Generating an online revenue stream can be paramount to the success of your WordPress website. Despite the recent rise in popularity of a great variety of ad blocking software and services, website advertisements are still the best method for you to deploy if you are to at least cover operating costs.

Advertising Examples
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There are a wide-range of different types of advertisements for your WordPress website to choose from, each bringing its own set of benefits. Fortunately for WordPress users, implementing the various advertising options into your WordPress website is easy. Let’s explore them in detail.

Types of Advertisements

Advertising Types
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Choosing the right type of advertising for your WordPress website can have a dramatic effect on the income you generate. On the other hand, implementing the wrong type of advertisement could harm your chances of maximizing profit. Now let us quickly take a look at the four most common and popular types of advertisements that anyone can deploy on their WordPress website.

  1. Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
  2. Cost-Per-Impression (CPM)
  3. Affiliate Networks
  4. Marketplace Advertising

1 – Cost-Per-Click Advertising

Cost-Per-Click advertisements, also often referred to as Cost-Per-Action (CPA) advertisements, are the easiest type of advertisements that you can implement on your WordPress website. These kind of advertisements typically offer a high payout rate on a per-click (or per-action) basis and usually must abide by a quite strict set of implementation rules (e.g. to prevent click fraud).

Popular Networks for CPC Campaigns

2 – Cost-Per-Impression Advertising

Cost-Per-(Thousand)Impressions advertisement payout rates are generally lower in comparison to CPC advertisements as they don’t require any action from the user in order for you to be paid. For every 1,000 impressions (Mille in Latin, which creates the CPM identifier) you will be paid a small fee, making them the perfect choice for WordPress websites that enjoy a high volume of traffic.

Popular Networks for CPM Campaigns

However, becoming a publisher of CPM advertising usually comes with a slightly more involved acceptance process. Strict requirements with regards to your traffic levels must be adhered to in order for your WordPress website to be considered for acceptance to most major CPM advertisement networks. The mentioned companies here also are just examples of a few popular networks and there are more as well, most of them offer both CPC and CPM campaigns.

3 – Affiliate Network Advertising

Online MarketingSource: StockSnap / Pixabay.com
Image Source: StockSnap – Pixabay.com / License: CC0 Public Domain

Affiliate Marketing income through affiliate networks can be a reliable and long-standing type of advertising that can produce great results. Affiliating your website with a suitable network based on the niche and content of your website is a great way to offer relevant products and offers to your website visitors. Regardless of your traffic levels, if your visitors are likely to click on relevant advertisements then affiliate marketing could be a great method of increasing your revenue.

Popular Affiliate Networks

If implemented wisely, affiliate advertisements are far-less intrusive than many other forms of advertisements (e.g. pop-up advertisements) and are, in general, more accepted by visitors. But just like with sponsored posts on your website, it’s important to be transparent in order to not risk the trust of your valuable audience. That means it’s highly recommended to always be transparent when you get paid for affiliate links or sponsored posts on your site to prevent conflicts of interest.

4 – Marketplace Advertising

Marketplace Advertising is another popular method of generating an online revenue stream for thousands of professionals. A marketplace is an easy way for websites of all sizes to fine-tune their advertising options that suit their traffic and audience. Marketplaces enable you to Buy & Sell advertising for, and on, your website using simple-to-use auctioning systems.

Popular Marketplaces for Advertisements

Popular Advertisement Sizes

Advertisement Sizes
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The majority of advertisement networks will provide you with a large variety of advertising elements for your website (like text links or image banners) in a range of standardized dimensions, as listed below. Make sure you choose the size that works best with the layout and structure of your website.

  • 468*60px
  • 728*90px
  • 120*600px
  • 300*250px
  • 125*125px

These are just a few common sizes for advertisements, there are more and sometimes also custom dimensions are available. The advertisements can be easily positioned anywhere on your WordPress website in a variety of locations if your WordPress theme allows it or when working with suitable extensions, like ad plugins. Each advertising network may offer you a varying range of different advertisement dimensions that you can use based on your personal needs and requirements.

What about pop-ups?

Pop-up advertising (and pop-under) is still an effective form of advertising. Although pop-up and pop-under ads can produce good results in either CPC or CPM campaigns, they can also have an adverse effect on your traffic and the overall quality of your website.

Popup AdvertisementSource: JuralMin / Pixabay.com
Image Source: JuralMin – Pixabay.com / License: CC0 Public Domain

Pop-up advertising usually is intrusive and can be annoying to the end-user, and will likely make users reluctant to return to your site in the future. If your targets are short-term, you may try to maximise profits from your traffic by taking advantage of the extra income from pop-up advertising. Just be aware of the possible drawbacks that using these forms of advertising can bring.

Implementing Ads on Your Site

All advertising networks work in much the same way, offering you a snippet of code that must be added to your WordPress website. Using the default WordPress Text widget which comes with every WordPress installation, you’re able to quickly copy & paste your ad code into your website with ease. Below we’ve also listed a range of useful plugins for advertisements at your disposal that allow you to implement a variety of banners and advertisements into your WordPress website.

Mobile Ad by AdsOptimal

Mobile Ad Plugin
Image Source: Screenshot – WordPress.org

The Mobile Ad by AdsOptimal plugin for example offers you a simple solution to quickly implement advertisements specifically for your mobile users. Optimizing your mobile advertisements can make the ads load faster and be better suited according to the mobile device.

WP Advertize It

WP Advertize It is a handy plugin that allows you to easily insert advertisements into your website. The plugin supports a wide-range of advertisement networks such as Google AdSense, Amazon Associates, and CJ Affiliate. The plugin also enables you to insert advertisements in a wide-range of custom locations allowing you to fine-tune each advertisements location using a simple interface.

AdRotate

AdRotate Plugin
Image Source: Screenshot – WordPress.org

AdRotate is a comprehensive plugin that puts you in complete control over your advertising campaigns. Fully compatible with all of the major advertisement networks, as well as allowing you to create your own advertisements, all via an easy-to-use interface. Additional enhancements are also available to Pro users including GeoTargeting, AdBlocker avoidance, media management, and mobile advertising options. A one-off fee, starting from $29, is required for access to the Pro version.

Ad Injection

Ad Injection is another plugin that allows you to insert a wide-range of advertisements into a variety of theme locations. This ad plugin supports all major advertisement solutions and comes with a plethora of options to help you customize your advertisement placements accordingly.

Conclusion: Choosing the best types of advertising

Implementing advertisements into your WordPress website is an easy task anyone can carry out regardless of their experience. The use of plugins simplifies this task even further, and allows you to position your advertisements almost anywhere you like regardless of which theme you’re using. Yet, some WordPress themes as our popular MH Magazine WordPress theme for instance already offer several widget areas you can use to easily display ads / banners in various locations on your website.

The most important choice to make is selecting the right advertisement solution that is best for your content and your audience. For example, you shouldn’t be considering a CPM campaign if your website only receives a minimal amount of traffic. Careful thought and consideration is required to select the right advertisement strategy that suits your target audience and overall website traffic.

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