The Vendor module and the Banner module make it possible to serve advertisements on your website. A “Vendor” is a company that will be advertising on your website.  You must setup Vendors first, and then upload images for the advertisements.  After that, you can place the Banners module throughout your website where you would like to have ads.  The first step is to access the Admin > Vendors page.  On this page select Add New Vendor.  Enter the details of the Vendor such as: Company, First Name, Last Name and Email address.  If you are logged in with an Administrator account you can also control whether fields such as Street, Unit, City, etc. are required by checking or un-checking the box next to the item.  Once you are finished adding your first vendor, click Update.  When you save the Vendor DNN will send the vendor an email letting them know they have been added to the website.

You will now see the list of Vendors on the Admin > Vendors page.  To add banner ads and other information for each Vendor, go back and edit the vendor you just created by selecting the pencil next to the vendors name. 

Setting up Banners

Once the Vendor is created, you can add the banner ads for the Vendor.  To add a banner ad, click on Add New Banner while editing a Vendor listing.

When adding a banner you will enter the following information:

• Banner Name: Text description of the banner ad.
• Banner Type: The style of the banner / advertisement.
• Group: If you’d like to selectively show ads based on groups, then you should specify a group name here.  When using the Banner module to display ads you can selectively show ads that only exist in certain groups.
• Image/Link: Upload an image, or link to an image that already exists on your website, or link to an image on another website.
• Width & Height: Dimensions of the banner ad.
• Text/Script: Advanced advertisements such as Flash, or simple ads that are text links can use this field.
• URL: When a user clicks on a banner, they will be taken to this URL.
• CPM/Cost: What to charge per 1,000 clicks (“M” is the Roman numeral for 1,000).
• Impressions: The maximum number of times this ad can be displayed / seen on your website.
• Start & End Date: When the ad campaign will start and stop.
• Criteria: Specify whether the campaign should end when the impression limit is reached and/or the end date has passed.

Adding the Banner Module

Once you have added your first vendor and banner you can browse your website to determine where you would like to place your advertisements.  Once you have decided where to place your ad, go to that page and select Banners from the modules area of the control panel at the top.  Select the appropriate pane, give the module a title, and add it to your page.

Edit the Banner Modules settings after it has been added to your page:

• Banner Source: The banner module can pull from the Admin Vendors or Host level vendors.
• Banner Type: Which types of banners to show, if you select a certain type it will only show Vendor banners of that type.
• Banner Group: Yet another filter, when adding a banner at the vendor level if you put in a banner group such as “partners” then you could add “partners” in this module to only show banners tagged as “partners.”
• Banner Count: How many banners to show in this location (see Orientation).
• Orientation: If displaying more than 1 banner the orientation will determine whether the banners get displayed on top of each other “Vertical” or next to each other “Horizontal.”
• Border Width: Image border around the advertisement.
• Border Color: The color to add around the banner image.
• Cell Padding: Spacing around the banner.
• Row Height: Specify the height of each cell where the banners reside.
• Column Width: Specify a set width of each cell where the banners reside.
• Banner Click through URL: Override the URL location for this advertisement (click-through URL).

Update the banner module settings to start displaying your advertisements.

You can return to the Admin > Vendors area and edit a vendor, then look at the available banners to see statistics such as Views (impressions) and Clicks for each advertisement.