Site-wide adverts and content zones

The theme pulls a number of site areas (the announcement bar, home page sliders, category banners, footer tiles, the desktop menu panels, terms pop-ups) from Advertising Campaigns and Content Zones in the cPanel. It finds each one by a name written into the theme. If a group or zone doesn’t carry that exact name, the area just disappears, with no error and no warning.

Use this page when you add, replace or schedule a site-wide advert, or edit a content zone. If a name isn’t listed here, the theme doesn’t use it.

How the theme finds adverts and zones

• Names are exact. Type them exactly as shown, including capitals, spaces, hyphens and underscores. footer blurb has a space, footer-usps has a hyphen, home_news has an underscore and Wholesale Form Text uses capitals.
• Advert groups are picked in the Group dropdown on the advert. If a group is missing from the dropdown, create it under Settings & tools > All settings & tools > Web Store > Webstore Advertising Groups, using the exact name.
• Location matters for some groups and not others. Home page and category adverts only show on the page they are assigned to in Location. Footer adverts aren’t tied to any page and show site-wide.
• Content zones are edited in the Content Zones section of the cPanel. The theme outputs whatever the zone contains, HTML included, in the spot shown below.

Reference: every advert group and zone the theme uses

Live counts are from altapac.com on 21 October 2026.

Header (every page)

Name	Kind	Where it shows	What the theme uses	If empty
announcement	Content zone	Full-width bar above the main header, on every page.	The whole zone, output as-is. The current bar’s dark background and centred bold white text are part of the zone’s own HTML, not the theme.	No bar.

Home page

All three groups need Location set to the Home page. None of them sets a sort order, so they follow Maropost’s default advert order.

Name	Kind	Where it shows	Fields used, image handling	Max	If empty
home_news	Text advert group	Full-width news slider at the top of the home page. Rotates every 5 seconds. Live: 4.	Image: slide background, 600px tall, stretched to fill the width and cropped from the centre. Headline: first heading line. Call to Action Link Text: second, larger heading line (not a button). Ad Text: paragraph under the heading. Link: adds a “Find Out More” button (the wording is fixed). No Link, no button.	4	Section not shown. Dots only appear with 2 or more slides.
featureCards	Text advert group	Row of three square cards below the category grid. Live: 3.	Image: square card background, cropped from the centre. Headline: large vertical card title. Link: the whole card. Ad Text and Call to Action Link Text are ignored.	3	Section not shown. With fewer than 3, each card stays one-third wide and the rest of the row is blank.
home_banner	Text advert group	”What do you get at Altapac?” slider, with a list of text links beside it. Live: 5.	Image: square, shown whole (letterboxed rather than cropped if it isn’t square). Headline: image alt text only. Link: where the image goes. Call to Action Link Text: label in the text-link list. A slide only gets a text link if it has both Call to Action Link Text and Link.	10	Section not shown. See the caution below for what happens with only 1.

Caution

home_banner with only one live advert: the heading “Altapac is your One-Stop Adventure Shop.”, the “What do you get at Altapac?” line, the text-link list and the arrows all disappear. Only the single square image is left. That can happen without anyone touching the page, for example when scheduled adverts expire and leave just one running. Always keep at least two live.

Category pages

This covers pages using the category and parent-category layouts. Live promotion pages currently use the category layout too, so these adverts appear on them.

Name	Kind	Where it shows	Fields used, image handling	Max	If empty
category_ad	Text advert group	Wide banner across the top of the category, above the sidebar and product list, on every page of results. Rotates automatically, with no arrows or dots.	Image: cropped to 5:1 on desktop, 3:1 on tablets and 2:1 on phones, keeping the left edge. Keep text and logos on the left. Headline: alt text only. Link: where the banner goes.	10	Nothing shown.
Group left blank (text)	Text adverts with no Group	Carousel at the top of the product area, first page of results only.	Image: shown whole in a 48:11 frame, letterboxed if the proportions differ. Headline: alt text only. Link: where the slide goes. Arrows and dots only with 2 or more.	10	Nothing shown.
Group left blank (product)	Product adverts with no Group	”Featured products” row above the product list, first page of results only.	Standard product cards.	8	Nothing shown.

Location for category adverts:

• category_ad: set Location to the category. Adverts on a parent category also show on its subcategories.
• Blank-group adverts (adverts with no group set): these only show on the exact category in Location. They are not passed down to subcategories.

Note

Owner decision pending. Live promo pages use the category layout, not the promotions layout. The promotions layout shows no adverts, so if promo pages are switched over, their category_ad banners and featured products will stop showing.

