For blogs and websites that attract a lot of visitors, making money often depends on ads. This can be done through Google AdSense, alternative ad platforms, affiliate ads or selling ad space directly. The biggest problem with this is that managing and tracking ads as a revenue source can be tricky. Many website administrators quickly experience problems adding AdSense codes and customizing WordPress themes. And have you ever tried to track how effective your banners actually are on your website?
Fortunately, there is a simple solution to all these problems: using a professional plugin to manage ads on your WordPress site. It's important to optimize your ads for mobile use. In fact, research by WordStream shows that mobile ads have a 40% higher click rate (CTR) than ads on desktop. In this article, you will find a detailed comparison of the 6 best ad plugins for WordPress that will help you increase your blog's revenue and make managing your ads easier.
Top WordPress plugins for ads
1. Ad Inserter
If you are looking for a reliable and well-developed WordPress plugin for ads, Ad Inserter comes highly recommended. This plugin currently has over 40,000 active installs and is rated 4.9 out of 5. It is probably one of the best maintained plugins on this list and the developer, Igor, is very active in the support forums.
Using the Ad Inserter plugin, it is easy to add ads or HTML/Javascript/PHP code to WordPress. This allows you to place different types of ads, such as Adsense and your own affiliate ads. This plugin is available in both a free version and a premium version. Moreover, the plugin is even recommended by Amazon.
A big advantage of the plugin is that you can place ads wherever you want in your article. Whether you want to place the ad before, after or halfway through the content, it's all possible. You can even choose to place the ad after the first three paragraphs. The setting is done automatically, so you don't have to work with shortcodes. In addition, you can also exclude specific pages or articles from ads if you want. This plugin is ideal for WordPress users.
Some other features of the free variant are:
2. AdRotate
AdRotate is one of the most popular and longest standing ad plugins for WordPress. This plugin has more than 50,000 active installations and is rated 4.3 out of 5 stars. It has been available since the beginning of 2014.
AdRotate is a handy tool that helps you manage ads on your WordPress website. With this plugin, you have all the necessary features at your disposal. From your dashboard, you can easily add, edit and remove ads. It is even possible to set up ads to be shown only to visitors from a specific location. AdRotate is available in both free and paid versions.
Using WordPress, you can ensure that ads are automatically stopped after a certain period of time or after a certain number of impressions or clicks are reached. In addition, the plugin can notify you when an ad is about to expire, via email or even a push notification on your iOS or Android device. If you sell ad space on your blog, advertisers have the ability to contact you directly from their dashboard.
With AdRotate, you can easily monitor the performance of your ads. You can easily see which ads are working well and which are not, by tracking CTR (Click-Through Rate), daily and monthly statistics and much more. You even have the ability to export all this data to a CSV file. One of the most unique features of AdRotate is the ability to detect if a visitor is using an adblocker. If so, you can display a small message advising the visitor to disable the adblocker in order to make the most of the site. You can also display ads through shortcodes, widgets or your theme's PHP.
Here are some other features WordPress offers
Currently, the AdRotate plugin is not yet fully compatible with Nginx FastCGI's page caching feature. As a result, your ads may not rotate or change automatically until Kinsta's page cache is emptied.
The Ads Plugin by WP QUADS is a new version of the popular ad plugin Quick Sense. Quick Sense has been discontinued, but this new plugin has been completely redeveloped and has a solid codebase. Moreover, it is supported by MashShare, a plugin for sharing social content. Currently, the Ads Plugin by WP QUADS has more than 20,000 active installations and a star rating of 4.9 out of 5.
If you want to use Quick AdSense on your website, WordPress is the ideal solution. If you are already using the old Quick AdSense plugin, you can easily migrate using the "quick import" feature. There is now also support for Google AMP ads. As with previous plugins, both free and paid versions are available. The WordPress team focuses on fast performance and no external scripts are required. Some additional features include:
4. Advanced ads
Advanced Ads is a handy ad management tool developed specifically by a publisher for other publishers. This ad plugin was created based on the developer's experience showing millions of ads every month. It is a powerful yet lightweight solution that allows you to add and manage banners within WordPress, as well as test and optimize them. It currently has more than 100,000 active installations and a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars.
The WordPress plugin has been around for quite some time and the developer is very involved in support forums. As with previous plugins, a free version is also available with paid additions. The plugin supports all formats, such as ad rotation, ad injection and ad widgets. Moreover, it also offers some other useful features, such as:
5. WordPress Ads Pro Plugin
The WordPress Ads Pro Plugin is a premium tool that you can purchase through CodeCanyon. With this plugin, you can easily manage, sell and display your ad spaces on your website. If you are already familiar with the BuySellAds platform, this plugin allows you to set up your own BSA without the intervention of outside parties. This makes using the plugin ideal for you! The WordPress Ads Pro Plugin has been sold over 2,400 times and has a rating of 4.4 out of 5.
The WordPress plugin offers a convenient system with templates and grids, making it easy to place relevant and user-friendly ads on your website. It is fully compatible with Ad Blocker and offers more than 20 different ways to display your banners, including Google AdSense banners. In addition, the plugin also has other useful features, such as:
If you need a WordPress plugin to manage your own sales and customers, then this plugin is perfect for you.
6. WP-Insert
WP-Insert is a WordPress plugin that helps you manage your ads and is specially optimized for Google AdSense. Developed by the team at SmartLogix Technologies, this plugin currently has more than 30,000 active installations, with a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5.
WP-Insert is a WordPress plugin presented as the perfect solution for your website. In fact, this plugin offers much more than just placing ads. Besides managing ads, WP-Insert also lets you manage Google Analytics tracking codes (or a similar alternative), display legal notifications and highlight code in the theme editor. In short, WP-Insert is a versatile plugin that helps you make the most of your WordPress website.
In this article, we focus on managing ads in WordPress. WP-Insert provides support for multiple ad networks, allowing you to simultaneously use multiple platforms, such as Yahoo!, AdBrite, AdSense, Chitika and more, without violating any platform's terms of use. This allows ads from three different networks to be displayed simultaneously.
Using this WordPress plugin, you have the ability to fully customize your website with as many as 20 different ad widgets. You can customize and schedule each widget. Moreover, you can even add ad codes directly to your theme's code (bloggers can manage the plugin from the dashboard). You can also place ads in your articles; you can display them at the top, bottom, middle or side of your content. Banners are displayed via shortcodes. The most impressive feature is the set of rules that determine where, when and how an ad is displayed. You can even target based on location: so you can show American visitors ads from AdSense and German visitors ads from AdBrite, just the way you want.
In short, this is an amazing WordPress plugin that also offers several other solutions.
Overview
There are many useful solutions available in WordPress to make managing ads easier. Moreover, most of these plugins are free to use. In addition, they can be enhanced with premium features, such as support for Google AMP and geo-targeting. This allows you to start testing better ad locations, A/B testing and optimizing ads for mobile devices right away. If we missed a good ad plugin for WordPress, we'd love to hear from you in the comments.
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Brian Jackson is an avid user of WordPress and has over a decade of experience with this platform. He has even developed a number of premium plugins. In addition to his love for WordPress, Brian also loves blogging, movies and hikes. Want to know more about Brian and his activities? Then follow him on Twitter.
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