NATS4 Footer Ads
The Footer Ads Adtool type in NATS allows you to upload a variety of images to be used by affiliates promoting your site through footer templates on various web pages.
In addition to allowing images, Footer Ads can also take certain Smarty variables, allowing you to automatically tailor your footer ads to information acquired from your affiliate or surfer. For more information, please see the Custom Variables section below.
You can upload images to be used in your Footer Ads through the Adtools Admin. Simply go to the Adtools Admin and click the "View Adtools" action icon next to the "Footer Ads" adtool type.
On the next page, you will see a section labeled "New Footer Ads Adtool." Use the available "Image Zip" field to upload a .zip file of images you wish to use for your footer ads, along with the "Thumbnail" field to upload a thumbnail preview image of your ads.
Once you have selected a .zip file to use as images for your new footer ad, you can define all the other available settings for your gallery. These settings include:
- Name - The name of your footer ad.
- HTML Source - Input the desired HTML code for your ad. This field accepts certain Smarty variables.
- Enabled on - Choose a site (or all sites) that you want this gallery to be enabled for.
- Publish Date - Input what date you want this gallery to be available from.
- Default Group - Select an adtool group to categorize the gallery under.
Once you have defined all of the available fields, click "Add Adtool" to add your new Footer Ad to NATS.
Your new Footer Ad will now appear in the "Footer Ads Adtool" table, along with your other available footer ads. This table provides you with the ID number, name, and default group for your ads.
Before you can include your new Footer Ad on one of your sites, you must first add a "SHOW" rule. To do so, click on the "Add a new rule" action icon next to your new footer ad. On the next page, simply add a "SHOW" type rule for the affiliate(s), program(s), and site(s) you want this footer ad to be enabled for. You can also choose to enable this ad for all affiliates, programs, and sites. For more information on rules in NATS4, please see our NATS4 Rules wiki article.
Once you create a "SHOW" rule" for your new footer ad, affiliates will be able to grab the linkcode for that gallery through their Ad Tools page.
Custom Variables
NATS4 allows for certain Smarty custom variables to be used when adding text to Footer Ads. This allows for customized text in your ad, depending on the surfer or affiliate's location. You can output a surfer's country name, city name, area code, postal code, etc.
Supported Smarty variables include:
$smarty->assign('country_code', $countrycode);
$smarty->assign('country_name', apache_note("GEOIP_COUNTRY_NAME"));
$smarty->assign('city_name', apache_note("GEOIP_CITY"));
$smarty->assign('region', apache_note("GEOIP_REGION"));
$smarty->assign('metro_code', apache_note("GEOIP_DMA_CODE"));
$smarty->assign('area_code', apache_note("GEOIP_AREA_CODE"));
$smarty->assign('latitude', apache_note("GEOIP_LATITUDE"));
$smarty->assign('longitude', apache_note("GEOIP_LONGITUDE"));
$smarty->assign('postal_code', apache_note("GEOIP_POSTAL_CODE"));
The above examples define your Smarty variables, such as $country_code, $country_name, $postal_code, etc.
To output values for the surfers' locations, enter the necessary Smarty code in the "HTML Source" field, found when editing a footer ad in the Adtools Admin.
For example:
Welcome to {$country_name}Find other people in ($city_name}!
