Many blogs and high traffic sites are highly dependent on advertising since it is their main source of income. This may refer to Google AdSense, affiliate ads, or direct advertising sales. And it is where many novice entrepreneurs face the problem with the selection of a monetization tactic that is difficult to maintain and track.
And have you ever tried to keep track of all your marketing campaigns and the performance rates of your ads?
Fortunately, you can easily solve these problems once you set up a professional ad management plugin for your WP-based platform. And don’t forget to optimize your ads for mobile. According to recent research run by WordStream, mobile ads have 40% higher CTRs compared to the very same desktop ads.
We have made a list of top alternatives to WordPress ad plugins that can help you raise your site’s revenue by providing a versatile and professional ad management solution.
1. Ad Inserter
If you’re looking for a reliable and well-designed WordPress ad plugin to work as effectively as Rabato USA that shares the info about a particular product, then we highly recommend voting for Ad Inserter. The plugin currently boasts of over 200,000 installations with a rating that is close to 5 stars. It is probably one of the most well-supported plugins in the repository.
Features:
- Black/white lists by country or IP address, geo-targeting;
- Statistics on ad impressions and clicks, as well as ad-blocking data;
- Detecting ad blockers;
- Integrated editor for syntax code;
- Support for any web analytics systems: Google Analytics and others;
- A/B testing toolset;
- Debugging functions for troubleshooting;
- Any blocks are rendered on the site through a preview.
The Ad Inserter plugin allows you to add any ads or code in WP. You can use the solution for all types of advertising — from AdSense to affiliate marketing campaigns. The best thing about this plugin is that it allows you to insert ads anywhere in your post. You can do this at the beginning or the very end of a publication or even indicate a number of paragraphs (or a percentage of your content’s height). Everything is set up automatically, and no shortcodes will mess it up.
2. AdRotate
AdRotate is one of the oldest and the most used solutions when it comes to WP ad plugins. The app has a whopping 50,000+ active installations since 2014.
Features:
- Quickly connects ads from referral networks;
- Auto-rotate ads with dynamic effects;
- A system of roles for advertisers, allowing them to add, edit, manage their blocks in different ways;
- Geo-targeting;
- Mobile ads;
- Responsive design.
AdRotate has just everything you need. Thanks to its simple controls, you can edit ads without leaving your dashboard. Add, customize, remove, and view multiple banners in an instant without wasting too much time on their alteration. You can personalize your ads to show them only to those visitors who come to your site from a specific location or source. There is a free and premium version of the plugin, so you can choose an option that works best for you.
Apart from convenient and fast ad management, you can schedule any publication for a campaign to expire after a specific period of time or after a certain number of impressions or clicks.
You can also set the plugin to notify you when an ad is about to expire, either by email or with a push notification on your mobile phone for near-expiring campaigns. If you’re selling ad space on your blog, advertisers can even send you an email right from their dashboard.
AdRotate offers full-fledged ad tracking. You can easily find information about ads that perform better and which ones don’t. CTR, daily/monthly statistics, and many more are also visible on your dashboard. For your comfort, you can always export the data to CSV and share it with your colleagues or partners.
One of the most unique features of the solution is the ability to detect cases when a visitor has ad-blocking enabled. In this case, it displays a small message advising a user to see site contents in full.
3. AdSense Plugin WP QUADS
The AdSense Plugin WP Quads is a fork of the suspended Quick AdSense ads plugin that employs the most loaded ad module in the repository. The solution is rewritten from the ground up with a solid code base and is maintained by the same team that runs the MashShare project for social media sharing. The app currently has more than 80,000 active installations, which says a lot about its key features.
Features:
- AMP support;
- Automatic detection of the user’s device;
- Ad personalization;
- Support for WP Rocket, W3 Total, and other caching plugins;
- High performance: the plugin will not slow down your site;
- Easy installation;
- Detection of an ad blocker and integration with Google Analytics for stats.
If you just need to quickly get AdSense up and running on your site, this can be a great solution. In case you are still using the old Quick AdSense plugin, the solution has a “quick import,” and you can easily reconfigure it. One of the newest features of the solution is support for Google AMP ads, so it can be synced with any ad code, not limited to Google AdSense.
Final Say
As you can see, WordPress comes with many great solutions to help you work with your ads. Many of them can be used for free and do not require significant investments from your pocket. What is more, you can extend their function set with some extra features like Google AMP support and IP-based targeting. Start testing the best ad placements with A/B testing and optimize ads for mobile devices.