Placing Ads In Your Arcade

When placing ads into our arcade, there are two sections in the arcade admin control panel that we will want to be a little familiar with. The two sections are the ‘Ad Zones’ and the ‘Advertisements’ section. If you login to your back-end arcade control panel you will see the menu selection, which has already been previously shown, and shown again in Figure 7-4.

Figure 7-4 The Arcade Control Panel Menu.

When you click on the Ad Zones section you will see two more options, which are ‘manage ad zones’ and ‘add new ad zone’. Click on the ‘manage ad zones’ button and you should see a screen similar to Figure 7-5.

Figure 7-5 Arcade Control Panel Ad Zones.

The Ad Zones are the places where an Ad will be shown in your arcade, for instance the ‘girlarcade Top Right 336×280′ is the top right zone next to the ‘Latest Played Games’ section of the default yourarcade template, Shown in Figure 7-6.

Figure 7-6 Top Right Ad Zone.

We may want to rename these ad zones to make them more clear to our specific template. To change the name of an ad zone you can simply click on the ‘Edit’ button next to the AdZone and then rename it.

The following Ad Zones, shown in Figure 7-5, are listed with descriptions as follows:

• Zone Number 2 – right column 160×600: This ad zone is optional and will be used in the next hour, we will place a few arcade banner link exchange images in this area.

• Zone Number 3 – left column 120×600 or 160×600: This ad zone is placed in the left column of our arcade.

• Zone Number 4 – Next to Preview Game 250×250 or 300×250: This ad zone is not used.

• Zone Number 5 – 728×90 will show horizontally: This ad zone will be shown below each game category page; however, instead of showing a 728 pixel wide by 90 pixels long ad we will be adding a 468×60 Ad.

• Zone Number 6 – girlarcade Top Left 336×280: This ad zone is not used.

• Zone Number 7 – girlarcade Top Right 336×280: This Adzone will be displayed at the top right of our arcade next to the ‘Latest Played Games’ as shown in Figure 7-6.

• Zone Number 8 – 468×60: This ad zone is not used.

• Zone Number 9 – 336×280 for box ads: This ad zonewill be shown below each game comments section; however, instead of showing a 336×280 ad we will be adding either a 250×250 ad or a 300×250 ad.

So to sum things up the Ad Zones that we will be using in this hour are Ad Zones 3, 5, 7, and 9.

The ad zones on the default arcade template are shown below.

Ad Zones 3, 5, and 7 are shown below in Figure 7.7.

Figure 7-7 Arcade Ad Zones 3, 5, and 7.

Adzone Number 9 is shown in Figure 7-8.

Figure 7-8 Arcade Ad Zone Number 9.

Okay, now that we know where these ad zones are going to be placed we can begin generating Adsense ads and placing them into our arcade ‘Advertisements’ section.

Lets go back to our Adsense account which was previously shown in the previous section. We are going to place an Ad in Zone Number 7 (336×280). So, navigate to adsense.google.com, login, and click on the ‘Adsense Setup’ Tab and you will be in front of a screen shown in the following Figure 7-9.

Figure 7-9 Google Adsense Setup Page.

Now, click on the AdSense for Content button and you should see a screen in front of you which displays the following Figure 7-10.

Figure 7-10 Adsense Choose Ad Type.

In the ‘Choose Ad Type’ step of setting up our ad we will select an ‘Ad Unit’ and we will want to select ‘Image ads only’. You do not have to use ‘Image ads only’ you can choose to have text and image ads; however, in our case we want to use ‘Image ads only’.

Okay, click continue to move on to next step, shown in Figure 7-11.

Figure 7-11 Adsense Choose Ad Format and Colors.

In this section we will want to change the size of our ad. In this case we want an ad that is 336 pixels wide and 280 pixels long. So lets change the ‘Format’ drop-down box to ‘336 x 280 Large Rectangle’. Click the ‘Continue’ button to move on. The next step is shown in Figure 7-12.

Figure 7-12 Adsense Choose Ad Channels.

In this step you are asked if you would like to add a new channel so you can add this ad to the channel. The channels are an easy way to organize your ads inside your account. In this example we are just going to skip this and click the ‘Continue’ Button to progress to the last step, shown in Figure 7-13.

Figure 7-13 Adsense Save and Get Ad Code.

In the above step we will want to enter a name that we will be able to understand which ad it is. Choose a desirable name for this ad and click on the ‘Submit and Get Code’ button, and you will be in front of a screen which contains the following Figure 7-14.

Figure 7-14 Adsense Ad Unit Code.

Okay, the code in the text box is the code we will want to copy. Select the code press ‘Ctrl-C’ to copy.

Alright let’s move back to our arcade admin control panel. Now we will want to click on the ‘Advertisements’ section in from our admin menu, previously shown in Figure 7-4. When you click on the ‘Advertisements’ button, two more options will appear ‘manage advertisements’ and ‘add new advertisement’. Click on the ‘add new advertisement’ option and you will you will see the Add Advertisement section similar to Figure 7-14.

Figure 7-14 Adding an Advertisement in your arcade.

Now, the fields that we will want to fill out in this form are the Ad Description, Banner Custom, Adzone 1, Banner Status. You may want to change the Ad Description to a name you find fitting. In the Banner Custom textbox you will press ‘Ctrl-V’ and paste your code that we copied back in Figure 7-14. In the Adzone 1 drop-down we will want to specify where we will place this ad, and we are going to want to choose to add it in the Ad Zone 7 or ‘7 – girlarcade Top Right 336×280′. Next, make sure that the ‘Banner Status’ drop-down is set to ‘Active’. Finally, click the ‘ADD AD!’ button and you have just successfully added an adsense ad to your arcade.

As shown back in Figure 7-14, Google lets you know that the ad may not be active until 10 minutes after creating it. So if the ad has had enough time to be generated, you can navigate to the front-end of your arcade and view your new ad in action.

Okay, you will want to add the rest of the ads into your arcade. You can simply repeat the steps that we have just walked through to add the remaining adds. Remember when creating the Adsense Ad you will want to change the size of the ad you are going to place in your arcade. The format sizes for the adzone are shown below:

Adzone Number 3 – ‘120 x 600 Skyscraper’ or ‘160 x 600 Skyscraper’

Adzone Number 5 – ‘468 x 60 Banner’

Adzone Number 7 – ‘336 x 280 Large Rectangle’

Adzone Number 9 – ‘250 x 250 Square’ or ‘300 x 250 Medium Rectangle’

Congrats! After you have added the remaining ads in your arcade, you will have yourself a fully functional and Google Adsense loaded arcade. When you start receiving visitors, you will be able to track how many impressions each ad receives (impressions = views). You will also be able to see the amount of clicks and earnings for each ad inside of your Google Adsense account.

We are nearly done with Hour 7, so let’s move on to the next portion, which is fairly short.