It is often necessary to tailor ads for specific regions—or even hide them altogether. An everyday use case is blocking ads for users in the European Union (EU) due to legal requirements or specific marketing strategies.
With Advanced Ads Pro and its built-in Geo Targeting feature, you can quickly achieve that kind of localization. This short tutorial walks you through the steps to hide ads from EU users.
Requirements for targeting ads to EU users in WordPress
Before starting, ensure you have activated Advanced Ads Pro on your WordPress site. You’ll also need to enable the Geo Targeting module in Dashboard > Settings > Advanced Ads Pro and configure it as this manual outlines.
Once you’ve set up the Geo Targeting module, you can target specific ads or placements so they do not appear for users located in the EU.
Configuring Geo Targeting for EU users
- Add the “Geo Location” Visitor Condition to your ad or placement.
- Select “By Specific Location” from the Geo Location condition dropdown.
- Choose “European Union” from the menu. This predefined region makes it easy to target all EU member states without selecting each country individually.
- With the “is not”/“is” option, specify whether Advanced Ads should hide or show the ad or placement to users in this region.
Advanced Ads considers the UK’s exit from the EU in 2021, so the “European Union” region includes only current EU member states. To exclude ads for users in the UK, add this country separately as an additional Geo Location condition.
If you’re confused as to which logical operator to use—“AND” or “OR”—, try to think like a computer:
[Show the ad to the visitor who] is not [from the] European Union
Code language: CSS (css)
OR
[Show the ad to the visitor who] is not [from the] United Kingdom
Code language: CSS (css)
…will fit all visitors since those from the EU are not from the UK and vice versa. Hence, select the “AND” operator in this case.
Ensuring caching compatibility
Enable the Cache Busting module under Advanced Ads > Settings > Pro to ensure these settings work correctly on cached pages.
Setting up fallback ads
When hiding ads for EU users, you risk leaving valuable ad impressions unfilled, leading to a potentially ad-free experience for those users. Advanced Ads can help solve this issue by setting up fallback ads.
Advanced Ads shows such fallback ads whenever it cannot serve the primary ad due to specific condition settings.
Common types of fallback ads include:
- Ads from other networks
- Promotions for your products or services
- Newsletter sign-ups
- Social media channel promotions
To ensure that EU users that you excluded from seeing certain ads still receive relevant content create fallback ads with inverted condition settings. This setup ensures that fallback ads are shown exclusively to EU users rather than the entire audience.
A detailed guide for configuring fallback ads is available in this tutorial.
Conclusion on hiding ads from EU users
Hiding ads for EU users with Advanced Ads Pro is a practical solution for balancing compliance with regional regulations and maintaining control over your ad strategy. By leveraging geo-targeting and fallback ads, you can manage ad placements efficiently while ensuring a smooth user experience across different regions.
This approach empowers you to create a more secure and legally compliant ad setup, deliver relevant content to your audience, and make the most of your website’s revenue potential.