How to integrate ads into the tagDiv Newspaper theme

The Newspaper theme by tagDiv is a versatile and feature-rich platform for creating stunning news, magazine, and blog websites. Its array of pre-designed ad spots and built-in targeting options already provides rudimental tools for monetizing your content.

In this comprehensive tutorial, we’ll explore the capabilities of the Newspaper theme for ad embedding. We’ll delve into its native ad management features, showcasing how to make the most of its predefined ad slots and user targeting options. And we will look at the limitations of the Newspaper theme regarding ad insertion, specifically of Google AdSense ads.

But that’s just the beginning. While the Newspaper theme offers an adequate foundation for ad integration, we’ll also introduce you to how to integrate the Advanced Ads plugin to simplify your ad management and benefit from its expert features and user-friendly flexibility.

Let’s kickstart your journey into seamless and effective ad integration with the Newspaper and Newsmag 5 theme and Advanced Ads!

Exploring the built-in ad options of the Newspaper theme

You can find the Ad options of the Newspaper theme by navigating to Dashboard > Newspaper > Theme panel > Ads in the backend of your WordPress site. There, you will find several prepared ad spaces with different settings:

• Header ad
• Sidebar ad
• Article top ad
• Article inline ad
• Article bottom ad
• Custom ad 1-5
• Modal Video Popup
• Background click Ad

You are able to define an individual ad label for each ad spot and to insert the ad code. Handling image ads is rather unintuitive in the Theme panel, since you must code them in HTML.

The Article inline ad position also allows you to specify after which paragraph you want to insert the ad. Additionally, you can select the alignment settings, e.g., whether the Newspaper theme should embed the ad centered, left-aligned, or right-aligned.

The two placements, Background click Ad and Modal Video Popup, offer only limited customization options—not even the Disable Ads options are available here.

Rudimentary user targeting

You can use the ‘disable’ section to hide individual ad spots for specific user groups and certain device types. It is important to note that disabled ads are, in fact, only hidden—but loaded nevertheless! Since this behavior violates AdSense guidelines, as a compromise, the ‘disable’ function is only available for ad codes other than AdSense.

But even for those, the disadvantages of hiding individual ads take effect because they are loaded anyway. This bloats impression numbers and leads to incorrect click-through rates (CTR). Furthermore, loading the non-required elements increases the website’s loading time.

You can solve this problem using Advanced Ads’ Visitor Conditions instead of the Newspaper theme’s options, which I describe below.

Resizing AdSense ads

Choosing ‘Auto’ in the AdSense size settings triggers the Newspaper theme to resize your Google Ads automatically. No manual adjustments are necessary, the theme takes care of it for you.

Additionally, you have the flexibility to specify your preferred dimensions for the AdSense ad, and the Newspaper theme will seamlessly adapt the ad to those dimensions.

Embedding ad spots into the Newspaper template

Certain ad spots of the Newspaper Theme, like the positions before the content, in the content, or after the content, usually work automatically, so you don’t need to make any further adjustments here.

Other ad spots you may have to add manually to your template. To do this, edit your page with the tagDiv Composer. Click on “Add Element” and select the Ad box element. 

In the Ad box element settings, under General > Ad Content > Use adspot from, you can select one of the ad spots that are managed in the Theme panel. For example, add the Header ads ad spot to your template. There is also an Image ad type available that comes with a more intuitive upload feature than in the Newspaper Theme panel.

In these ad spots’ options, you can also select the ‘disable’ options and make some fine adjustments like spacing or extended CSS.

Conclusion: Integration of ads into the Newspaper theme

We find strengths and limitations when examining ad integration with the Newspaper theme. While Newspaper seamlessly integrates ad spots and resizes AdSense ads, it falls short in ad management complexity, ad spot limitations, rotation options, and targeting capabilities. 

These drawbacks directly affect the potential of your website monetization. However, you can compensate for all of these weaknesses by installing the Advanced Ads ad management plugin, which will significantly expand the ad options of the Newspaper theme. 

In the following section, we’ll go through the ad options step by step and unveil how Advanced Ads can bridge those tasks that Newspaper handles poorly.

Elevating your ad integration with Advanced Ads

You will find many Advanced Ads features described in this section in the free plugin version. But some functions like advanced targeting, Tracking, or specific features like Click Fraud Protection or Anti-AdBlocker options are reserved for Advanced Ads Pro or the All Access license, respectively.

In the following, we’ll go through the ad options step by step. I’ll show you which tasks Advanced Ads can help you with that Newspaper doesn’t handle so well.

Placements

Ad management in the Newspaper theme panel leaves much to be desired. The theme panel does not allow checking all ad spots and the assigned ads at a glance. Instead, you must expand the settings for each ad spot individually.

Even more confusing is managing image ads uploaded directly in the builder. Finally, the Newspaper theme only allows the placement of individual ads and does not enable ad rotations or split tests. Therefore, it is advisable to use the Advanced Ads placements instead.

On the one hand, placements offer more options. On the other hand, they allow precise and much more convenient ad management from one overview page.

