The Arcive of Official vBulletin Modifications Site.

About Developer · **Released**: 09-15-2010

Introduction:
I am StarBuG, a clinical Physician for Children, and I am running several health Forums to support patients with medical questions. During the many years I am running my Forums I constantly worked on optimizing my Advertising integrations to maximize my earnings and the user experience using my forums. The click through rates for my Adsense integrations are good to very good for forums and may increase due to further optimizations so mark this mod as installed if you use it to make sure you always use the best optimized version of my adsense integration.

What this mod does:
This mod adds a Google Adsense large rectangle below the navbar together with an eye catching welcome message and a call to action (registration). This ad is the best performing ad on my forum. I run a forum with a fixed width and I think that on a fluid style this mod wont look that good but give it a try if you want.

Installation instructions:

in the template navbar find:

Code:

{vb:raw ad_location.global_below_navbar}

and add below:

Code:

<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT != 'search'  AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']">
 <div class="ads_lr_wrapper">
  <div class="ads_lr">
    YOUR GOOGLE ADSENSE CODE HERE
  </div>
  <div class="ads_lr_welcome">
   <p id="welcome_bold_big">Welcome to YOUR FORUM NAME</p><br>
     
     <p id="welcome_normal">your forum for YOUR THEME</p><br>
     
            <ul>
             <li><b>&nbsp;&raquo;</b>  some things people find</li> 
             <li><b>&nbsp;&raquo;</b>  on your forum</li> 
             <li><b>&nbsp;&raquo;</b>  some reasons why</li>
             <li><b>&nbsp;&raquo;</b>  guests should register</li>
            </ul>
            
            <br>
            
            <p id="welcome_bold">...then you have come to the right place!</p><br>

            <p id="welcome_normal">we will try to help you with your problem.</p><br>
            
            <p id="welcome_bold_big"><a href="http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/register.php">YES! I want to register an account for free right now!</a></p><br />
            
            <p id="welcome_small">p.s.: For registered members YOUR FORUM NAME is free of ads</p>
  </div>
 </div>
</vb:if>

in template additional.css add:

Code:

/*------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| #> Large Rectangle Ad + Welcome Text below navbar
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
.ads_lr_wrapper {
    border: 2px solid #274C84;
    -moz-border-radius-bottomleft:5px;
    -moz-border-radius-bottomright:5px;
    -moz-border-radius-topleft:5px;
    -moz-border-radius-topright:5px;
    background: #ffffff;
    width:850px;
    height:290px;
    padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px;
}

.ads_lr {
    position: relative;
    background: #ffffff;
    width: 336px;
    margin-left: 10px;
    margin-right: 30px;
    float:left;
}

.ads_lr_welcome {
    background: #ffffff;
    position: relative;
    width: 460px;
    margin-top: 10px;
    margin-left: auto;
    margin-right: 10px;
    float:right;
}

#welcome_normal {
  font-size:normal;
  font-family:Helvetica;
  text-decoration:none;
  text-align: left;
}

#welcome_small {
  font-size:x-small;
  font-family:Helvetica;
  text-decoration:none;
  text-align: left;
}

#welcome_bold {
    font-weight:bold;
    font-size:normal;
    font-family:Helvetica;
    text-decoration:none;
        text-align: left;
}

#welcome_bold_big {
    font-weight:bold;
    font-size:large;
    font-family:Helvetica;
    text-decoration:none;
        text-align: left;
        color:#274C84;
}

Additional Comments:
Make sure you change all lines marked RED to fit your forum.
Of course you should customize the welcome text to fit your forum and change the colors and size of the welcome box to fit your forums theme.

Screenshot:

More of my Adsense Integrations:

Demo:
Patientenfragen.net - we have the answers

Of course feedback is welcome and if you have suggestions to further improve CTR please let me know!

ps: The welcome text in the screenshot is an automatic translation by google that's why it is hard to read

StarBuG

Google isn't paying you enough money! Discover WHY!

StarBuG · #2 09-16-2010, 08:33 PM

2 days ago I made a big change to my website that hopefully will increase my earnings a lot over time.

So far I made extensive use of Adsense channels to track each of my Ads separately.
I also activated "placement targeting" for the best performing ad placements.

However I did not realize the full potential of "placement targeting" until 3days after I talked to my direct advertising marketer.

Q: What is the main goal of an advertiser?
A: To show there ads to their target group which most likely will convert

Q: Is wider or narrower targeting more effective?
A: I think it depends but mostly the more narrow the target group is, the better the Ads perform

Just as info to you:
CPM prices for a very narrow targeting e.g. topics about "cough" or "skin rash" are 40-50$ (campaigns that my direct advertising marketer runs)
Campaigns that are not that narrow e.g. health only get 10-20$ CPM.
Yes, it makes that much of a difference.

So what did I do?

