Banner Ads

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Banner Ads

The Invisible Gold Banner Ad system is designed for advanced users to integrate in large scale websites for use in online advertising campains (selling ads for certain sections of your site, etc.)

It also stores ads so clients can pay for a certain number of months. It also allows storage of ads for future use.

Note: This area of the product is continuing to evolve with feedback from our users. Let us know how it can better meet your advetising department's needs.

What Does The Banner Ad Look Like
The Banner Ad system creates a collection of ads with URL links. Its power is the ability to choose which pages any one ad is displayed on. Custom templates define the look. For example, the Wide mode would be good across the top of a site.

The image below shows what the ads look like to an Administrator. You can click the "create a new ad" to put a new ad on whatever page we are looking at. The links at the top over each ad allow you to hide an ad on any section of the site.

Banner Ad Lists Page

Clicking on the Banner Ads button on the left (when you are logged in as an Administrator) will show the collections of ads on your website.

For example, in this picture there are two collections: Banner Ads, and Thumbnails. This would be good if you have different size ads that work into different areas of the site.

To create a new List, click the Create New button at the bottom and give it a name.

A Banner Ad List

If you click on a Banner Ad List, you will see all of the ads that it holds. Note how each has a thumbnail and link to the advertiser's website.

Each ad also has a ShowList and a HideList. These are used to determine where the ad is displayed. For example, you would have "/" in the ShowList if it is to show on all pages of the site. However, then you could hide it from a specific area simply by putting the ID of that page in the HideList. It is quite flexible.

Create a new Ad by clicking the link in the top right corner. You can View, Edit, or Delete ads with the link shown on each line.

Creating a Banner Ad

When you create a new Banner Ad, you simply need to give it a name and the a URL (website address) is optional. To start out, it makes sense to put the ID for the top page you want the ad to show up in. For example, put "/" for every page on the site.

Next, return to the site and look for the ad. It will be everywhere. You can now refine the ShowList and Hidelists to indicate where exactly it should or shouldn't go.

Note: You need to be careful not to have too many ads on any page of your site. This is particularly important for banner ads which tend to be wide.

Uploading an Ad Image

Save a new Banner Ad and then click View to see the upload button. Keep in mind that images for Banner Ads are not automatically scaled. You'll want to choose the final display size before uploading them.

Enabling the Banner Ad System

Enable the Banner Ad system by turning on the System Setting "Enable Banner Ad system".

You will see the Banner Ads button on the left when you are logged in as an Administrator. Create a different collection for each major type of ad. (For example, Banner Ads for across the top of your site, and Thumbnails for the right side of your site.) Keep in mind, it makes most sense to differentiate based on size or perhaps price of the ads.

Next, modify the design of the site to show the ads. This involves putting appropriate GetHTML calls into the Frameworks.

<gethtml data="bannerad" id="/system/ads/bannerads/" mode="wide" objtype="system\bannerad"/> - This example would show ads from a collection called "BannerAds" using the wide.xsl Template file found in the System\Currentversion\Templates\system\bannerad\ directory. This one would work almost immediately as the template comes with the system, and the 'bannerads' collection is created by default.

Note: The "Wide" banner ad layout would be appropriate for the top of a website as "Banner" ads.

<gethtml data="bannerad" id="/system/ads/thumbnails/" mode="tall" objtype="system\bannerad"/> - This call would work almost right away as well. However, you would need to create a new ad collection called Thumbnails and put some ads into it. This would be appropriate for a vertical collection of ads on the left or right side of a site.

Note: Ads are not automatically scaled. It would be relatively easy to start with the tall.xsl or wide.xsl and create your own ad template that has different layout options. (Assuming you have a basic understanding of how to create Custom Templates.)

Simple Rotating Ad System That Doesn't Use Banner Ads
The Banner Ad system is really aimed at the larger site and requires the Advanced Commerce license. It would be possible to create a much simpler ad system using a GetHTML call and a custom template.

<gethtml data="random" id="/ads/" mode="image" object="siteads"/>

This call would randomly choose one of the pages below a new page called "/ads/". The image.xsl custom template would need to be created in a directory called "/templates/siteads". It would simply need to display the current image with a link to its site.

Adding new ads to this system would simply require you to create new children of the /ads/ page. For example this could be a URL List template. Thus all of the available URLS would be randomly chosen and displayed as a banner ad.

Keywords:

Banner Ads, License, Shopping Cart

Banner Ads

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