Roger Smith Software

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Installation
• Configuration
• Using RS Ad Manager
• Uninstall
• Advanced Topics

Introduction

RS Ad Manager allows you to add a shortcode to your post which is replaced by eBay product listings. If you’re a member of the eBay Partner Network, the links to eBay will include your campaign ID so you will receive credit for the traffic you send to eBay.

For example, here’s the shortcode for displaying products from a specific seller:

[rsadmanager seller="shopjonrocket" keywords="rocket" count=3]

The above shortcode produces the following result:

Buy Now

Semroc Saturn 1B - 1/70 Scale Model Rocket Kit (KS-1) Price: $69.94 Click Here for More Information or to Purchase ...

Buy Now

Estes Eagle Boost Glider Model Rocket Kit (002186, OOP) Price: $23.93 Click Here for More Information or to Purchase ...

Buy Now

Estes Black Star Voyager Model Rocket Kit Price: $30.18 Click Here for More Information or to Purchase ...

 

You can control what the output looks like using a template. For example, here’s the shortcode for displaying same products using a different template:

[rsadmanager seller="shopjonrocket" keywords="rocket" count=15 template="grid"]

The above shortcode produces the following result:

Installation

Visit the WordPress RS Ad Manager Plug-in Page to download the latest version of RS Ad Manager.

Unzip the files into a folder called rs-ad-manager.

Upload the rs-ad-manager folder (not just the files in the folder) to your WordPress wp-content/plugins folder. If installed correctly, the wp-content/plugins folder should contain the rs-ad-manager folder. The rs-ad-manager folder will contain rsadmanager.php and other files.

Activate RS Ad Manager by accessing the Plugin Panel in your Administration Panels. Scroll down through the list of Plugins to find RS Ad Manager. Click the Activate link to turn the plugin on.

Configuration

Configure RS Ad Manager by clicking the RS Ad Manager link under Plugins (not the Edit link on the Plugins page).

The adminstration page is displayed. At the top of the page is a summary o fhow to use the rsadmanager shortcode. Below are fields for configuring RS Ad Manager.

eBay Campaign ID

If you are a member of the eBay Partner Network (ePN), you can enter your Campaign ID into RS Ad Manager. The ID will be used in links to eBay so that you will earn commissions on traffic you send to eBay.

If you are not already a member of ePN, visit the ePN sign-up page to apply to the program. Fill out the requested information as best you can and review the terms and conditions. After you submit your application, you will receive an email when you are accepted into the program.

Once you are a member of ePN, visit http://www.ebaypartnernetwork.com and log in. Your “Dashboard” will be displayed. In the menu bar, click the “Campaigns” link. Click the “Create Campaign” link to create a new compaign ID or use one of those (such as the Default Campaign) which is already listed. Copy the 10-digit ID number and paste it into the RS Ad Manger Campaign ID field.

Default Keywords

The interface that RS Ad manger uses to eBay requires that your specify a keyword phrase, even if you’re listing products from a specific seller. The keyword phrase cannot be empty.

RS Ad Manager allows you to enter a default keyword phrase to use if you don’t specify the keywords in your rsadmanager short code. The phrase you enter into the adminstration page will be used if you don’t include the keywords in your short code or if you specify a blank keywords value.

Default Template

RS Ad Manager uses a template to allow you to control how the list of eBay products is displayed. You may have multiple template files (which are stored in the RS Ad Manager folder in the WordPress plug-ins folder) and select which one to use by adding:

template=”templatename“

to your rsadmanager shortcode.

If you don’t specify the template name in the shortcode, RS Ad Manager uses the name you specify using the RS Ad Manager adminstration page.

By default, RS Ad Manager uses the template named template which is included with RS Ad Manager. This displays the products in a table with one product per row.

Revenue Sharing

RS Ad Manager sometimes uses one of my eBay Campaign IDs instead of the one you enter. By default, it substitutes my ID for yours a small percentage of the time. This allows you to support the continued development of RS Ad Manager.

You can, however, elect to share none (or a larger percentage) of your revenue. Select the percentage of the revenue you wish to share from the drop-down list on the RS Ad Manager administration page.

Using RS Ad Manager

To display eBay product listings in a post, add the rsadmanager shortcode. Just type the following:

[rsadmanager]

The above shortcode will be replaced with eBay product listings found using the default keywords and template you specified on the RS Ad Manager administration page.

You can add parameters to the shortcode to override the defaults. For example, to display items from the seller named shopjonrocket, use:

[rsadmanager seller="shopjonrocket"]

You can display items from more than one seller. For example, to inslude products from the sellers named pvhc and shopjonrocket, use:

[rsadmanager seller="shopjonrocket,pvhc"]

The parameters you can use are …

action

The action parameter tells RS Ad Manager what type of information to display. The default value (and, currently, the only acceptable value) is “find”. The find action searches eBay for matching products.

[rsadmanager action="find"]

count

The count parameter tells RS Ad Manager the maximum number of products to display. The default is 10. The allowable range is 1 to 100.

[rsadmanager count=15]

filter

The filter parameter tells RS Ad Manager what type of listings to display. The listing types are Auction,AuctionWithBIN,FixedPriced, and StoreInventory. The default value is “Auction,AuctionWithBIN,FixedPriced,StoreInventory”.

[rsadmanager filter="Auction,AuctionWithBIN"]

Auction listings are typical eBay auction listings. AuctionWithBIN listings are auction listings with the “Buy It Now” option. FixedPrice and StoreInventory are fixed-price listings. There’s really no difference between FixedPrice and StoreInventory listings, so the same template can be used for both.

keywords

The keywords parameter specifies the keyword phrase to search for in the titles of the eBay products. eBay requires a keyword phrase to be used even when listing products from specific sellers. The default value you enter on the adminstration page is used for the keywords if you don’t use this parameter or if its value is an empty string.

