My best plugin ever
I’m so excited that I couldn’t wait anymore to tell you about this…
I remember back around 4 months ago when I was searching for a banner plugin to rotate different banners at maxblogpress.com
I searched a lot and found some banner rotator plugins but all of them were poorly designed, difficult to use and didn’t even have the basic features I needed.
So, I finally sit down and wrote a custom script for rotating the banners and then edited the theme to include the banner in maxblogpress. If you go to maxblogpress.com right now then you will see a horizontal banner just below the header.
Soon after I put that banner I started receiving emails like how I did it and how can they put such banner rotator in their blogs.
Unfortunately, I had to say, you can’t do that easily as I had custom coded that script for maxblogpress. As of now, there’s not any easy to use plugin or any other thing I know which can do that easily for you.
That’s when I decided that I will be creating a banner plugin which will have all the features a user will want from a banner rotator plugin as well as it will be very easy to use.
Fast forward to today… The launch of such banner rotator plugin is quite near. It’s called MaxBanners and we have been working on it since more than a month.
I have tried to make this plugin as ultimate as it can be and included all the features I can think of in that plugin. I’m anticipating it will be the standard plugin for all the wordpress users who want to have banners in their blog.
If you have ever tried to put a banner in your blog then you might have realized it’s not that easy. You might have lots of features in mind for a plugin that will do different things you want.
So, here’s your chance to speak out and tell me exactly what you want. What are the features you need in a banner plugin? If the features you are asking for is missing in the MaxBanners plugin then we will add them in the next release.
You can post the features you want in MaxBanners Plugin here.
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Sounds very cool and I look forward to seeing it. Will it operate like OpenX (formally OpenAds), which really is the best ad program I have used and seen….
—
Political Disgust
forgot to post the link to OpenX so you could take a look. It is http://www.openx.org/
Political Disgust, my aim for this plugin is to provide easy to use solution for all wordpress bloggers. So, I’m trying to make it as easy as possible to use as well as cram all the essential features in it.
I also agree OpenX is the best out there but unfortunately most of the bloggers will get lost in its interface and its quite difficult to use for a normal user.
MaxBanners will have many features which OpenX don’t have and many which OpenX has but this plugin won’t have.
Overall, I think MaxBanners will be a perfect fit for all the bloggers who are looking for a decent solution for showing banners in their blog.
I too use Openx and had same question as Political Disgust. I dont think though that you understood his question.
I have over 50 blogs and use openx to manage the ads on all of them. This way I can change a text link in one spot and it changes across my whole network. Your plugin is very nice - but will it work with openx? Openx produces an invocation code that is in the form of simple html or a small javascript - can I place that in your plug in as the code I want to pull rather than URLs and Text.
Ability to include other stuff other than ads - php, images, text from files, files from folders etc.
Also time based rotation (with pretty fades!) would be cool
Arbie, currently I’m just focusing only on banner. I’ll see if there will be space for adding more stuffs in the plugin without making it over complicated.
I’m thinking about time based rotation as well. Let’s see what I’ll come up with.
Once one of the potential advertisers contacted me for the 468×60 banner space available on my blog and inquired about how many banners in rotation already. I told him that it’s a dedicated ad spot “unwillingly” because I did not know how to rotate the banners at that ad spot or any ad spot on my blog.
Now you are getting me exactly what I want without spending a money. Though I spent some money on OIOPublisher already and implemented at my blog for selling ad spots. But I still did not implement it for 468×60 banner because of the existing advertiser.
If anyone asks me again for that ad spot, I can reduce the price for existing advertiser by rotating the banners and give that ad spot to new advertiser as well.
What I am looking for - in this plugin.
1. I can define how many banners I can rotate
2. I should be able to use “javascript” given by many advertising agencies like textlinkad or CJ affiliate banners, along with direct banner URLs that are hosted at my website itself.
3. If possible Geo targeting, that would help me to show one banner to US visitors, another to europe visitors.
4. If that plugin helps me to calculate the daily impressions, that would be the coolest. So I can charge the advertiser on CPM basis.
Wow, I think I am going to add like 10 more requirements, better I stop now. And just pass it on this list for your development ideas.
I am sure when I would use your plugin, I would like it and I would review both your plugins I would be using then.
Life is colourful, after I launch MaxBanners, no one will have to say NO to their advertisers. Even the bloggers with limited technical ability will be able to show the banner.
