This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

Custom Banners

Description

Custom Banners is a WordPress plugin that allows you to easily manage several banners (ads) and display them on the front end.

Create Banners Once, and Reuse Them Throughout Your Website

Use Custom Banners to create reusable banners that your whole team can use! Setup the banners once, and you’ll be able to re-use them throughout the website. Best of all, if you need to make an update you can just make it once.

Update Your Banners Without Touching Your Code

Simply place a shortcode, using our editor widgets, into the page where you’d like your banner to appear, and then you’ll never have to edit that page again! Custom Banners is also implemented as an easy-to-use Widget!

Instead, you’ll be able to manage that banner right from the WordPress dashboard, uploading new banners and taking down old ones as you like. All without having to edit your pages.

Easily Add Captions and Call-To-Action Buttons To Your Custom Banners

Custom Banners lets you optionally specify a caption and a call-to-action text and URL for each banner, making your banners an effective way to drive visitors to your most important pages. Captions can support all types of content, including YouTube videos!

Use the captions to announce a new special, and use the call-to-action button to let your customers claim it right away.

Rotate Between Several Banners with Banner Groups

Custom Banners also gives you many options for rotating banners within a position. So you can specify several banners which belong to a Banner Group, and then the software will automatically rotate through the banners in the Banner Group.

Automatically Publish New Banners At A Specified Time

Do you have a banner that’s announcing a new special, but you want to hide it until the right time? No problem – with the Publish Time feature of Custom Banners you can setup your banner now, but not show it until the right time.

With the Pro version, easily add Sliding, Flipping, and Tiling banners throughout your site!

Click here to see live examples.

Upgrade to Pro for For Advanced Features and Support

The GoldPlugins team does not provide direct support for the Custom Banners plugin on the WordPress.org forums. One on one email support is available to people who have purchased Custom Banners Pro only. Custom Banners Pro adds the ability to create advanced slideshows from your banners, view and click tracking, and over 50 profesionally designed themes. You should upgrade today!

Upgrade To Custom Banners Pro

Screenshots

  • This is the Add New Banner Page.
  • This is the List of Banners - from here you can Edit or Delete a Banner.
  • This is the List of Banner Groups - from here you can Create, Edit, or Delete a Banner Group.
  • This is the Single Banner Widget. You can use this widget to output and control a single banner anywhere you have a widget region on your website.
  • This is the Rotating Banner Widget. You can use this widget to output and control a rotating banner anywhere you have a widget region on your website.
  • This is the List of Banners Widget. You can use this widget to output a specific group of banners in a location.
  • This is the Basic Options Page. You can use this page to control various global options, such as the Height and Width of the Banner.
  • This is the Themes Options page. You can use this page to select from available themes to display your banners with.
  • This is the Style Options Page, for Pro Users. You can use this page to control the size, style, and colors of the fonts, caption, borders, and buttons.
  • This is the Click and View tracking options screen, for Pro Users. You can use this page to control various tracking options for your banners.
  • This is the Click and View tracking Reports screen, for Pro Users. You can use this page to view your reports on your banners.
  • This is the Help & Settings Page. You can use this page for instructions on how to use the plugin.

Blocks

This plugin provides 3 blocks.

  • Custom Banners
  • Custom Banners
  • Custom Banners

Installation

Add the Plugin to your Website

  1. Download and Unzip https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/custom-banners.zip
  2. Upload the contents of ‘/custom-banners/’ to the ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory
  3. Activate Custom Banners through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress

This section describes how to use the plugin on your website.

Adding a New Banner

Adding a New Banner is easy! There are 3 ways to start adding a new banner

How to Add a New Banner

  1. Click on “+ New” -> Banner, from the Admin Bar or
  2. Click on “Add New Banner” from the Menu Bar in the WordPress Admin or
  3. Click on “Add New Banner” from the top of the list of Banners, if you’re viewing them all.

New Banner Content

You have a few things to pay attention to:

  • Banner Title: this is for internal reference.
  • Banner Body: this is the content of your Banner. This will be output in the Call to Action bar.
  • Target URL: where a user should be sent when they click on the banner or the call to action button.
  • Call To Action Text: the “Call To Action” (text) of the button. Leave this field blank to hide the call to action button.
  • CSS Class: any extra CSS classes that you would like applied to this banner.
  • Featured Image: this image is shown as the banner.

Editing a Banner

This is as easy as adding a New Banner!

  1. Click on “Banners” in the Admin Menu.
  2. Hover over the Banner you want to Edit and click “Edit”.
  3. Change the fields to the desired content and click “Update”.

