Plugin Release – Rotating Ad Widget
Our next Add-On release for the Summer of AdSanity comes right out of customer requests. Since ad groups have been a part of AdSanity, users have asked for a way to have those groups rotate on-page so that all of the ads in a group display to a user over time. Now they can. The most important facet of this experience is that those rotated ads are tracked as impressions. Rotating ads count as a view the first time that they appear on a page load. Now a single page view can generate many more ad views across your different advertisers. This can be a great tool for sites that have a long single page engagement.
The Rotating Ad Widget Add-On
Setting up the Add-On is a piece of cake. Installation follows WordPress standards and when it’s installed and activated you’ll find that you have a new Rotating Ads widget. When you drag the widget into one of your widget areas you’ll have some options to set; title, group, time, and align. These allow you to set a name for your widget, choose your pre-made ad group, set the duration between ads, and align the ad within the widget area respectively.
A new Rotating Ad Widget.
The Rotating Ad Widget details.
Some users prefer to place their advertisements within the content of their pages or posts. For them, we’ve also implemented a shortcode builder for the text editor. You can place your ad groups wherever you like and set the group, time and alignment for each ad group you place.
The Rotating Ad Widget shortcode builder.
The Rotating Ad Widget shortcode builder detail.
An Important Warning
The rotating ad functionality is intended for use with internal ads. However, we do allow you to open up the Add-On for use with external ad networks. The reason we built this into a checkbox verification is that changing the display of the advertising can be a violation of some of the ad network’s terms of service agreements. Some networks can suspend your account if you violate them. Be sure to read your agreement carefully before enabling this feature.
The Rotating Ad Widget Add-On settings page.
Coming Next!
We have one more Add-On to release as part of the Summer of AdSanity. I don’t want to give too much away but, it involves tracking your ads with an external tool that might already be tracking other analytics…Google okay, it’s Google. Stand by for more information as we get closer to the release.