Managing Ads

Managing Ads

There are few things to learn before we get started:

1. Zone - This is the area on a your website where the ads are placed. You can define any number of zones. You can have many ads in a zone which will randomize. Zones can be defined in Manage Content > Ads > Edit Zones

2. Ad - An ad can be some HTML code, image or flash snippet. It needs to be created from Manage Content > Ads > Create New Ad. An ad may belong to one zone.

Managing Zones

Options to create or edit zones is available under "Ads" on "Manage Content" menu.
 
When you click on "Edit Zones" button you will be taken to a page where you will see a text entry box with label "Zone" and it will list up the preexisting zones (each line holds the name of a zone), you may :  
  • Add a new zone by entering its name in a new line 
  • Change the name of an existing zone by editing the text in the related line 
  • Remove a zone by deleting a line 

Displaying Ads on Front-end

Normally, you can use any of the module sections to insert your ads.

For creating a custom zone in your template:

1. You can place it inside any template file (.ctp) using this code:

<php
App::import('Helper','Ads.Ads');
$adsHelper = new AdsHelper;
echo $adsHelper->show('your_zone_name');
?>

This requires some technical know-how of PHP though.

2. Save 'your_zone_name' from Manage Content > Ads > Edit Zones.

Note: You can also display ads of a specified zone on any page using module visibility parameters.


Ads Module


Once ad zones are in place and you have created the ads, to show them up on frontend the final step is using those zones in an Ad module. The most important part here would be the selection of the zone on the parameters tab. 

After the module is published, you should be able to see the ads