Footer (every page)

Footer adverts aren’t tied to a page. Leave Location blank.

Name	Kind	Where it shows	Fields used, image handling	Max, order	If empty
footer-usps	Text advert group	Row of up to four tiles above the footer. Live: none showing.	Image: small icon, shown at most 60px wide. Headline: tile text in capitals, also the icon alt text. Optional. Link: the whole tile. Ad Text and Call to Action Link Text are ignored.	4, sorted by sort order and then name	Whole row hidden.
footer-logo	Text advert group	Logo in the footer’s left column. Live: none, so the default logo shows.	Image only, shown up to 350px wide. Headline, Link and text are ignored.	1, by sort order	The site’s default logo (the website logo file) is shown.
footer blurb	Content zone	Short paragraph under the footer logo. Live: empty.	The zone, placed inside a paragraph.	n/a	Nothing shown.
terms	Content zone	Body of the “Terms & Conditions” pop-up. Linked from the agreement checkbox on Login, Register, Apply for a Trade Account and the product-page “Notify me when back in stock” form.	The whole zone, output as-is.	n/a	The pop-up opens blank.

Product pages

Product pages use no adverts or content zones of their own. The only one that appears is the terms pop-up, through the “Notify me when back in stock” form (see Footer).

Desktop menu

Both zones below are fallbacks for the panel on the right of the desktop mega menu. A level-1 item’s panel normally shows the first page in its Related Content. The zone is only used when Related Content is empty. The mobile menu doesn’t use these zones.

Name	Kind	Used by	What the zone must contain	If empty or wrong
shop_menu_content	Content zone	Shop menu panels	The bare numeric ID of one content page, and nothing else. The panel shows that page’s name and its Alt 1 image (uploaded at 450 × 450, the site-wide square image), cropped to 3:2. Live, it appears to hold 117 (Accessory Fitment & Solutions).	Panel is blank.
serve_menu_content	Content zone	Services menu panels	Same as above. Live, it appears to hold 223 (Contact Altapac).	Panel is blank.

Caution

Known live fault. A fallback panel shows the zone page’s name and image, but clicking it goes to the level-1 menu item’s own page, not to the zone page. For example, on 21 October 2026 the Shop menu’s “Current Promotions” panel showed “Accessory Fitment & Solutions” but linked to /current-promotions/. Until that’s fixed, give each level-1 item its own Related Content rather than relying on the fallback.

Caution

24-hour delay. The desktop menu is cached for 24 hours (86,400 seconds), so changes to these zones, or to Related Content, may not appear for up to a day.

Account and trade forms

Name	Kind	Where it shows	How it’s used	If empty
Wholesale Form Text	Content zone	”Fleet Manager, Reseller or Mechanic?” box on the Login page and the Register page.	Placed inside a paragraph above the “Apply for Trade Account” button.	Built-in text is shown instead. It differs between the two pages: “Apply for a Trade Account and get trade pricing and priority support.” on Login, and a longer version mentioning wholesale pricing and new product releases on Register.
wholesale_terms	Content zone	Apply for a Trade Account form.	Body of a “Terms of Trade” pop-up, and a “Terms of Trade” link in the agreement checkbox label.	Both the link and the pop-up are removed, so applicants only agree to Terms & Conditions and the Privacy Policy.

Add or replace a site-wide advert

1. Go to Advertising Campaigns and click Add New Advertising Campaign. To replace an existing slide, open that advert instead.
2. Choose Banner, Carousel Slide or Text Advert. Use a product advert only for featured products on a category page.
3. In Group, pick the exact group from the reference above. For category carousel slides and featured products, leave Group blank.
4. Fill in only the fields that group uses. Fields the theme ignores won’t show anywhere, so don’t rely on them.
5. Upload the Image in the shape the group expects. home_news is wide (600px tall on screen), featureCards and home_banner are square, category_ad is a wide strip with the important content on the left, and footer-usps is a small icon.
6. Set Location: the Home page for home groups, the category for category adverts, blank for footer groups.
7. For footer-usps and footer-logo, set the advert’s sort order to control which comes first.
8. Save, then load the page and check the advert shows, links to the right place, and that the section around it still looks right. Add ?nc= and any random text to the address (for example /?nc=4821) to skip Maropost’s page cache.

To retire an advert, remove it or let its end date pass. Check the counts first: dropping home_banner to one, or home_news to one, changes the layout as described above.

