Sponsor Ad Management

• Author: coyote
• Overview: http://coyotesdesigns.com/sponsor-ad-management/
• User Guide: http://coyotesdesigns.com/sponsor-ad-user-guide/
• Download: http://coyotesdesigns.com/downloads/cd_ad_sponsor.zip

NOTE: The download from WordPress is incorrectly named. The download DOES contain the correctly named cd_ad_sponsor.zip file (uses Underscores rather than Hyphens). Please extract cd_ad_sponsor.zip before uploading to your plugins folder. I wrote this plug-in to automate my sponsor ads on one of my blog networks where I have ~30 blogs, 109 sponsors, each sponsor has 9 program type combinations for each of their six or more sites; 109 * 9 * 6 = 5886 ads, / 30 blogs = 196.2 ads per blog. Doing this manually is a waste of time. I also wanted to track the performance of the sponsor ads, how many clicks to how many impressions. The cd_ad_sponsor Plug-in maintains a list of your sponsors (your clients), their associated Ads, including program types, revenue types, and scheduling, and the click-through and impressions resulting from the presentation of each AD. I cannot stress enough how important it is to read the User Guide BEFORE you attempt to use this plug-in. You can read the User Guide here, http://coyotesdesigns.com/sponsor-ad-user-guide/ Sponsor Programs represent the various payment program types for a specific site or product offered by a sponsor. Program types include Pay Per Sign up (PPS), Revenue Sharing (REV), a referral program (REF), etc. Some sponsors offer more than one option for each program type, such as with or without a trial period. You should define each Program Type you wish to use for each Sponsor site or product. Each Program Type you define is later assigned to a specific Banner Ad. You sell Ads based on the zone and Revenue Type. Revenue Types are pre-defined as CPC (Cost Per Click), CPM (Cost Per Thousand impressions), or CPD (Cost Per Day). If you participate in a PPS, REV, or other Sponsor Program Type not based on user performance, use the Revenue Type, OPEN. Each site or product, however, may have one or more ads based on your program type participation. For example, you may have elected to participate in a "Pay Per Sale" program and a "Revenue Sharing" program for a specific product. Subsequently, each program type has a unique URL. You must define a Banner Ad for each program type you wish to display. Zones define the location or position within your theme where qualified Ads are placed. You are not limited to the number of zones you can define, however, it is recommended that you only define the minimum zones necessary to present your ads as desired within the current theme. Each Zone you create may contain one or more Ads, as defined by the Rows and Cols parameters. The default is one row by one column which equates to placing a single Ad. In addition, you can define a frequency for a zone intended for embedding within post content. For Zones NOT intended to be embedded within a post should have the frequency set to zero (0). Only one Zone may have an Ad Frequency value greater than zero. Banner Ads represent the image- or script-based advertisement for a specific site or product. Script-based Ads are usually obtained through Google, Amazon, etc. Image-based Ads (gif, jpg, png, etc.) have preference over any Script-based Ad definition. If both Image- and Script-based Ads are defined for the same scheduled zone, the Image-based Ad is used. Ad Schedules allow you to specify which Sponsor Ad is displayed at a particular location (or zone) within a specified time frame. Database entries for each ad are compared with the zone definitions to determine the appropriate banner ad to display. Once an ad has been presented, it will not be displayed again on the same page. If no sponsor ad is available for the specified zone, then a default ad (placeholder) is used. A placeholder type ad is defined for each of the pre-defined zones. The default link defined in the options menu directs the user to your ad purchase page. You will need to create this page, if necessary. The cd_ad_sponsor Plug-in does not track ad purchases.

Installation is straight-forward.

1. Download cd_ad_sponsor.zip to your local hard drive.
2. Extract the files.
3. FTP the cd_ad_sponsor files to your WP Plugins directory. (Single and MU versions)
4. Activate the plug-in through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress.

The plug-in documentation can be found at http://coyotesdesigns.com/sponsor-ad-management/ and the User Guide is available at http://coyotesdesigns.com/sponsor-ad-user-guide/

1.3.0 Feb 20, 2010

• Added the ability to exclude ads from posts. Enter within the post where you do not want embedded ads displayed. All other posts will continue to display ads at the frequency you defined for the zone.
• Added rudimentary error checking for data fields.

1.2.4 Feb 2, 2010

• Corrected error in new install where database tables were not created.

1.2.3.1 Jan 31, 2010

• Activation error corrected. I apologize for the inconvenience.

1.2.3 Jan 30, 2010

• Added simple administrator email notification for expiring sponsor ads. The number of days prior to expiration in which to recieve a notification is set in the dafault options.
• Added plug-in uninstall function to completely remove plug-in tables. CAUTION All sponsor ad related data is removed.

1.2.2 Jan 20, 2010 This is a simple update to correct the following error:

• Fixed error in Manage Schedules where edit would remove the program ID. Thanks to Jean-Marc (www.insurancenu.com) for the catch.
• Fixed potential problem in program manager where sponsor could be changed.

1.2.1 Dec 7, 2009

• Fixed error in Manage Revenue where edited values were incorrectly stored.
• Added a Rate data field to Revenue Type to define the fee charged to your sponsors.
• Refined Banner Ad click-through IP tracking.
• Removed JQuery feature added in version 1.1.1 as this interfered with the default JQuery routines. This feature will be added at a later date.
• Added Banner Ad Report option to Admin Menu.
• Added function to add click-through IP to Excluded IP table.

1.2.0 Nov 18, 2009

• Made a few minor changes and bug fixes. Thanks for the emails! I appreciate your support!

1.1.1 Nov 15, 2009

• Added JQuery expand/collapse feature to banner list, program list, and schedule list. The data listings are expanded by default. Click the Sponsor Name row to collapse or expand the data list as desired.

1.1 Nov 9, 2009

• Corrected typo in Banner Management that prevented correct revenue type from being displayed in Edit mode.
• Updated queries in Schedule Management where multiple banners in some Program configurations were not being properly scheduled.
• Updated query in program type AJAX request to display zone in Schedule Management dropdown options to assist with scheduling banner ads.
• Updated Ad Impressions to count script-based Ads.
• Updated UI in Schedule Management to display associated banner ad and corresponding zone.
• Updated UI in Excluded IP to display host name for each IP.
• Added option in Excluded IP Management to delete IP from excluded table.
• Added option in Excluded IP Management to remove SE crawler counts from clickthrough table.
• Added option in Default Options to enable removing SE crawler counts automatically.

1.0 Sep 2, 2009

• Initial release. No known issues. Currently running at CoyotesDesigns.com.