listing, a Countdown Banner, or both. Each method has different strengths: Sponsored Listings are great for ongoing visibility across multiple locations, while Countdown Banners are perfect for launches and major updates.

Once you have these three things, you're ready to go. Head to your Advertising Hub to get started.

Quick Access

Ready to start promoting your server? Here are the links you need:

• Create or manage a campaign →
• Promote your server →
• Recharge your wallet →
• Claim your server →

If you have any questions about how our advertising system works, feel free to leave a comment below or contact our team. We're here to help your server grow.