I created a separate channel for each forum category that is interesting to advertisers e.g. health, diseases, nutrition, alternative medicine, etc. for the ad in this welcome message.
Each of these channels was selected for placement targeting and got a description that outlined the topics in which these ads will be shown.

Then I created several large rectangle ads and assigned each one a category channel I created before.

Now each thread in a specific forum shows the Ad with the channel that was created for this specific forum.
(At the bottom you'll find the condition chain I created to show different ad channel in each forum)

Now each advertiser can narrow down the placement targeting on my website to a certain topic which suites his campaign best.
For example an advertiser who is selling homeopathy can now target his Ads to my forum "alternative medicine" and his ads are only shown to people interested in "alternative medicine".
This way conversion and CTR should increase quite a bit and a lot more advertisers should use placement targeting on my website over time and with that increase my earnings.

To understand the naming concept for channels that I use read my post: Google Adsense - The Secret to using Channels

Remember if you create these channels activate placement targeting for each channel and use a informative description!
I used:

Quote:

Show this channel to advertisers as an ad placement: YES
Ads appear on: other pages > TOPIC of the forum (e.g. alternative medicine)
Ad location: Top Center
Description: Your Ads will only appear on discussion pages with the topic "Topic of your forum". Short Description of my website.

and here is the condition code you can wrap around the above posted mod code:

Code:

<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT != 'search' AND THIS_SCRIPT != 'index' AND THIS_SCRIPT != 'showthread' AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']">

WELCOME Message + LARGE RECTANGLE that is shown on all places except Homepage, Threads and Search.
I called the channel "PatFra - LR - Welcome Remainder"

</vb:if>

<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'showthread' AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']">
 <div class="ads_lr_wrapper">
  <div class="ads_lr">
   <vb:if condition="$GLOBALS[forumid] == ForumID">
    
    ADSENSE Code for Large Rectangle shown on all Threads (and threads only!) in my "Health and prevention" forum
    Channel: PatFra - LR - WT - Health & Prevention
    (PatFra = Patientenfragen.net = Website Tag | LR = Large Rectangle = Ad Size | WT = Welcome message in Thread = Ad Location | Health & Prevention = Forum / Topic)
    
   <vb:elseif condition="$GLOBALS[forumid] == ForumID" />
   
    ADSENSE Code for Large Rectangle shown in my "Deseases" Forum
    Channel: PatFra - LR - WT - Deseases   

   <vb:elseif condition="$GLOBALS[forumid] == ForumID" />
    
    and so on.......

   <vb:else />
    
    ADSENSE Code for Large Rectangle shown in all Forums that are not interesting for placement targeting
    e.g. introductions, shit chat, news, etc.
    Channel: PatFra - LR - WT - Rest
    
    
   </vb:if>
  </div>
  <div class="ads_lr_welcome">

  Welcome message, for the code look in the mod thread above

  </div>
 </div>
</vb:if>

<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT == 'index' AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']">
 
 Welcome Message and Adsense Large rectangle Ad shown on Forum index only.
 Channel: PatFra - LR - Welcome Home
 This ad location is also interesting for many advertisers because 
 some advertisers want to only show their ads on the homepage and not on subpages.
 
</vb:if>

What are your thoughts on this topic?
How do you handle placement targeting?

VonDoom · #3 09-17-2010, 01:09 AM

Installed rated and nominated.. Ive been looking for this for a cpl years now.. Thanks you very very much.. This little hack will finally complete my customizations!!!

Not really installed yet but clicked anyways because one way or another im going to make this work on my fluid style..

gwerzal · #4 09-17-2010, 05:24 PM

can ya please post a url up vondoom once you have done it so i can see what it looks like on a fluid theme

VonDoom · #5 09-17-2010, 07:08 PM

Sure im using it now, just click the doberman-chat link in my sig! Im still putting some thought into how to make it fluid. But i have no complaints. I think for now the 1024px compromise will work out fine for me.

gwerzal · #6 09-18-2010, 01:59 AM

Iv not tried it yet but how abouts if you move it and put it so the sidebar goes along side it.

g00gl3r · #7 09-18-2010, 07:34 PM

Doesn't seem to be working on savs.co.uk.

Does this line need changing to just show if the visitor is a guest?

Code:

<vb:if condition="THIS_SCRIPT != 'search'  AND !$show['notices'] AND $show['guest']">

StarBuG · #8 09-19-2010, 01:00 PM

Just remove

Code:

THIS_SCRIPT != 'search'  AND !$show['notices'] AND

and the only condition is that only guests see it

Winter Sonata · #9 09-19-2010, 05:56 PM

Dear StarBuG

Your forum is well organized, Good luck with it.
i am eager to know how you have 2 languages interface ?

Thank you so much for this modification

StarBuG · #10 09-19-2010, 06:00 PM

i use vbenterprisetranslator.com but there are hacks available here for free too

And thank you

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