Ebay Partner Network (EPN) Custom Banner Advice

This article is part of the Ebay affiliate program guide.
Recently Ebay partner network has totally redesigned their custom banner options and many publishers are distraught because some important features of the old version are gone. The old code will still function. Yet many people want to make new custom banners, and this post will tell you how to do so without the tool.
All is not lost.
For most people you can just change a few things manually and you can have those custom banners still and make new ones.

I would like to show people how to use their existing code to create new banners without the interface (which ebay took away).

1. Copy and paste code from one of your webpages that already have the code…

Your code will look something like this….
<script type="text/javascript" src='http://adn.ebay.com/files/js/min/ebay_activeContent-min.js'></script> <script charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"> document.write('x3Cscript type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="http://adn.ebay.com/cb?programId=1&campId=xxxxxxxx&toolId=10026& customId=1973&keyword=1973+schwinn+schwinn&width=250& height=5000&font=1&textColor=000000&linkColor=0000AA& arrowColor=8BBC01&color1=FFFFFF&color2=FFFFFF& format=Html&contentType=TEXT_AND_IMAGE& enableSearch=n&useeBayT=n&usePopularSearches=n& freeShipping=n&topRatedSeller=n&itemsWithPayPal=n& descriptionSearch=n&showKwCatLink=n&excludeCatId=& excludeKeyword=&catId=&disWithin=200&ctx=n& flashEnabled=' + isFlashEnabled + '&pageTitle=' + _epn__pageTitle + '&cachebuster=' + (Math.floor(Math.random() * 10000000 )) + '">x3C/script>' ); </script>

That may look pretty crazy, but once you know what to change, it will be easy to make new banners from your old code.

If you copy it from your existing webpages then most of the custom things you need for your website (colors and such) are going to already be there and so will your important info. So again I stress… copy from your website! not mine.

2. Identifying parts of code you can change

For everything you want to change, there is something in that code to identify it…

Custom Banner Size

For example if you want the banner a different size, then you can just find the size attributes in that code. I will show you with the example code, the size parts are in bold…

So it says…
width=250& height=5000

To change the size of your banner, you just put the appropriate width and height in there. The above example is 250 pixels wide, and 5000 pixels high. Lets change it to 200 pixels wide to 100 pixels high…

width=200& height=100

Okay, now your new banner is a different size, lets see how we can change other things…

Custom Banner search terms

Now we want to change the search terms – before you had search terms, so all you have to do is replace the terms. I will show you…

keyword=1973+schwinn&width=250& height=5000

The keyword part is right before the height and width. The above code searches for “1973 schwinn”. Yours will have whatever keywords you use. To change the things that display in your custom banner just change the terms in the code. As an example I will change the above code to search for “new ipods” instead of “1973 schwinn”…

keyword=new+ipods&width=250& height=5000

Changing Custom ID

You are probably figuring this out by now, but let’s do one more example. If I want to change the custom id for my new banner, I would look at the code…

I look through the code and find “customID”.

customId=1973&keyword=1973+schwinn+schwinn&width=250& height=5000

The custom ID in the code is “1973″ and you can change that to whatever you want (just make sure you leave no spaces).

3. Explore the code and test it

The bottom line is that everything that you could change with the old tool, you can change right in the code. Want to change colors? look for “colors”. You may have to experiment a little, but for those of you who are motivated to make new custom banners there truly is this option if you take the time to look at the code.

Testing it

I suggest you copy your code, then change one thing as an experiment, then put it on your page and refresh your browser to make sure it works, and is displaying what you want. The main thing is to not leave any spaces.

I know this is not a perfect solution, but it is the only one we have for now as ebay publishers. The truth is I find it much easier to just change the code manually instead of using the tool. Now that the tool is gone, you will have to too, but I hope you find it easier too.

I should also note I do not represent ebay in anyway, I am just a publisher myself who uses it.
Hope this helped.