banner ad module

[Steve]

We are a 14 year old web design and hosting company.We are looking at VIVVO because it has several features lacking in the current CMS that we offer our clients.

We have installed the trial and played with it all day, so far like what we see. If eval goes well, we will purchase the 2 professional license special and upgrade to developer version if we find this is the answer to our CMS woes.

Has anyone used the banner ad module on a heavy traffic, multi banner website? We will nedd the software to handle hundreds of banners easily and efficiently. Does the banner ad module have reporting for clients or at least hit stats per banner?

Anthing else I should know before we purchase this software?

Any replies would be appreciated.

[casca]

We are a 14 year old web design and hosting company.We are looking at VIVVO because it has several features lacking in the current CMS that we offer our clients.

We have installed the trial and played with it all day, so far like what we see. If eval goes well, we will purchase the 2 professional license special and upgrade to developer version if we find this is the answer to our CMS woes.

Has anyone used the banner ad module on a heavy traffic, multi banner website? We will nedd the software to handle hundreds of banners easily and efficiently. Does the banner ad module have reporting for clients or at least hit stats per banner?

Anthing else I should know before we purchase this software?

Any replies would be appreciated.


It does but it seems to count search engine traffic and a few other things so it over reports. In addition there is a real deficiency in the way it handles new ads (for example you run ads A and B for 2 months. You have a new client and introduce ad C. Ad C will now run on every page until it catches up with the page view count of A and B, then they will start to rotate).

However, you should really consider Vivvo as an excellent solution. The Vivvo staff are aware of the issue with the banner manager and have pledged to make a new one fairly soon. (Fairly soon in Vivvo is actually a pretty good time table, they've had 2 significant upgrades since I started using them in September of 08).

In addition, because the source is there, it is really very easy to implement a 3rd party banner system (completely) with a minimal investment of time. The dev license is definitely the way to go in terms of support, plugin availability, and domains (you can oem Vivvo out to your clients as part of the license, no extra fees are involved).

All in all I'd say the price point to value ratio is outstanding. The support is really very good, there are some people that will post otherwise, but generally they have unrealistic expectations (like they'll customize something in Vivvo and something will stop working and they'll get angry and blame Vivvo). Generally the Vivvo guys/gals help regardless, but sometimes it takes them a bit of time to sort things out when folks customize functions, or core code. I've also seen several people upset that they aren't getting 24 hour responses and they have standard licenses (which means they are not entitled to 24 hour responses, and as one of the people that pay for the premium support I can say I get my 24 hour responses provided I don't post an issue on Friday evening and think I'm going to get a response on the weekend).

They do have corporate licensing where you can get a phone number and 24 hour support. I've been told they start at about $3500 on the low side. So the service is offered if you are prepared to engage the extra price. I for one can wait 24 hours as a rule :)

P.S. Another easier option on the advertising side is to have a 3rd party program serve your ads on another apache server. (So like google adsense you take the code from the 3rd party program and put it into the Vivvo Banner Manager.) Your 3rd party program handles rotation, frequency and clicks/page view counts and the Vivvo Banner just serves the dynamic banner code. This works well, it is what we do with Google Adsense and they are paying us just over $10 per CPM (avg) at the moment. I've never seen better ctr with any other service, they seem to have a very accurate method of serving relevant ads to the readers which drives the cpm up.

[Steve]

We historically dont rotate ads, but rather place ads on home page or fixed categories for a fixed amount of time of views. So we wouldnt need rotation. It doesnt sound like you are optimistic that the banner module can handle our needs, we dont want to use 3rd party, we want a solution that is part of the admin, for clients sake

[casca]

We historically dont rotate ads, but rather place ads on home page or fixed categories for a fixed amount of time of views. So we wouldnt need rotation. It doesnt sound like you are optimistic that the banner module can handle our needs, we dont want to use 3rd party, we want a solution that is part of the admin, for clients sake

If there is no rotation then it is perfect. The rotation is the issue. They can login and see the page views and clicks. As to the 3rd party app, you can always just write a module in php, you register the class with the plugin module (this is the easiest way to say it so it makes sense) and describe how the plugin will function, what variables it has, make the templates for the admin side and the user (what they see) side. You have your plugin copy those templates into the admin and the template section on install and remove them on uninstall. Your solution becomes fully integrated with the admin at that point. There is a learning curve, but if you are a developer and you program in PHP this stuff is pretty straight forward.

I think the banner plugin is adequate for what you intend to use it for as is. You can always add to it easily as the source code is provided, any addition you make would also be fully integrated and you would need to know less about the registering and deregistering that needs to take place.

[Steve]

Thanks for the advice- i am impressed so far with this CMS, and its certainly worth a try. I will purchase the pro version now, and let everyone know how this stacks up against Interspires Web Publisher5, which we are using now. WP5 cannot assign different layouts to each category, is tricky to install openx banner ad management, ( has no integrated module) and is limited in how many users you can have ( you have to upgrade license to add users) with no developers license.

Interspires WP5 is highly recommended by many, and is considered one of the top CMS's in this price range, but I think that VIVVO is going to give it a run for its money.

I will come back in a week or two with a comparison- mini review

thanks for the advice