Ad Types

The ad type defines specific features of an ad that bases on input and output. Find below a description of the current ad types.

Available ad type of Advanced Ads

When creating your ad, you can choose from the following ad types:

Plain Text and Code	For any ad code in HTML, JavaScript, CSS, or PHP. Best choice for codes from ad networks
Dummy Ad	No need to upload own ad codes for testing an ad position or Advanced Ads features
Rich Content	Works like the WordPress editor with text formatting and shortcodes
Image Ad	Upload and use image ads
Ad Group	Used to inherit ad settings to several ads in a group
AMP	Ads on Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
AdSense	Dedicated support for ads from AdSense
Google Ad Manager	Load ad units directly from your Google Ad Manager account

Find more information for each ad type below.

Plain Text and Code

Use this ad type for any ad codes or content you don’t want to be changed by another plugin or WordPress, including code and plain text.

Some examples are:

• ad tags from ad networks (e.g., Google AdSense or the Amazon Affiliate Program)
• JavaScript code
• HTML code
• PHP code (needs wrapping in <?php ?> )

You can disable the PHP feature by either setting the DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT or the ADVANCED_ADS_DISALLOW_PHP constant. If you did, then you will see the message ”Executing PHP code has been disallowed”.

You can disable the usage of any HTML, including the script tag in ads by setting the DISALLOW_UNFILTERED_HTML constant. If you did, users will see either ”You do not have sufficient permissions to include all HTML tags.” or ”The creator of the ad does not have sufficient permissions to include all HTML tags.” as a warning above the ad edit field.

If you see any of the restrictions mentioned above then please reach out to your webmaster. They might have enabled the constants on purpose.

Dummy

The Dummy ad type is a very basic, locally hosted ad unit. The simple placeholder is perfect for quick testing and debugging if there are issues with the ad code you are using, and if it doesn’t show up.

Rich Content

The Rich Content ad type offers the full magic of the WordPress content editor. It is practically like creating a standard post. Use this ad type to format text or any other rich media content as if working in a text editor. You can even upload images here and use shortcodes.

What you can do with this ad type:

• format text (headlines, bold, italic, colors, etc.)
• create links
• upload and display images
• use shortcodes
• use shortcodes from other ad plugins to combine their features with Advanced Ads
• toggle between Visual and Text view of the content

Ad Group

By choosing this ad type, you can control a whole ad group, like a single ad. Here you can access all options that are otherwise only available for single ads.

• use the same conditions and layout settings for all ads within that group
• use the ad group in rotation; e.g., you could rotate multiple groups
• tracking all ads within a group under the same tracking link
• limiting ad impressions for multiple related ads
• Inherit ad settings with the ad group type

Displaying the Ad Group ad works precisely like every other ad type.

Limitations:

• the current ad can not be added to the ad group it displays; it might create an infinite loop.
• you should make sure that the options made for the Ad Group ad are not set in the ads within the selected group, because it might lead to unexpected behavior.
• visitor conditions of the individual ads within the selected group only work on cached sites when using ajax Cache Busting.

Image Ad

The image ad type makes it very easy to use an image as an ad and link it to another URL.

As you can see on the screenshot, you can select an image that will give you access to the WordPress media library, change an existing image, and even see a preview of the ad. You can also set up a URL and the size, which currently only serves for informational purposes.

When choosing an image ad from the media library, you can also set an Alt Text attribute there, which will be used to create the code for the image and serve SEO purposes.

This ad type uses a responsive image as introduced in WordPress 4.4 by default. You can switch it off by defining the ADVADS_DISABLE_RESPONSIVE_IMAGES constant in your wp-config.php.

• See also: Create responsive image ads.

If your theme doesn’t support responsive images, you can use Advanced Ads Pro to enable this.

Animated GIF files

When uploading an image into the WordPress media library, several image sizes are automatically created. This “optimization” leads to the loss of the animation. To preserve the animation, upload your GIF file with the correct size and use the “full size” when choosing it for your ads

Facebook and Google using the banner as article image

It is possible that Facebook, Google Search, or other services that promote your posts, use a banner as an article image. Since these services don’t provide an option to blacklist certain images, the solution is to change image ads into custom code in the Plain text and code ad type. Instead of using the img tag, use a div container with the image as a CSS background.

Your web developer can use the following example as a basis for a container with the ad image as background:

<div style="display: block; background-image: URL_TO_IMAGE; width=IMAGE_WIDTH; height=IMAGE_HEIGHT;"><div>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Alternatively, you could add the URL of the image to your robots.txt file. Find examples in this Google search manual.

AdSense

The AdSense ad type is dedicated to ads from the Google AdSense ad network.

What you can do with this ad type:

• set up ads for your AdSense account manually or by simply inserting the full ad code
• choose ad type and size

Find the full documentation on AdSense ads and all related features here.

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

AMP  is a method to build fast websites, especially for mobile devices. Many ad networks offer support for AMP already. We implemented a flexible AMP ad type into the AMP Ads Add-On.

• See also: Display ads on AMP pages.

Google Ad Manager

The Google Ad Manager ad type is available when you enable the Google Ad Manager integration add-on and connect your website with your GAM account.

This ad type will list all active ad units from your GAM account. You can select them with only one click. The integration uses inline tags, so you don’t need matching head and body codes. Therefore it is more flexible if you want to deliver different GAM ad units to various users. 

• Find the full documentation of the Google Ad Manager integration here.