Connecting Your Site for Automated PR Publishing

A start-to-finish walkthrough for publishers, from adding your site, to choosing how PR orders reach you, to confirming everything works before your first order arrives.

This guide takes you from the moment you sign up as a Mintfunnel publisher to the moment your first PR order publishes on your site without you lifting a finger. It covers every supported publishing method and tells you exactly where to go after the Mintfunnel Team approves your site.

Estimated time: 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the method you pick.

What you'll need

A Mintfunnel publisher account (sign up at mintfunnel.co).
The site you want to enroll, with admin access.
One of: WordPress admin access (for the plugin path), a Zapier account (for the no-code path), or a developer plus a place to host a webhook receiver (for the API path).

Step 1: Add your site through the onboarding wizard

Once signed in, open Sites in the sidebar and click Add a site. The wizard walks you through four short steps.

Basics. Enter your domain, contact email, monthly traffic, language, and geographic focus. Choose whether the site joins the Ad Network, PR Distribution, or both. For automated publishing, PR Distribution must be on.
Details. Upload a screenshot or two that proves your traffic numbers (an analytics dashboard works well). If you're enrolling in PR Distribution, upload a logo we can show to advertisers.
PR delivery. Pick how PR orders should reach your site (Step 2 below explains the four options) and confirm pricing for each content type you accept. We pre-fill suggested pricing so you can take the defaults and move on.
Review. Look over the summary, accept the publisher terms, and submit. Your site moves from a draft into our review queue.

The Mintfunnel Team typically reviews submissions within one to two business days. You'll get an email the moment a decision is made.

If you only want to receive orders by email and copy-paste them into your CMS yourself, choose Manual at the PR delivery step. You can switch to an automated method later without losing any orders.

Step 2: Choose how PR orders reach your site

Mintfunnel supports four delivery methods. The wizard asks you to pick one, but you can change your mind any time on the Services > PR Distribution > Publishing setup page.

WordPress plugin (recommended for WordPress sites)

We install our official plugin from the WordPress directory, you paste an API key into its settings, and approved orders publish as drafts (or live posts) on your site. Setup takes about five minutes. Free. Best for any site that runs on WordPress.

Full setup steps: Installing & Configuring the Mintfunnel WordPress Plugin.

Zapier (no code)

We send each approved order to a Zapier webhook URL you control. Inside Zapier, you wire that webhook to your CMS (Ghost, Webflow, Shopify, Squarespace, Notion, Substack, and 1,000+ others). No developer needed. Requires a paid Zapier plan. Best for non-WordPress sites without an in-house developer.

Full setup steps: Zapier Set Up Guide for Publishers.

Webhook / API (developer)

We POST a signed JSON payload to a webhook endpoint your developer hosts. Your code verifies the HMAC signature, calls your CMS's API, and returns a 2xx response. Maximum control, no third-party dependency. Best for custom-built sites with engineering resources.

Full setup steps: Webhook / API Set Up Guide for Publishers.

Manual

We email you each approved order with the article and assets. You paste it into your CMS and mark the placement published from the Mintfunnel dashboard. No setup required. Best for low-volume publishers, or anyone who wants a human in the loop on every post.

Quick comparison

WordPress plugin: five-minute setup, free, WordPress only, near-instant delivery.
Zapier: ten to twenty minutes setup, paid plan, works with most CMSes, a few seconds delay.
Webhook / API: developer time required, free to run, any platform, near-instant delivery.
Manual: no setup, no automation, fine for the occasional post.

Step 3: After approval, finish your delivery setup

Picking a method in the wizard is not the same as configuring it. If you chose WordPress plugin, Zapier, or Webhook / API, you still need to plug in the credentials before an order can publish. This is the step new publishers most often skip.

When the Mintfunnel Team approves your site, two things happen:

The approval email includes a yellow box reminding you to finish your publishing setup, with a link straight to the right page.
A yellow banner appears at the top of your publisher dashboard until you finish the setup.

Both point to Services > PR Distribution > Publishing setup. Open that page, select the site you're configuring (if you have more than one), and follow the inline steps for the method you picked. Each method shows a green checkmark once it's verified, and a Send test ping button you can use to confirm Mintfunnel can reach your receiver.

Until this is done, advertiser orders for that site will fail to publish. Finishing the setup is what unlocks automated publishing.

Step 4: Set your approval policy

Below the method picker, you'll see an Order approval section.

Require my approval before publishing (the default and what we recommend): every order lands in your approval queue at PR Distribution > Approval Queue. Nothing publishes until you click Approve.
Auto-approve: orders publish immediately when they reach you, with no review on your end.

The Mintfunnel Team always reviews orders editorially before they reach you. The approval toggle only controls whether each order also waits in your own queue. We suggest leaving manual approval on at first and switching to auto-approve once you trust the flow.

The Manual delivery method ignores this toggle. You're already in the loop on every order, so there's nothing to auto-approve.

Step 5: Send a test ping

With credentials saved, scroll to the Send test ping button inside the method card and click it. We post a dummy pr.test_ping event to your receiver. The indicator turns green if your endpoint responded with a 2xx status.

Common reasons a test fails:

The endpoint URL has a typo.
For Webhook / API, the signing secret on your receiver doesn't match the one in Mintfunnel.
Your server is blocking requests from our user agent (Mintfunnel-PR/1.0).
The endpoint returned a non-2xx status. Open your server logs for the exact reason.

Step 6: Add at least one active content type

Open Services > PR Distribution > Content types and confirm at least one row is toggled on, with a price and a turnaround time. Advertisers can only order a content type when it's active. The wizard pre-fills the most common content type, so most publishers don't need to touch this page during setup, but it's worth a glance.

What happens when an order arrives

The Mintfunnel Team approves an advertiser's order editorially.
The order lands in your Approval Queue at PR Distribution > Approval Queue (skipped if you've turned on auto-approve).
You click Approve. (Or auto-approve fires instantly.)
Mintfunnel delivers the order using your chosen method: a draft in WordPress, a Zap firing into your CMS, or a signed JSON POST to your webhook receiver.
The placement shows as Published in your dashboard, the article URL is recorded, and your wallet is credited at the moment of publish.

Troubleshooting

The banner is telling you the delivery method you chose still needs credentials. Open Services > PR Distribution > Publishing setup and complete the in-page steps. The banner clears automatically once your method's setup is verified.

I configured a method but orders aren't publishing

Open PR Distribution > Content and look at the placement's publish status. If it shows Failed, hover the row for the reason. Most failures fall into one of three buckets:

Missing credentials: finish the setup on the Publishing setup page.
Endpoint returned an error: open your CMS or server logs to see what your receiver said when Mintfunnel posted to it.
Plugin not connected: for WordPress, confirm the plugin shows a green connection status on the Publishing setup page.

Fix the underlying issue, then re-trigger by approving a new order or by contacting the Mintfunnel Team to re-fire the publish for the failed order.

I want to change my delivery method later

Open Services > PR Distribution > Publishing setup, pick the new method, and save. Your old credentials stay stored (so you can switch back without re-pasting), but only the currently selected method runs at publish time.

I have more than one site

Each site has its own publishing method, its own credentials, and its own approval policy. On the Publishing setup page, a tab strip at the top lets you switch between sites. Configure each one independently.

Need help?

Reach out to the Mintfunnel Team at support@mintfunnel.com and we'll get you sorted.