[rsadmanager keywords="model rocket"]

seller

The seller parameter specifies the seller (or sellers) of the products that will be listed. The seller parameter may be a list of seller names separated by commas. The default value you enter on the adminstration page is used for the seller if you don’t use this parameter or if its value is an empty string.

[rsadmanager seller="shopjonrocket"]

template

The template parameter specifies the name of the template to use. RS Ad Manager comes with two templates, named template and grid, which you can use. Or you can create your own templates.

[rsadmanager template="grid"]

You can, of course, combine parameters:

[rsadmanager seller="shopjonrocket" keywords="parachute" count=10 template="grid" listing="FixedPrice,StoreInventory"]

Uninstall

Deactivate RS Ad Manager by accessing the Plugin Panel in your Administration Panels. Scroll down through the list of Plugins to find RS Ad Manager. Click the Dectivate link to turn the plugin off. Then click the Delete link to delete the plugin.

Advanced Topics

Modifying Templates

RS Ad Manager uses templates to display the eBay product listings. This allows you to select the style used to display the listings and to create your own styles by creating new templates.

Templates are text files stored in the wp-content/plugins/rsadmanager folder. RS Ad Manager comes with two templates, template and grid which you may wish to use as the basis for creating your own templates.

If you wish to modify the included templates, don’t edit them directly.  Instead copy and rename them to create new templates. The templates included with RS Ad Manager may be overwritten if you upgrade or re-install the plugin.

Each template actually consists of one to three text files. The files are named template.header, template.body, and template.footer. The base part of the template file name (template) is the name of the template.

When the rsadmanager shortcode is expanded, the content of the .header file (if it exists) is added to the post. Then, for each matching product found, the content of the .body file is added to the post with special tokens in the replaced with information about the product.  Finally, the content of the .footer file (if it exists) is added to the post.

Only the .body file is required.

The .body file (and only the .body file) may contain tokens that are interpreted in the context of the current product listing.  Most of the tokens are just replaced by the corresponding information from the product listing. But there are two control tokens, [if] and [end if].

The substitution tokens (all but if and end if) are simple.  They are replaced with corresponding values from the current product listing.  For example, the [title] token is replaced by the title of the current product.

Here is a list of the substitution tokens you can use:

• [itemid] – The eBay item ID
• [title] – The title of the product
• [subtitle] – The subtitle (if any) of the product
• [categoryid] – The eBay category ID of the primary category of the listing
• [categoryname] – The eBay category name of the primary category of the listing
• [galleyurl] – The URL of the thumbnail image of the product
• [url] – The URL that links to the product’s page at eBay
• [paymentmethod] – Payment methods accepted by the seller
• [postalcode] – The postal code of the seller
• [location] – The location of the seller
• [country] – The country of the seller
• [shippingservicecost] – The cost of shipping
• [shippingtype] – The type of shipping
• [handlingtime] – The typical handling time before shipping
• [shiptolocations] – Where the seller ships to
• [currentprice] – The current high bid for auction items or the current price for fixed-price listings.
• [bidcount] – The number of active bids for auction items
• [sellingstate] – The state of the listing
• [bestofferenabled] – Is “Make an Offer” available for the listing?
• [buyitnowavailable] – Is “Buy It Now” available for the auction listing?
• [starttime] – The listing’s start time
• [endtime] – The listing’s end time
• [ends] – The time remaining for the auction or listing
• [listingtype] – The type of the listing, Auction, AuctionWithBIN, FixedPrice, or StoreInventory
• [gift] – Can the item be shipped as a gift?
• [returnsaccepted] – Are returns accepted?
• [conditiondisplayname] – The condition of the item

The [starttime] and [endtime] tokens can include text allowing you to define the format of the date/time value which replaces the token.  For example,

[starttime Y-m-d H:i:s]

Will display the start time in a form like “2011-09-12 12:23:02.”  You can use any formatting text understood by the PHP date function’s format parameter (see: http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php).

As you might expect, the if/end if tokens allow you to conditionally include text in your template. The if/end if tokens surround the block of text to be included only if the value of the expression in the if token is true. You can nest if/end if blocks.

The if token has the form:

[if field operator value]

Where field is the name of a bit of information about the product.  The field names match the names of tokens that are replaced with the values of the fields (see above).  The operator is either EQUALS to compare the value of the field with the specified value or CONTAINS to test if the value of the field is contains the specified value.

For example, to test if the title of the product contains the word “vintage” you would use:

[if title CONTAINS vintage]

The comparisons are performed without regard to case, so [if listingtype EQUALS Auction] is equivalent to [if listingtype EQUALS auction].

The templates included with RS Ad Manager are designed to work with all listing types.  They include if blocks for each listing type:

[if listingtype EQUALS Auction]

  …template for Auction listings

[end if]

[if listingtype EQUALS AuctionWithBin]

  …template for Auction with Buy It Now listings

[end if]

[if listingtype EQUALS FixedPrice]

  …template for FixedPrice listings

[end if]

[if listingtype EQUALS StoreInventory]

  …template for StoreInventory listings

[end if]

The templates included with RS Ad Manager may be overwritten with RS Ad Manger is updated, so it is best to create new templates instead of modifying the existing ones.

If your template requires CSS, you can add your styles to the rsadmanager.css file in the rsadmanager directory. Be sure to name your ids and classes in a way that won’t interfere with existing classes or ids.  Because the rsadmanager.css file may be overwritten when rsadmanager is updated, you should make a backup copy of the file after you change it.

If your template requires javascript, you can add your javascript to the rsadmanager.js file in the rsadmanager directory. Because the rsadmanager.js file may be overwritten when rsadmanager is updated, you should make a backup copy of the file after you change it.