Schedule an advert

Use the advert’s date range (the timeline dates in the advert form) to set when it starts and stops. The theme adds no date rules of its own, and none of these adverts sit inside the 24-hour menu cache, so Maropost’s dates decide what shows.

When scheduling, plan the overlap:

• Keep at least two home_banner adverts live at all times.
• home_news shows at most 4 and featureCards at most 3. A fifth news advert or a fourth card won’t appear, even if it is live.
• footer-logo shows only one. If two overlap, whichever sorts first wins.

Edit a content zone without breaking it

1. Open Content Zones and find the zone by its exact name. Don’t create a new zone with a similar name. The theme only reads the exact one.
2. Edit according to the zone type:
   • Menu fallback zones (shop_menu_content, serve_menu_content): enter only the numeric content ID, such as 117. Switch the editor to source or HTML view and make sure there is no paragraph tag, line break or other text around the number.
   • Zones placed inside a paragraph (footer blurb, Wholesale Form Text): write one short run of plain text. No paragraphs, headings or lists.
   • Zones output as-is (announcement, terms, wholesale_terms): full HTML is fine. For announcement, edit in source or HTML view so the styled wrapper around the message isn’t lost.
3. Save, then check the page where the zone shows. For the menu zones, allow up to 24 hours.

What breaks: common silent failures

Caution

None of these cause an error. The area simply goes missing or looks wrong.

• Name typed slightly differently. For example Home_News, footer_usps, footerblurb or wholesale terms. The section vanishes.
• Home advert without the Home Location. It saves fine but never shows.
• Menu fallback zone wrapped in a paragraph. The visual editor often adds one around the ID. The menu panel goes blank.
• Expecting a button label from Call to Action Link Text on home_news. On news slides that field is the second heading line. The button always says “Find Out More”, and only appears if Link is set.
• home_banner slide with Link but no Call to Action Link Text. The image works, but the slide has no entry in the text-link list.
• Text placed on the right of a category_ad image. The right side is cropped first on smaller screens.
• Formatted text in footer blurb or Wholesale Form Text. Paragraphs and headings inside an existing paragraph produce broken spacing.
• Emptying terms. The Terms & Conditions pop-up still opens on four forms, but it’s blank.
• Category page with both a category_ad banner and a blank-group carousel. Both carousels share the same on-page ID. The second carousel’s arrows and dots can end up moving the first one. If a category needs both, ask a developer to check it.

Note

Unconfirmed, as these can’t be verified from the theme source:

• Groups may not exist yet. It isn’t confirmed that footer-usps and footer-logo exist under Webstore Advertising Groups. Neither shows anything on the live site.
• Name matching. It isn’t confirmed whether Maropost matches zone names case-sensitively. Treat them as case-sensitive.
• Page cache. Maropost caches pages on top of the theme’s 24-hour menu cache, and a cPanel save of a content page clears it. Whether saving an advert or a content zone clears it isn’t confirmed.

For developers

This page is based on the development branch of Altapac-ReDev:

• src/templates/headers/template.html (announcement)
• src/templates/cms/home.template.html (home_news, featureCards, home_banner) and src/css/home.css (image sizing)
• src/templates/cms/category.template.html and src/templates/cms/parent-category.template.html (category_ad, blank-group text and product adverts, duplicate homepageCarousel ID, shared counter site value)
• src/templates/footers/template.html (footer-usps, footer-logo, footer blurb, terms), src/templates/thumbs/advert/footer-usps.template.html, src/scss/_custom.scss
• src/templates/headers/includes/components/desk-Menu.template.html (shop_menu_content, serve_menu_content, inside [%cache … ttl:'86400'%]) and src/css/custom.css (3:2 crop)
• src/templates/customer/login.template.html, src/templates/customer/register/template.html, src/templates/customer/wholesaleregister/template.html (Wholesale Form Text, wholesale_terms)
• src/templates/products/includes/modals.template.html (links to the terms modal)

Alt 1 upload size, the page cache and ?nc=: Altapac-Content CLAUDE.md. Content 117 is “Accessory Fitment & Solutions” and 223 is “Contact Altapac” in the 2026-10-20 content pull.

Not wired up: src/templates/cms/includes/home-sections/image-w-overlay.html uses an overlay_ad group but isn’t loaded by any template. The advert thumbs scroll, text, secondary_banners, advert_gallery and srcset-banner are also unused.

Drift: the live home page renders home_news headings as h1, while development uses h2 (AUD-80). Computed styles are the same, so staff see no difference.