In v4 there is an option to "Define your own location" for ad placement. Is this gone in v5?

Placing manual ads is described in this old post here - https://invisioncommunity.com/4guides/monetization/internal-advertising-r57/#advanced

It is indeed. However with version 5, the need for that manual placement has gone for most people, as you can place items every x forum, (for example) and use advertisement blocks to place in any block location if you needed. Is there a specific place you are having problems with?

29 minutes ago, Marc said:

It is indeed. However with version 5, the need for that manual placement has gone for most people, as you can place items every x forum, (for example) and use advertisement blocks to place in any block location if you needed. Is there a specific place you are having problems with?

Yes. I have a couple ads that need to be placed in locations not found in the defaults. The way I do this is to create a custom block, then add {block="my-ad-here"} in the global template for index or sidebar or create the add and use {advertisement="my-ad-here"} i the same template.

Perhaps I just don't understand how to do this a better way in v5

Edited May 7May 7 by Chris027

I got them to wok in Pages, but not on the forum

Edited May 7May 7 by Chris027

Perhaps my example will help.

The two ads in the sidebar are displayed globally on my site. The top ad rotates with many others. The bottom one is constant. I see no way to do this in v5.

You would just add the advertisement to the sidebar or if you only want those on Pages, use the advertisement block to add it to your sidebar.

9 minutes ago, Jim M said:

You would just add the advertisement to the sidebar or if you only want those on Pages, use the advertisement block to add it to your sidebar.

Adding the ad to the sidebar can be done two ways, as far as i can tell.

1. Using the Advertisements setup and selecting "In the site sidebar" works great as long as you only have a single sidebar location. All ads with this option enabled, will rotate in this position. I use this. However, it's not possible to have two locations in the sidebar, one ad on top and the other below it.

2. the other way to add an ad to the sidebar is via a block. However, blocks aren't global. They only appear in Pages, not the forum.

Am I missing something?

A custom location enables people to place an ad below the "In the site sidebar" location and still have it be global like the "In the site sidebar" position.

Perhaps the question is, how can we create custom blocks that appear somewhere globally?

You can see on my site, there are a few locations for advertisements that I can't seem to use with v5. https://audiophilestyle.com/

The top edge to edge banner, and the custom ad locations on the right side that are above and below the single "in the site sidebar" position.

Edited May 7May 7 by Chris027

2 minutes ago, Chris027 said:

the other way to add an ad to the sidebar is via a block. However, blocks aren't global. They only appear in Pages, not the forum.

You will need to add this in those locations which you want.

1 minute ago, Jim M said:

You will need to add this in those locations which you want.

Dumb question, how do I add a block to the sidebar in the forum?

I don't see the little arrow to slide out the block manager in v5.

On the front-end, click your Display Name in the top right -> Page Editor

Thanks! I'm just getting started with v5, as you can tell.

OK, here's my inefficient dilemma.

I have a block displaying my ads that are 300x600. I have to manually select these ads when I put the block into the sidebar. I have to do this for every place I want the block, Pages, Forum, etc...

When I create a new ad, I have to manually find every block and manually add the new advertisement to that block. There must be a more efficient way of doing this, without allowing us to create custom ad locationa.

This screen must be edited for every block, when I create a new advertisement:

Edited May 7May 7 by Chris027

This isn't really sustainable. I need a map to find all the locations where I had to place ad blocks.

For example, the front page, then on the page of one article, the main forum page, then on the page of a forum topic, then on the activity stream, then on blogs, a single blog etc...

All just to change the ads that are running. Custom ad locations was SO MUCH EASIER!

Edited May 7May 7 by Chris027

2 hours ago, Chris027 said:

OK, here's my inefficient dilemma.

I have a block displaying my ads that are 300x600. I have to manually select these ads when I put the block into the sidebar. I have to do this for every place I want the block, Pages, Forum, etc...

When I create a new ad, I have to manually find every block and manually add the new advertisement to that block. There must be a more efficient way of doing this, without allowing us to create custom ad locationa.

This screen must be edited for every block, when I create a new advertisement:

Pages > Page Management > Blocks > Create New Block.

3 minutes ago, My Sharona said:

Pages > Page Management > Blocks > Create New Block.

Thanks for the help, but I don't think you understood the issue. I can create all the blocks I want, the problem is that none are global like advertisements are global. I would need to manually add these blocks to many pages and edit each of those when the ads change. It's a huge inefficient process.

I think I can accomplish this with a template hook.

Yes, using template hooks would probably be your next best option there