In case if you are wondering, MaxBanners will be entirely different beast than OIOPublisher. It will be hard to compare both of them as they will be serving quite different purpose. One thing I have highly focused in MaxBanners is user friendliness. (If you have noticed, I give a huge priority to user friendliness to all the plugins we develop)
Let’s go over to your wish list:
1. I can define how many banners I can rotate
>> This feature is already there in the current version.
2. I should be able to use “javascript” given by many advertising agencies like textlinkad or CJ affiliate banners, along with direct banner URLs that are hosted at my website itself.
>> Currently this plugin will support banner only. I’ll see if I can add more features like you have suggested without over complicating the plugin.
3. If possible Geo targeting, that would help me to show one banner to US visitors, another to europe visitors.
>> That’s nice idea. I’ve noted it down and may implement in the new version.
4. If that plugin helps me to calculate the daily impressions, that would be the coolest. So I can charge the advertiser on CPM basis.
>> It can calculate as a whole impressions but not the daily impressions. I’ll include it if I plan to include a advanced stats page in this plugin.
“Life is Colourful” has mentioned several points which I condone. My thoughts on this are:
1. Impression and Click Tracking would be ideal to be able to instantly see what works or not.
2. Being able to put the ads any place on the template or content would be excellent
3. I would like to offer and use different ad sizes
That’s my on the spur of the moment wish list.
Thanks
Michael
Michael, I’m happy to say that all of your suggestions are already there in the current version.
1. MaxBanners can track impression and clicks (Click through rate will be calcualted as well so that you can decide what works)
2. You can place the ad anywhere you like. You can use theme function as well as post tag for inserting the ads. Best of all maxbanners can add banner directly in your blog at many places without editing the theme.
3. Banner sizes doesn’t matter. You can display any size you like.
Ability to rotate our own banners from our own site is a necessity
Steve, that necessity has been already fulfilled in the current version. You can upload your own banners in your own blog and have it rotated automatically.
Hey,
It would be really useful if you could choose the frequency of the rotation… although this would probably require some AJAX.
i.e. once a minute, once an hour, once a day, once every reload, etc
Looking forward to seeing it!
Mike
Mike,
This feature is not already there. But I may include it in the new versions.
Its a bit of a long list, but I’m thinking of what I would like, plus some stuff other people could use.
I would love the MaxBanner to allow users to:
1. Pick how many banners to rotate through.
2. Rotate Difference Sized Banners
3. Show GIF, JPEG, Flash, JavaScript Banners (Even Adsense - I don’t use but it’s popular)
4. Random Rotation & Fixed Rotation
5. Have a Counter which shows how often the banner was shown and click-through rate
5. Allow us to put in how many times a banner is too be seen before being pulled from the rotation (aka 100,000 times or 4 days from first impression)
6. Choose where the banner goes (same window, new window over, new window under, new tab) for each banner in the rotation.
7. Open a new page change the current page to a another page on your site. (Like a Thanks you for Donating, etc)
8. Group Banners into “Campaigns” so that banners on the top of the page and bottom of the page can be synced or use each others counters. Being able to do what apple did would be awesome (top banner and side banner worked as one).
I think it would be okay if the MaxBanner had a standard & advance setting. Advance did some of the harder things but required a little bit of coding on our part somewhere else on the site to implement.
Tesseract,
Let’s go over your list one by one:
1. Pick how many banners to rotate through.
>> This feature is already there in the current version.
2. Rotate Difference Sized Banners
>> No problem, you can rotate any size you like.
3. Show GIF, JPEG, Flash, JavaScript Banners (Even Adsense - I don’t use but it’s popular)
>> You can show any image files no matter what the format is. By the way, the current verison doesn’t support flash or javascript.
4. Random Rotation & Fixed Rotation
>> It will rotate the banners randomly. I think I should add fixed rotation as well.
5. Have a Counter which shows how often the banner was shown and click-through rate
>> These stats are already there.
5. Allow us to put in how many times a banner is too be seen before being pulled from the rotation (aka 100,000 times or 4 days from first impression)
>> I’m planning to add such features in the new version.
6. Choose where the banner goes (same window, new window over, new window under, new tab) for each banner in the rotation.
>> This feature is already there.
7. Open a new page change the current page to a another page on your site. (Like a Thanks you for Donating, etc)
>> Will this feature be useful? I’ll think about this.