Replace ad spots with placements

Create a separate placement in Advanced Ads for each ad spot you embedded with the Newsletter theme. For the ad spots before, in, and after content, and in the sidebar, I recommend migrating completely from the Newspaper features to Advanced Ads, as the plugin offers many more options for them.

In the table below, you can see with which Advanced Ads placement to replace the corresponding Newspaper ad spots.

Newspaper Ad spots	Recommended Advanced Ads placements
Header ad	Manual placement (insert shortcode)
Sidebar ad	Sidebar Widget or Manual placement (replace)
Article top ad	Before Content (replace)
Article inline ad	Content (replace)
Article bottom ad	After Content (replace)
Custom ad 1-5	Manual placement (insert shortcode)
Modal Video Popup	Popup placement (replace)
Background click Ad	Background Ads (replace)

The only ad spot you should leave in the Newspaper theme settings for now is the Header ad. This spot allows you to insert ads into the header without editing the theme files or using the Custom Position placement. Create a Manual placement for this position and insert its shortcode into the code field of the Header ad spot.

Suppose you also use the Custom ad spots in the Newspaper theme, then I recommend creating a Manual placement for each one and inserting their shortcodes in the appropriate ad spot settings.

Custom AdSense sizes

You may have been setting the sizes of your ads using the Newspaper Theme options so far, and you’re worried about losing your customization so the AdSense ads won’t fit your Newspaper layout anymore. That’s fine because with Advanced Ads, you can also specify what dimensions these ads should have in the frontend.

Better ad management

Ad management within the Newspaper theme has limitations and offers only a fixed number of available ad slots. Here, Advanced Ads opens up a world of possibilities. With this plugin, you can create unlimited ad placements and schedule ads.

This flexibility means you’re no longer restricted to injecting just one ad unit into your content. Instead, you might incorporate multiple ad positions or set up automatic repetitions.

Previously, using the Newspaper theme’s native ad integration, you were confined to inserting a single ad unit per slot. But now, Advanced Ads empowers you with a suite of tools to diversify your ad placements.

You can showcase different ads within the same places, establish ad rotations, create ad sliders, and conduct split tests to fine-tune your ad performance.

Precise targeting with Advanced Ads conditions

The Newspaper theme’s native ad features lack the flexibility to target ads to specific content types. Furthermore, it offers only limited tools for reaching particular user groups, primarily administrators and editors, and a few device-based options.

These functions missing is unfortunate because targeted ads typically yield higher click-through and conversion rates. This limitation also means that essential features like frequency capping are unavailable.

In contrast, when you pair Advanced Ads with the Newspaper theme, you have access to a robust toolkit for laser-focused ad targeting. Advanced Ads’ Display conditions allow you to efficiently deliver your ads to specific content based on category, tags, author, keywords, URL parameter, or content age.

Additionally, you can implement Visitor conditions to precisely target user segments, including user roles, memberships, device types, browser widths, referral URLs, geo-locations, and more.

By leveraging these versatile conditions, you can optimize your ad targeting, tailoring it to your content and specific user groups. This fine-tuning significantly boosts ad performance, ultimately leading to higher revenues.

For those already utilizing Newspaper’s ‘disable’ options, the table below showcases how Advanced Ads’ conditions can effectively replace them.

Disable ad options in the Newspaper theme	Recommended Advanced Ads conditions
for admins/editors	User role condition
on desktop	Device/Browser width
on tablet landscape	Browser width/Device
on tablet portrait	Browser width/Device
on phone	Device/Browser width

Unlock additional income potential with Pro features

The ad management capabilities outlined with Advanced Ads can be elevated through a range of Pro features, supercharging your ad performance.

These robust features encompass:

1. Ad Tracking: Gain insights into ad performance with detailed statistics.
2. Expanded Placements: Discover additional placement options, including Anchor and Parallax ads.
3. Click Fraud Protection: Safeguard your ads against invalid traffic, preserving your earnings.
4. Lazy Loading: Enhance page speed and user experience with efficient lazy loading.
5. AdBlocker Features: Bridge the earnings gap by implementing AdBlocker-compatible ads.
6. Integrations: Seamlessly integrate with networks like Google Ad Manager and various popular WordPress plugins.
7. AMP Support: Ensure compatibility with Accelerated Mobile Pages.

These functionalities are available within Advanced Ads Pro and across multiple add-ons. For the complete feature set, opt for the All Access license.

Conclusion: Why Advanced Ads is the perfect companion to integrate ads into the Newspaper theme

This guide explored ad integration in the Newspaper theme, uncovering its strengths and limitations. While it provides a decent foundation, its complexity, ad spot constraints, and targeting restrictions can hinder your monetization efforts.

That’s where Advanced Ads comes in. The plugin seamlessly enhances the Newspaper theme, offering massively expanded ad options. With Advanced Ads, you can create unlimited placements, perform ad rotations, and execute split tests effortlessly. Moreover, Advanced Ads provides precise ad targeting to content and user groups. This refined ad delivery leads to higher ad performance and increased revenues.

As you embark on monetizing your Newspaper theme website, remember this guide. With Advanced Ads, you’ll overcome the theme’s limitations and thrive in ad integration, unlocking your website’s earning potential.