Scheduling and Displaying Banner Ads

Introduction

Banner ads are text and/or graphics advertisements for services, products, or web sites. Banner ads are usually sold by a block of impressions (hits) or click-throughs during a specific period of time. For example, if your web site receives 10,000 hits per month, you might sell 10 banner ad clients 1,000 impressions each on a monthly contract. The mgiBannerAd tag allows you to sell create and display groups of banner ads for different locations on a web page, for example.

In this example, 2 banner ads are added to the top of a home page.

MGI Tags

Steps

  1. Create a banner ad administration page and open it in a text editor.
  2. Insert the mgiBannerAd tag in Admin mode.
  3. Save the banner ad administration page.
  4. FTP the banner ad administration page to the web server running MGI.
  5. View the banner ad administration page.
  6. Add new banner ads.
  7. Open the home page in a text editor.
  8. Insert the mgiBannerAd tag in Display mode.
  9. Save the home page.
  10. FTP the home page and the banner ad images to the web server running MGI.
  11. View the home page in a web browser.

Step 1: Create a banner ad administration page and open it in a text editor.

Create a page named "banneradmin.mgi" to display the web-based banner ad interface. Open the page in a text editing program that allows you to view and modify the HTML and code of the page.

Step 2: Insert the mgiBannerAd tag in Admin mode.

Insert your cursor after the beginning <BODY> element and enter the mgiBannerAd tag and mode parameter. In the mode parameter, enter "Admin": 
<mgiBannerAd mode="Admin">

Step 3: Save the banner ad administration page.

Save the changes you have made to the banner ad administration page.

Step 4: FTP the banner ad administration page to the web server running MGI.

Upload the banner ad administration page from your local computer to the web server using an FTP program.

Step 5: View the banner ad administration page.

View the banneradmin.html page in a web browser. The first screen of the web-based, administration interface is displayed.

Step 6: Add new banner ads.

The first screen of the banner ad administration allows you to add or import banner ads (or search for banner ads if they already exist).

 
To add a new banner ad, click the "New" button. On the new banner ad screen, enter information about the banner ad in the following fields.
  • Group. The name of the group that the banner ad rotates with. A group may be a location on a page or any other organization of banner ads.
  • Client: The name of the company or individual purchasing the banner ad. The client name is for your record keeping purposes and will be used when displaying client statistics.
  • Ad Name: The name of the banner ad. This does not have to be the name of the image file. The ad name is for your record keeping and banner differentiation purposes only.
  • Sales Method. Select "Impressions" to sell the banner ad by a block of hits (impressions). Select "Click Thrus" to sell the banner ad by the number of click-throughs from your site to the banner ad link.
  • Projected Hits: If you select the"Impressions" sales method, enter the projected (sold) hits for the banner ad over the time period specified in the start and end date. Before selling banner ad space, you should get traffic reports for your web site to help you estimate the total hits that are available for sale.
  • Projected Clicks. If you selected the "Click Thrus" sales method, enter the projected (sold) clicks for the banner ad over the time period specified in the start and end date.
  • Start Date: The month, day and 4-digit year that the banner ad should be placed in rotation.
  • End Date: The month, day and 4-digit year that the banner ad should be taken out of rotation.
  • HTML Code: The HTML code including text, image sources and links that will display for the banner ad.
  • Impressions: The total number of times the ad has been displayed on a page. The impressions are calculated automatically by mgiBannerAd and should not be entered for new banner ads.
  • Click Thrus: The total number of times a user has clicked the banner ad and linked to the URL specified in the HTML Code. The click thrus are calculated automatically by mgiBannerAd and should not be enetered for new banner ads.

After submitting a new banner ad, the message "Record successfully added" displays and allows you to enter additional banner ads at the new banner screen. For this example, enter 2 banner ads with the following information:
 
Saturn Banner Ad:
Group: Top Home
Client: Saturn
Ad Name: L300
Sales Method: Impressions
Projected Hits: 10000
Start Date: 12/01/2000
End Date: 12/31/2000
HTML Code: <a href="http://www.saturn.com" target="_blank"><img src="saturn.gif" border="0"></a>
 
Lexus Banner Ad:
Group: Top Home
Client: Lexus
Ad Name: AmEx
Sales Method: Impressions
Projected Hits: 10000
Start Date: 12/01/2000
End Date: 12/31/2000
HTML Code: <a href="http://www.lexus.com" target="_blank"><img src="lexus.gif" border="0"></a>
 
To view banner ads in the database, click the "First" button and use the ">>" (Next) and "<<" (Previous) buttons to browse through the records.
 
To locate specific banner ad records, click the "Search" button and enter search criteria into the "Group", "Client" and/or "Ad Name" fields (other fields cannot be searched) and click the "Search Now" button. Use an asterisk * for wildcard and partial searches. Select the radio button under the "Order" column to order search results by the selected field. Check the box under the "Rev" column beside the field you have selected in the "Order" column to reverse the order of search results. If no ordering is selected, search results are displayed in the ordered they were entered into the database. If a field is ordered, search results are ordered in ascending order (A to Z, smallest to largest) by default. If a field is ordered and reversed, search results are ordered in descending order (Z to A, largest to smallest). When results are displayed, select the radio button beside any search result and click the "View" button to view the full record.
 
To update a record, browse to view the record or locate and view the record via a search. While viewing the record, make changes in any field and click the "Save" button to save the changes.
 
When viewing a record, click the "Delete" button to delete that record. Click the "Delete All" button on any screen to delete all records in the database.
 
Close the banner ad administration page when all banner ads are entered correctly.

Step 7: Open the home page in a text editor.

Open the home page in a text editing program that allows you to view and modify the HTML and code of the page.

Step 8: Insert the mgiBannerAd tag in Display mode.

Insert your cursor where you want banner ads to appear and enter the mgiBannerAd tag, group parameter and rotation parameter. In the group parameter, enter the group name "TopHome". In the rotation parameter, enter "Random" to have the banner ads rotate randomly and enter "Sequential" to have the banner ads rotate sequentially. Banner ads rotate randomly by default. 
<mgiBannerAd group="TopHome" rotation="Random">

Step 9: Save the home page.

Save the changes you have made to the home page.

Step 10: FTP the home page and the banner ad images to the web server running MGI.

Upload the home page and the banner ad images (saturn.gif and lexus.gif in our example) to the web server running MGI.

Step 11: View the home page in a web browser.

View the home page in a browser. At the top of the page, either the Saturn banner ad or the Lexus banner ad appears. If you reload the page, a new (not necessarily different) banner ad appears. An algorithm that accounts for the number of banner ads, the length of banner ad contracts and the projected hits or clicks determines which banner ad from the set is displayed when the page is accessed.

Comments and Notes

The mgiBannerAd tag in Admin mode gives access to modify banner ad records. Keep your banner ads secure by password-protecting the banner ad administration page with an mgiAuthenticate or mgiAuthenticateDB tag.

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