8. Group Banners into “Campaigns” so that banners on the top of the page and bottom of the page can be synced or use each others counters. Being able to do what apple did would be awesome (top banner and side banner worked as one).
>> You can group any number of banners in separate campaigns (MaxBanners will call campaigns as zone)
Sorry, for number 8 to work…..
9. Allow us to control in one place all the banners on the site (with a code like php tag for each banner which we set up which is either horizontal or vertical) maxbanner =1, and so on.
hi all
Despite we can create such banners with Photoshop Cs3,
I like want the banners with following features:
1. each displayed banners have their own links.
2. that java script could easily be inserted into any sites we want.
(not only blog, html but an .php page too)
That’s for now I think.
Best
Sudarmaji Lamiran
Do not create any products before
conduct a proper research first.
http://internetmarketingresearch.org
Sudarmaji,
MaxBanners will allow each banners to have their own links. Since MaxBanners is a wordpress plugin it will work in your wordpress blog only.
Hi,
Great plug-in idea just doing it manually
sucks automated rotation is great
I have used all your plug-ins and all have been great and
helped me with my blogs and this will… be the Best..
So for my Two cents here goes…
Adding the ability to use CJ, Amazon.com, Click Bank.com, id’s and able to create ongoing plug-ins for other content programs and or other large affiliate or partner Programs such as Paydotcom, Linkshare, Shareasale, Walmart, Ect, Ect, Ect, this way you can just enter your affiliate ID# Publishers ID# or Partners ID# and it will suck up the ads you want targeting virtually any topic or subject matter covering any niche you would like By USING KEYWORDS TO CALL THE ADS so you can stay with the theme of what your site is about instead of having ads the aren’t relevant on your site or niche ….also the respected sites will have all the tracking on their side so you dont have to waste time doing it yourself with your project…. AHAA just be the connector …..I think this would be a great Deal and add more value to this project…
Good Luck….:-)
I’ll be waiting for this to come out its going to be great!!
Jesse T
Ps.. Sorry for the long post …;_)
Thank you, Jesses for the praise words.
Ability to pull products from different affiliate network will be an entirely new plugin in itself.
MaxBanners won’t have such feature but in the future I might create something similar to what are you looking for.
I am looking for just such a plugin right now
Key features all the above comments are great
For me the ability to set a banner to only show once to a specific visitor on a specific day would be good.
Plus the most stats that are possible so we can all monetize our blogs
The ability to manage a network of sites would be good too perhaps the ability to manage a specific banner spot on specific sites so we could develop niche banner network would also be awesome.
Good luck developing it
Paul
Paul,
I have not yet included the “show only once” to each visitor or something like that option but I’m planning to add such feature in the near future.
About the stats, you can see how the banners are performing by looking at the impressions and clicks. Also, you can see the spot based perfomance by looking at whole zones’ stats.
You can of course easily manage the specific banner spot by using MaxBanners.
This is something I definitely want, I think I agree with many on here.
1. Some type of impression and click tracking
2. Multiple banners/ad types and sizes
3. Be able to put the rotator anywhere on your blog by adding some type of code to the them
4. I’d like to be able to adjust the “weight” of the banners, like you do with your stripe add, so that we can give more impressions to different advertisers, and charge based on the amount of impressions
That’s pretty much it for now, if I think of some more, I’ll let you know.
Thanks alot, your plugins help me out a lot!
JK, MaxBanners already cover most of the features you need.
1. Some type of impression and click tracking
>> It’s already there.
2. Multiple banners/ad types and sizes
>> You can add multiple banners of any type or size.
3. Be able to put the rotator anywhere on your blog by adding some type of code to the them
>> You can add the banner anywhere you like. Many of the spots don’t even need to edit the theme.
4. I’d like to be able to adjust the “weight” of the banners, like you do with your stripe add, so that we can give more impressions to different advertisers, and charge based on the amount of impressions
>> Adding weight will make the plugin overly complicated as the way we have design it. You’ll understand why when we’ll demonstrate how the plugin will work. By the way, you can have weight effect by just adding same banners multiple times.
Hi, thanks for asking for our opinions on the plugin. There have been some great suggestions already!
One thing I would like to suggest goes along with “JK’s” comment in point 3 and that is having the ability to put the rotator anywhere on your blog. Some blogs, such as mine offers the 125×125 ad slots on the sidebar and that would be a great place to be able to also rotate “125×125 banner ads”.
