How do I set up the Advally XenForo 2 Plugin?

The Advally XenForo 2 Plugin is easy to use, and designed to allow a forum’s Admin configure it.

Installation and Upgrade

1. Download the latest version of the plugin:
   http://reporting.advally.com/xenforo-plugin/Advally-Advertising-1.2.2.zip
2. Login to the XenForo admin, under Add-ons > Add-ons
3. Click Install/Upgrade from archive
4. Select the downloaded ZIP archive, click Upload
5. Click “Confirm Action” to continue

Initial Setup

Some settings only have to be configured the first time, and can be ignored on subsequent plugin updates.

All settings below are found in the Plugin settings found here:

1. Access the XenForo Admin, under “Options”
2. Click on “Advally Advertising Settings”

Our plugin is Disabled by default.

Complete the configuration below and remove any old ad tags before enabling our plugin.

Advally Site ID

The Advally Site ID is the Site Alias which will be provided by Advally. This is typically the site’s domain name.

Ads.txt

Advally’s plugin can manage the site’s ads.txt as long as XenForo has write permissions to “/ads.txt”, at the web root. Set Manage Ads.txt Update to Automatic to enable our plugin to automatically maintain the sites ads.txt with the latest version from Advally.

You can add your own custom additions under Additional Ads.txt Lines, these lines will be appended to the ads.txt.

The plugin will verify write permission on “/ads.txt”, and present a notice if this file is not writeable.  

Header Location & Mobile Adhesion Offset

Header Location allows the site administrator to change the location of the header unit. Choose a location that works best for your layout and theme.

Some users may see an Adhesion banner, (“sticky” banner) that docks to the top of the browser on scroll. The Adhesion Offset settings change the position of the docking so the banner can dock blow any sticky navbar on scroll.

This is an example of a docked Adhesion banner on Mobile, offset by 50px to appear below the floating navbar.

User Ad Experience Levels

The Advally Ad plugin operates on the concept of presenting a different ad experience based on the user type. The plugin has 3 types of users:

1. Guests – Any user who is not yet logged in to XenForo
2. Members – Any logged in Member
3. Premium Users – A logged in member who belongs to a specific User Group
   

By default the Guest Ad Experience is set to Normal Ad Experience, which includes adhesion banners, and inline video on Thread pages. Members will receive the Light Ad Experience, which does not include video or adhesion (sticky) banners.

You can optionally configure user groups, such as Subscribers, Donators, or Moderators to be part of the Premium User Ad Experience. These users can be configured to receive zero advertising with the Ad Free Experience.

Advanced Configuration

The Advally Plugin allows the Ad Experience levels to be configured. We recommend starting with the defaults, which were chosen based on years of experience with forum publishing and monetization. You will have to enable “Show Advanced Options” in the XenForo Admin to access these settings:

https://xenforo.com/docs/xf2/options

The Advanced Configuration has multiple settings for each of the possible Ad Experiences: Light, Normal, and Nascar.

Forum List Inline Frequency

This is the frequency of inline banners displayed to users in this Ad Experience. This setting refers to how many forum containers appear between ad blocks on the Homepage and Forum listing pages.

Forum View Inline Frequency

This alters the frequency of inline banners between threads when viewing the thread list of a single Forum.

The Start After setting allows the first ad to only start after this number of threads, instead of starting after Thread #1.

Thread Inline Frequency

This alters the frequency of inline banners between threads when viewing a single thread. The first banner will appear after the topic (post #1), then repeat every few posts based on this setting.

Additional ad widgets that provide non-banner revenue can be configured to render in threads. Widgets are either Video, Recirculation (Outbrain, Connatix, RevContent, MGID, etc.), or Quiz, and can be enabled and placed to appear at a specific location in threads. The placement is based on how many posts from the beginning of the thread page. So for example if Quiz is configured to appear After Post 10, then it will render after the 10th post on the thread page. of the thread.

In the event that a Widget is placed at the same location as a repeating Banner, the Widget will take precedence and replace the Banner.