Banner Broadcasts

Note: The Banner Broadcasts require Admin Panel access to manage, and this article is thus meant for Admin users of Eko.

In viewing the Broadcast area of the Admin Panel, you may have noticed a listing we haven’t touched on yet - Banner Broadcasts. In this section, we’ll go over the basics of Banner Broadcasts, such as what they are and when best to use them.

Banner Broadcasts are a special type of Broadcast that stick to the very top of users' feeds’ via a highlighted bar, rather than showing up as a chat listing. With this approach, you can make sure that the most important messages you need to communicate to your users will be noticed, rather than falling behind in their Recents list. The banner color can be set to whatever you want, and you can include an icon and a brief summary right on the bar. People who click on it will then access a more long-form message with whatever information you’re trying to convey. They’re prominent and hard-to-miss for any user jumping into Eko, and you can have multiple running at a time, all set to run for pre-set timeframes.

The Banner Broadcasts area of the Admin Panel contains all the necessary tools you’ll need to create new Banners, set timeframes for them to run, and publish them to users feeds. We’ll start by exploring how to create new ones.

Create a New Banner Broadcast

Start by clicking the Banner Broadcast listing under the Broadcasting area of the Admin Panel. This will take you to the main Banner Dashboard, where you can see any banners you currently have published, a list of all the Banners you’ve created, and options for managing both.

To create a new one:

1. Click the ‘+ Create New banner’ button.
2. Add in a Title and Description for your banner.
3. Choose whether you want the banner to contain a link (URL type) or a message (Content type).
1. Add in either your link of choice, or the message you want to display when people tap/click the banner.
4. Choose your banner color by hex code (the default will be one of your company colors).
5. Choose to include a background image, if applicable.
6. Set the dates and times it will be present.
7. Choose if you want to allow users to dismiss the banner once they see it.
8. Click ‘Create’.

You now successfully have a full Banner, ready for publishing!

Manage Banner Broadcasts

Once you’ve created a Banner, you will see it listed among all of your others on the bottom section of the Banner dashboard, in the ‘Your Banners’ area. When not published, this ‘deck’ of Banners can be edited to configure any of them for future use, or deleted altogether.

• The slider on the left of each listing lets you add the Banner to the publishing queue.
• The schedule lists when it is set to run.
• Click the ‘pencil’ button next to any banner in the list to edit it.
• Click the ‘trash can’ button next to a banner to delete it.

You can now successfully manage your Banners!

Publish Banner Broadcasts

Once you’ve created a Banner and set an appropriate timeframe for it to run, the final step is to Publish the Banner. Created Banner’s won’t be pushed out to users unless you take the step to Publish them, so this is a very important step for making sure the information from your Banner is visible.

To publish a Banner:

1. Make sure the slider on the left-hand of the Banner listing is set to ‘Queued’, and it is visible in the queue above.
2. Once all important banners are included in the queue, click the ‘Publish Queue’ button in the upper-right of the Banner dashboard.

Note: There’s no need to ‘unpublish’ a banner from the queue once it’s finished. Once the Banner expires at the end of it’s scheduled window, it will be taken down automatically and have an ‘expired’ status listed next to it in the Your Banners section.

You’ve now successfully published a Banner!

Note: To remove the banner, click Remove on the right-hand side under the Banner Broadcast tab.