Thanks for the opportunity!
Tiffany, guess what? MaxBanners will automatically add widget for you so that you can easily place 125×125 ads in your sidebar. You can do it all without editing any code.
A plugin that includes the ability to sell impressions would obviously be good, but could it be made to be completely hands free?
I.e somebody wanting to add their banner could just pay me via Paypal then upload their banner for instant inclusion. May need to be checked before added to rotation.
Phill
Phill, I have not yet added such feature in MaxBanners. Perhaps if the demand will be high I may consider doing it as well. It will take a lot of work to have it managed automatically for the payments.
I have need for another plug in altogether and would be happy to pay to have it done if you will contact me with an email address where I can tell you exactly what I’m looking for. Don’t think replying to this post would be a good place to discuss it.
Ed, I have sent you an email.
Yes, Ads in the sidebar is a good idea. You might need a widget to do that.
Michael
Michael, Widget feature is already there in MaxBanners plugin.
I think Tesseract and JK have made some good ideas. Here are myideas for MaxBanners;
1. To price MaxBanners according to number of features (if it is to be sold) and of course please offer a free version with good features!
2. To allow banners to appear say…once a day on a visitor’s computer or once every 6 hours or even every 3 days. This is just so not to annoy visitors “too much”.
3. To have groups of banners appear on certain niche pages (eg. banners about games can be in blog entries belonging to the GAMES category).
4. Would be great if MaxBanners tracks the number of unique clicks each banner gets, and from which “wordpress page”.
5. Rotation of banners of different sizes AND formats…eg. flash banner and a gif banner.
That’s all I can think of for now!
Kelly, let’s go over your ideas:
1. To price MaxBanners according to number of features (if it is to be sold) and of course please offer a free version with good features!
>> I have not yet decided what will be the price for it. Looking at the amount of work we have done on it, it will be fair to price it at $97 or $147. Let’s see what will I come up with when I launch it. I also have to decide if I’m gonna release a free version or not.
2. To allow banners to appear say…once a day on a visitor’s computer or once every 6 hours or even every 3 days. This is just so not to annoy visitors “too much”.
>> That will be a nice addition. I might add it in the next version.
3. To have groups of banners appear on certain niche pages (eg. banners about games can be in blog entries belonging to the GAMES category).
>> MaxBanners currently don’t support it automatically but you can do it by grouping all the niche banners in different zones. Then later you can put that specific zones in the specific categories by editing the theme a little bit.
4. Would be great if MaxBanners tracks the number of unique clicks each banner gets, and from which “wordpress page”.
>> MaxBanners can track impressions as well as clicks but there’s no tracking of “which page”.
5. Rotation of banners of different sizes AND formats…eg. flash banner and a gif banner.
>> Currently maxbanners support only the graphics format banner only. ie. gif, jpg, bmp, png etc… I’ll include the feature of adding flash banner as well in the future versions.
That’s all I can think of for now!
It would be nice to have TRUE ROTATE instead of random - that way each banner will get same number of impressions.
Mike, the “true rotate” will absolutely be in the next new version. As of now there is only random rotate.
I like to see a rotate instead of random with a hidden link to affiliate product,
Sunday, i’ll be putting the fixed rotate in the next new version. Also, the link will be automatically cloaked as it will be replaced by the tracking link.
Cool, I look forward to trying it out.
What I’d like is something that also works with 125×125 banners in the sidebar, or actually any size banner in the sidebar rather than header. It would be great if there was a sidebar widget component for implementing that functionality.
Also I second Kelly’s points 4 & 5, tracking clicks and supporting a variety of sizes and types of banners. I also second Mike Liebner suggestion for true rotate instead of random.
Donna, all the features you are looking for is already there in the current version of the plugin. Except that fixed rotate which we’ll be including in the next new version.
People have already suggested most of the features I would have asked for, but a few I definitely want to reiterate are:
1. Be able to use multiple instances of the plugin per page.
2. Have a widget incorporated, so you can put ads in the sidebar easily.
3. Have click & impression tracking per ad.
4. Be able to set individual ads to ‘expire’ after a set number of clicks, impressions or days.
Mivox, you have made some nice suggestions.
1. Be able to use multiple instances of the plugin per page.
>> You can create different zones where you can group different banners. After that you can put those banners any number of times anywhere you like.
