Working With Mambo
Banner Rotations
Mambo gives you the ability to run a banner rotation on your site. With it, you
can have a rotation of banners of your own choosing, or run one where you can
set up accounts for others that may purchase impressions from you, or limit the
amount of impressions for banners. You can also keep track of clients that submit
banners to be viewed on your site. Only you, the administrator, can add, change,
and remove banners from your site rotation. If you wish to have people submit
banners, they will have to email you their information and banner so that you
can add it to your site.
Adding a Client
Every banner is linked to a client, or owner of the banner or site that
the banner links to. If you are doing your own rotation of banners from other
sites, or affiliate programs, you can just make a client for each banner yourself
or make one called "Affiliates" and add all the banners under that client name.
Use your own e-mail address if you're making a catch-all banner rotation.
To get started, go to Components -> Banners -> Manage Clients.
You will see a list of clients that have banners on the site. To create a new
client, click on the New icon at the top of the page.
Fill in the client name (or Affiliates, for example), Contact name (or
your own if making a catch-all account), Contact Email (or your own email if
making a catch-all account), and any extra information or notes you want to save
with this client account. When done, click the Save icon at the top of the
page.
Adding Banners
Once you have your client account(s) set up, you are ready to add banners. The
first thing you need to do is be sure you have collected all the banners you
plan to add. You need to first upload them to your CGI server in your Mambo
/images/banners/ directory. You need to do this before you add any banners.
If you have custom banner code that needs to be added, Please See Adding Custom Banner Code
below for instructions. The method to go about a custom banner is different from
the steps below.
Go to Components -> Banners -> Manage Banners.
On this page you can see a list of banners that are in your rotation. You can
also publish (allow them in the rotation) or unpublish (remove them from the
rotation but not from the database or server) by clicking on the icon in the
Published column. An icon with a green checkmark indicates that the banner
will be in the rotation and viewable. A red 'x' indicates that the banner will
not show up in the rotation, but the information is still in the database in case
you wish to make it viewable on your site at a later time.
To add a new banner, click on the New icon at the top of the page.
Pick a unique name for this particular banner.
Select the client name from the drop-down box. This will attach the banner with
a particular client.
Fill in how many times (impressions) this banner is to be displayed on your site.
If you want it to be in the rotation forever, click the box next to unlimited
instead.
Select which banner to use from the Banner URL drop down box. This is a
list of banners you have in your Mambo /images/banners/ directory. Be sure the
banner you want to use is already uploaded to your CGI server.
For the Show Banner drop down box, you usually want to choose 'yes'. You
can choose 'no' if you have decided to put a banner on hold and show in your
rotation at different times like seasonal banners, or if you're waiting payment
for impressions, etc.
In the Click URL box, type in the full URL that a visitor will go
to when they click on the banner.
When done, click the Save icon at the top of the page.
You will see your new banner added to the list. If you have selected to not
show the banner, there will be a red 'x' in the Published column. Simply
clicking on this icon will change it and publish (add) your banner to the viewable
rotation.
Adding Custom Banner Code
If you want to add a banner that requires special code rather than a single http://
address (such as some affiliate programs that may use scripts to log your
impressions), then you will need to go about this in a different way:
First, since all banners must have an image, even if one is already defined
in the custom code, create a 468 x 60 "blank" banner called blank.gif and
upload it to your Mambo /images/banners/ directory. This should be a transparent
GIF file. You can use this for any banner that has the url or <img src...>
tag as part if it's custom code.
Go to Components -> Banners -> Manage Banners
and click on the New icon at the top of the page.
Type in a unique name for the banner which will appear in the list of banners.
Select the client that the banner is for from the drop-down box.
Type in the number of impressions or click on the box next to unlimited
if you wish to display the banner in the rotation for an unlimited number of times.
From the Banner URL drop down box, select your blank.gif blank banner.
Select 'yes' from the Show Banner drop down box if you want to start
displaying the banner.
In the Click URL box, type in the following:
<!-- See Custom Code -->
Cut and paste the code for the banner in the Custom banner code box.
Click on the Save icon at the top of the page.
What if I am hosting the banner but have custom code?
The Custom banner code will take precedence over the Banner URL so
even if you uploaded and selected the image, you will not see the banner unless
you put the banner image in your custom code. For example, you would need to
use the following code, and the above method for choosing the blank image for the
Banner URL:
<a href='http://your-banner-click-url.com' target='_new'>
<img src='http://cgi.yourdomain.com/mambo/images/banners/yourbanner.gif' border='0''>
</a'>
Note that you will need to change the highlighted areas to suit your banner URL,
CGI server url and name of the directory you installed Mambo in, etc.
Non-Clickable Banners
You can not create banners that do nothing when clicked. All banners must
have some kind of special code or URL to go to in order to display the banner.
If you want to display other types of items, messages or banners, you'll need
to write a Module and
add it to your site layout. If you have a banner
that doesn't go to anyone's web site, but displays their address and phone (such
as a local business without a web site), you may wish to try finding the business
on Yahoo! Local and then linking the banner
to the business' page. This way people get an address, phone number, map and
possbily reviews of the business. This is ideal for businesses you would like
people to know about but who do not have a web site of their own. Of course, we
encourage you to talk to your favorite business about hosting their presence on
the internet with Active Web Hosting.
Remember, you can Get a monthly credit if they
sign up using your domain as a reference!
Editing An Existing Client or Banner
You can edit an existing client by clicking on their name in the
Components -> Banners -> Manage Clients page.
You can also edit existing banners by clicking on their name in the
Components -> Banners -> Manage Banners page.
Deleting A Clients Or Banners
To delete banners, simply go to the
Components -> Banners -> Manage Banners page
and click on the box next to the banner(s) you wish to delete. Then click on the
Delete icon at the top of the page. Note that you will also have to remove
the banner image from your Mambo /images/banners/ directory if you had placed one
there for this banner.
To delete a client, be sure that any banners that are under this client's name
are either deleted, or you have edited them to be under another client's name.
After this is done, go to the
Components -> Banners -> Manage Clients page
and select the client(s) you wish to delete, then click on the Delete
icon at the top of the page.
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