Vbulletin 4 and ads specific to certain subforums?

[Morgin]

edited.

[mccollin]

I believe you can do what you want to do. I can't get it to work in the beta yet, but you have a lot of definable flexibility in where ads show up in vB4, and you can drop any html into the ad blocks. I use PhpAdsNew, which is the predecessor to OpenX. Like I said, I haven't been able to get it to work, but it looks like its all in there.

[cellarius]

What you want to do is easily accomploshed using template conditionals, in vB4 the same as in vB3.

[Morgin]

What you want to do is easily accomploshed using template conditionals, in vB4 the same as in vB3.

Would it be possible to explain a little bit more about "template conditionals"? I am not familiar with this feature.

[cellarius]

That's basically if-then functionality used in the templates that's very flexible and a pretty mighty tool.

I won't offer you code examples however, since we're in presales here, and that would be for the support forums (where you have to be licensed to post).

[mccollin]

Well you don't even need to do template conditionals... there is a whole Ad Manager in vB 4.0 that lets you pick from a plethora of conditions for your ad placements...

Placement on -
Global
Forum
Board
Thread
Archive

Multiple locations on each of those pages

Then conditionals for users -
Group
Browsing Currently
Style
Visits
Posts
Reputation
PMs
Where they came from
Date
Time

Together with an ad server, this will be pretty powerful for managing use of ads on the site.

[Morgin]

edited.

[Morgin]

Well you don't even need to do template conditionals... there is a whole Ad Manager in vB 4.0 that lets you pick from a plethora of conditions for your ad placements...

Placement on -
Global
Forum
Board
Thread
Archive

Multiple locations on each of those pages

Then conditionals for users -
Group
Browsing Currently
Style
Visits
Posts
Reputation
PMs
Where they came from
Date
Time

Together with an ad server, this will be pretty powerful for managing use of ads on the site.

What I've found looking at the 3.8 mods is that a lot of them want to be your only ad manager, so you upload ads directly into vbulletin and it takes care of priority and all that.
What I use right now and what I'd ideally like would be to keep using openx, as it has great reporting tools for the client, and just use the invocation code it generates for each ad placement as the html for an ad in the vbulletin ad manager. That is, a series of ads is served by openx with various conditions, ad manager just picks up that code and sticks it in the appropriate place with the appropriate forum conditions. Then openx would hopefully pick up on page impressions and all that as it normally did.

[Andrew Elkins]

From what I understand from your issue, you should be able to do what you want. In the ad manager you have all kinds of control see mccollin post.

All you need to do is drop the ad html in the area you want, set the conditionals and then they will display. So if you wanted it for "forum a" you would select "User browsing forum a" put one ad there. Then create another ad, with your other code, and set the conditionals to show everywhere but "forum a"

Hope that answers your question.

If I have a spare minute or two, I'll try and write up a blog about using the ad manager.

[mccollin]

What I've found looking at the 3.8 mods is that a lot of them want to be your only ad manager, so you upload ads directly into vbulletin and it takes care of priority and all that.
What I use right now and what I'd ideally like would be to keep using openx, as it has great reporting tools for the client, and just use the invocation code it generates for each ad placement as the html for an ad in the vbulletin ad manager. That is, a series of ads is served by openx with various conditions, ad manager just picks up that code and sticks it in the appropriate place with the appropriate forum conditions. Then openx would hopefully pick up on page impressions and all that as it normally did.

I use the same ad server... I have a dedicated server running OpenAds which is the same thing you are running... different version. I tested the vBulletin Ad Manager with serving an Ad from OpenAds that was actually an iFrame rotating ad, and it worked fine. If it will do that, then it should do any of the ad codes from OpenX. Iframes are usually what breaks things if anything will. I haven't been able to do a lot of testing because the Ad Manager is barely limping right now... most of the times the ads aren't serving, but when they do they work fine. I'm sure it will be fine when they have the beta fixed... so I think you'll be able to do exactly what you want to do with vB4 and OpenAds... and the configuration is pretty simple on the vB4 side. I'm actually very impressed with it, assuming they get it working. You can even drop ads into the content of threads which lets you use those higher paying square ads.

[Andrew Elkins]

I use the same ad server... I have a dedicated server running OpenAds which is the same thing you are running... different version. I tested the vBulletin Ad Manager with serving an Ad from OpenAds that was actually an iFrame rotating ad, and it worked fine. If it will do that, then it should do any of the ad codes from OpenX. Iframes are usually what breaks things if anything will. I haven't been able to do a lot of testing because the Ad Manager is barely limping right now... most of the times the ads aren't serving, but when they do they work fine. I'm sure it will be fine when they have the beta fixed... so I think you'll be able to do exactly what you want to do with vB4 and OpenAds... and the configuration is pretty simple on the vB4 side. I'm actually very impressed with it, assuming they get it working. You can even drop ads into the content of threads which lets you use those higher paying square ads.

Fixed a few more things in the ad manager in Beta 4, if you find things that are broken please post them in the bug tracker. That's the only way we can get it in the queue to fix.

[mccollin]

Will do... right now its biggest problem is that I've only gotten it to show an ad for about 5 minutes this morning... I was told by someone else that it was a bug so I didn't go looking any further.

[Morgin]

edited.

[Michael2]

Fixed a few more things in the ad manager in Beta 4, if you find things that are broken please post them in the bug tracker. That's the only way we can get it in the queue to fix.

I love the way the new ad manager is set up but do you know if there are any plans to improve it in the near future? For instance, in the thread option you only have the ability to place ads inside the first and last post. After the first post is a very popular spot as well as after the last post and above the quick reply box. I’d also like to see the ability to place ads at the top of specific forums.

[niteflyer32]

Thanks, we use OpenX also and have missed being able to serve forum specific ads. It's what our clients want. One work around is you can add the add code in on the main forum index page under the forum name. It then shows up there and when you open the forum at the top. The only drawback is if you don't want banners showing on your main forum index page for all the forums.

VB 3.82 here.