2. Have a widget incorporated, so you can put ads in the sidebar easily.
>> Yes, there’s widget support as well in MaxBanners.
3. Have click & impression tracking per ad.
>> MaxBanners can track impressions and clicks as well.
4. Be able to set individual ads to ‘expire’ after a set number of clicks, impressions or days.
>> I’m planning to add this feature in the future versions.
Actually, I’ve been using a quote rotator widget for this purpose. (Donna, you can see it in action rotating 125×125 banners at my site: AllThatPerfume.com) I had to do a minor edit on the .php file to change the title from ‘Quote of the Day’ to ‘Catch This…’ (Yeah, it’s awful, but I’m open to suggestions for a better header!)The banners can be timed, and they do fade, like Arbie was suggesting, and the tracking code is, of course, embedded in the banner because they’re really just affiliate links from Commission Junction and ShareASale.
You can check it out at Luke Howell’s site or just search ‘rotate’ at the wordpress.org plug-in directory.
It seems to work pretty well, so I don’t see much need to reinvent the wheel… unless you can add that expiration date option, like mivox suggested. Hmmm… that would be cool, wouldn’t it?
I’am looking for this one..I’ll wait till launch.
scarface, I hope MaxBanners can do all the things you are looking for.
Pawan:
I wouldn’t say right now what are my needs for a banner rotator specially dedicated for blogs just because I really have not thought of it. I actually run a couple of rotators for static websites and I supose they don’t work correctly in blogs. Maybe can’t even been installed. So, I think your idea for this blog banner rotator es really nice. I’ll expect to know more of it in the near future.
Thanks
Jesus, I’m quite sure you’ll be happy to see all the features MaxBanners Plugin is going to bring for you. Look forward for when I announce its release.
Hello I want to have banners for my site can you please send me a link to make the banners also where to promote the banners.
Hi
Maybe you already got all these suggestions, but anyhow:
I’m working on a big travel site where a banner plugin with different options for different pages would be great.
My wish list - thinking of a sidebar (widget) solution:
- Possibility to show different banners in the sidebar of different posts, pages and categories. (A widget with a field for pasting php code like Widget Logic does would be a great solution.)
-Possibility to rotate a selection of banners on time-base or each time the web page is opened. Ideally they should rotate also in matter of which is shown higher or lower in the sidebar.
- Possibility to let a higher number of banners share let’s say 5 banner places/fields.
- Possibility to use as many different widgets as I wish.
- Set an expiry date for individual banners. After that it disappears on all places where its inserted.
- One central place to control all banner files and placements.
- Possibility to see in which posts etc one particular banner is inserted.
WOW, that would be useful!
Thanks - in advance
Kjetil
Hi
Maybe you already got all these suggestions, but anyhow:
I’m working on a big travel site where a banner plugin with different options for different pages would be great.
My wish list - thinking of a sidebar (widget) solution:
- Possibility to show different banners in the sidebar of different posts, pages and categories. (A widget with a field for pasting php code like Widget Logic does would be a great solution.)
-Possibility to rotate a selection of banners on time-base or each time the web page is opened. Ideally they should rotate also in matter of which is shown higher or lower in the sidebar.
- Possibility to let a higher number of banners share let’s say 5 banner places/fields.
- Possibility to use as many different widgets as I wish.
- Set an expiry date for individual banners. After that it disappears on all places where its inserted.
- One central place to control all banner files and placements.
- Possibility to see in which posts etc one particular banner is inserted.
WOW, that would be useful!
Thanks - in advance
Kjetil
Of course I would like the rotator to work for different size ads.
60×120, 150×150, 468×60, 728×90, 120×600
I would also like to have it tied to login. Based on their profile (sex, interests, etc.) I could have different ads displayed
-Ability to weight the rotation.
-Option for rotation like slide show or just once on page load.
-Option for begin and start date for individual banner.
-Option for click through limit.
-Options for same page / blank / etc. target.
-Options for daily limit.
-Option for client login to check stats.
-Options for several ad campaigns running on same page.
-Option for text only ads.
-Option for widgetized for WordPress.
I am just using 4 lines of code php banner rotator.
Whats the need for such plugin?
The most important function….to be seen as seo appropriate text that changes constantly.
While you at it, it may as well change text on other parts of the page as well. Maybe top and bottom.