Deleting a Banner

This is as easy as adding a New Banner!

  1. Click on “Banners” in the Admin Menu.
  2. Hover over the Banner you want to Delete and click “Delete”. You can also change the Status of a Banner, if you want to keep it on file.

Outputting Banners

  • To output a Random Banner, place the shortcode [banner count="1"] in the desired area of the Page or Post Content.
  • To output a specific Banner, place the shortcode [banner id="123"] in the desired area of the Page or Post Content.
  • To output a Random Banner from a Specific Group, place the shortcode [banner count="1" group="test"] in the desired area of the Page or Post Content.
  • To control the postion of the Caption, use the attribute caption_position=”left”. Acceptable values are left, right, top, bottom. For example, [banner caption_positon="left"].
  • To use an image tag, instead of background image, for the banner, add the attribute use_image_tag=”true” to your banner shortcode. For example, [banner use_image_tag="true"].

Outputting Fading or Sliding Banners

  • To output Random Banners from a Specific Group, place the shortcode [banner group="test" count="3" transition="scrollHorz" timer="2000"] in the desired area of the Page or Post Content. Change the value of count from 3 to however many slides you want to use. For transition, use either “scrollHorz” or “fade”. For timer, use 1000 times the number of seconds you want between transitions (ie, for 4 seconds input 4000.)
  • To output Random Banners, place the shortcode [banner count="3" transition="scrollHorz" timer="2000"] in the desired area of the Page or Post Content. Change the value of count from 3 to however many slides you want to use. For transition, use either “scrollHorz” or “fade”. For timer, use 1000 times the number of seconds you want between transitions (ie, for 4 seconds input 4000.)
  • Free Transitions include scrollHorz,fade
  • To Show Pager Icons below your Banner, use the attribute pager="true" or pager="1". On the Widget, check the box next to Show Pager Icons.
  • To have the Slideshow Pause on Hover, use the attribute pause_on_hover=true. Defaults to false.
  • NOTE: Advanced Transitions are Included in the Pro version of Custom Banners
  • LIVE Examples are available here
  • Supported Advanced Transitions are scrollVert,flipHorz,flipVert, and tileSlide.

FAQ

What should I do if I don’t want a call to action button?

Simply leave the call to action text field blank

How do I link the entire Banner to the Target URL and not just the Call To Action Button?

On the Options screen, check the box next to “Link Entire Banner”.

I want my banners viewable at their Permalinks, but I get a 404 message – what gives?

Alright – all you need to do is go to Settings -> Permalinks and click the Save button. This should take care of the issue!

Help! My banners are being cut off on the left / right / top / bottom!

No worries! This probably means the image you are using doesn’t match the size of the area it is being displayed in. Try resizing and cropping your image to fit the available area, and then upload it again!

Ack! When I enabled my slideshow, my slides disappeared!

OK! This usually happens when there isn’t a default Height and Width set on your Basic Options, causing the dimensions to not be correctly set on your slides. All you have to do is adjust the Default Banner Width and Default Banner Height to suit your needs!

Yarg! In the Widget, I’ve set my Banner Height to Auto but a pixel value is still being used. Why?

Unless you are using the Use Image Tag option, the height of the banner will default to a pixel value to prevent the banner from having no height.

Reviews

10 Eanáir, 2023
Unfortunately this (good) plugin does not work anymore after updating to php 8.0 or higher! Used it in a widget. Any chance of an update for WordPress 6.1.1 ?
22 Eanáir, 2021
Does exactly what I need. Why it doesn't have more following? No idea.
Read all 8 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Custom Banners” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Translate “Custom Banners” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

3.3

  • Security fix.
  • Compatibility with WP 5.6.1

3.2.2

  • Minor fixes.
  • Compatibility with WP 5.3

3.2

  • Adds Gutenburg custom blocks for Single Banner, List of Banners, and Slideshow.
  • Compatibility updates for WP 5.0

3.1.1

  • Address Warning generated on admin screens.

3.1

  • Compatibility with WordPress 4.9.4
  • Compatibility update for WP-CLI

3.0

  • MAJOR UPGRADE! Please backup your site before proceeding!
  • Multiple under the hood improvements.
  • Better handle image sizing of banners in slideshows.
  • Admin UI update.

2.1.1

  • Add option to change banner shortcode.
  • Update Theme Preview screen
  • Compatible with WordPress 4.8
  • Compatibility update for MailPoet

  • View Changelog