In CakePHP, an Element is a block of code that can be easily summoned with a simple function call. This ease of reusability makes Elements ideal for managing often-repeated blocks of code.

Ideally, the code inside an Element should be static. For dynamic code it would be more appropriate to use a Helper. Ads, forms, static menus, and login forms are all ideal candidates for a cakePHP Element.

Among cakePHP's customizable elements (components, plugins, helpers etc.) an 'Element' is by far the easiest to create and implement.

First, in /app/views/elements create a folder that will hold the Element.
For example /app/views/elements/ads could hold all of your Google ads.

Inside that folder, create a cakePHP .ctp view file, preferably with a name that describes the Elements code.
So, if we want to create an Element that holds all of our 468x60 Google ads we could create a file named google_468_x_60.ctp

In any view file you want to display the Element, simply call the element function, passing the desired Element's path (relative to the elements folder) as the first and only parameter.

echo $this->element('ads/google_468_x_60');

That's it! Unlink components and helpers, we are not required to define anything in the controller of the view that calls the Element.