Turn on advertising and your directory gets an Advertise page where a local business books its own placement and pays through Easy Digital Downloads. You review each booking before it goes live, unless you switch on automatic approval.
Before you start
- Install and activate Easy Digital Downloads. Without it the form shows “Advertising is not available right now.”
- Switch advertising on under Directory > Ads & Packages > Settings. This creates the “Directory Advertising” product and an “Advertise With Us” page at /advertise/ holding [sdp_advertise].
- Set up an EDD payment gateway. The demo used EDD test mode.
How to use it
- Open the Advertise page (/advertise/) as a business owner.
- Enter the business name, the link the ad should open, and an email address for receipts and renewal reminders.
- Optionally choose a banner image. Leave it blank to use the listing photo.
- Pick a placement: Homepage, or Homepage + Sidebar.
- Choose a duration from the Duration list. The price shows under it before anything is paid.
- Select Continue to payment. The chosen placement and months are placed in the EDD cart and you land on checkout.
- Complete the EDD checkout.
- Go to Directory > Ads & Packages > Ads. The paid booking is listed under Bookings with a pending status.
- Select Approve on the booking. It goes live straight away.
What happens after payment
When EDD marks the order complete, the plugin turns the saved form details into a booking. If the same email already started the form, that saved lead becomes the booking instead of a duplicate being created.
The booking is pending until you approve it. With auto approve on, it becomes active immediately.
Once active, the ad appears as a card in the Sponsored section of the homepage. Spare slots show an “Advertise Here” card that links to the Advertise page.
Before the end date, the advertiser gets renewal reminder emails, sent by a daily check, then an expiry notice when the booking ends. To renew, they book again from the Advertise page.
Settings and limits
- Default prices, which you can change in the ad settings: 79 for the first month of a Homepage booking and 119 for Homepage + Sidebar, each in your site currency.
- Each extra month is priced 5% lower than the month before (default). The longest booking is 12 months (default).
- Slots: the featured carousel has 3 by default and the listing sidebar has 2. When the homepage slots are full, the form shows “All advertising slots are sold right now.” When sidebar slots are full, the Homepage + Sidebar option is hidden.
- Banner: JPG, PNG or WebP, 2MB or smaller, checked by its real file type. Recommended size is 800×450 (16:9). A rejected file sends the visitor back to the form with “Please fill in every field with a valid value.”
- Booking length runs from the moment payment completes, not from your approval.
- Automatic approval is off by default. Renewal reminders go out 7 days and 1 day before the end date by default.
- Spam protection: a hidden field, a minimum of 4 seconds before submitting, and 5 submissions per IP address per hour.
- Prices in the EDD product update whenever you save the ad settings.
FAQ
Do I need Easy Digital Downloads?
Yes. The form, cart and payment all run through it.
Can I skip the approval step?
Yes. Turn on auto approve in the ad settings and paid bookings go live immediately.
What if someone fills in the form but never pays?
They appear under Leads in Directory > Ads & Packages > Ads, marked as started but not paid. By default they get one follow-up email after 6 hours.
Can I reject a booking?
Yes. Select Reject on a pending booking. The plugin does not issue a refund, so handle that in EDD.
Where do I change the page or the shortcode?
Edit the Advertise With Us page in WordPress. The form is the [sdp_advertise] shortcode and you can place it on any page.