Tag: adverts

AdRotate Pro 5.26 – Improvements for reports and schedules

AdRotate Pro header

AdRotate Pro 5.26 finally ads the ability to configure the Reports folder similar to the Banners folder, allowing you to move the folder to a new location. To make this a little more easy the “fix missing folders and files” feature has been updated as well.

Also new is a blank html file in the Reports folder so that on servers that list files (You shouldn’t!) it no longer lists your exported stats. And the check if the Banners and Reports folders exists where AdRotate Pro expects them and can write to them is now more accurate.

Schedules created through an advert now assume the adverts name. In my mind I added that convenience long ago, but apparently I didn’t. Someone pointed out this shortcoming and it has now been added.

Please report issues

The bug fixes in this and recent updates are made possible thanks to good feedback and information provided by you, the users! If you see something isn’t right with the plugin, even stupid things like typos. Please report them. AdRotate Pro users can use the ticket system for that. You can do so straight from your dashboard, but you can also use the contact form on my website if you prefer.

Without your reports, suggestions or insights I can’t improve the plugin. So please send in your suggestions and report issues, bugs and quirks as soon as possible. Providing some insights on why software doesn’t work for you is very important for developers to improve their products.

Changes in version 5.26

  • New – Reports folder can now be moved/renamed just like Banners folder can
  • Security – Check if reports folder has a blank html file for hiding files
  • Fix – Schedules created through Edit Advert now assume the adverts name
  • Fix – Better check if banners and reports folder exist
  • Change – Internal RSS feed fetcher for one url at a time

Download

The update is available now, you can update through automatic updates in your dashboard or via direct download in your dashboard. Or if you do not have AdRotate Pro yet, get your copy today through the product pages below.

What is an ad plugin for WordPress?

A question I see on various sites like Reddit, Quora or even the WordPress website from time to time. Sometimes it’s even a search trend on Google.

What is a plugin

First, what are plugins for. For WordPress, a plugin is a piece of software that extends the basic function of the CMS. And what is a CMS? CMS stands for Content Management Software. Which, as a category, includes WordPress. You could consider a CMS the operating system of your website, and Plugins are apps in it – Sort of. This of-course means that WordPress is the base of your website. There are other systems to create a website such as Classicpress, which I use for this website, or completely different systems like Drupal or Joomla and many more.

WordPress is the most popular one for now. Holding a more than 40% market share of all websites on the internet.

As I mentioned, I use ClassicPress. This is an off-shoot of WordPress. Regardless of what CMS you choose, plugins work a little like programs or apps in it. A CMS has a control panel, or dashboard, from which you manage the website, comments, posts and pages, and your plugins. Many websites will have a webshop or forum. All of that is usually managed and controlled through the dashboard.

Most CMS systems, including WordPress, also let you style or customize the website. This is often called a theme.

How an ad plugin works

So plugins. There are millions of plugins, but an ad plugin commonly refers to a plugin that helps you place ads (otherwise called; banners, adverts or promotions) on a website in order to advertise or promote products or services. This can be anything really, your own ads, or someone elses. Review websites may use an ad plugin to handle their affiliate links for example.

Editing the website itself, or the theme you choose, is often quite the hassle. Certainly time consuming. Maybe not so much when first setting up the ads, but it will be in the long run. Surely you’re not looking forward to editing dozens of pages or locations to replace your ads every time one expires, right?

I know I’m not…

This is where an ad plugin shines since it lets you set up advertisment spots on your site once, and then manage all of your ads from an easy to use interface from within WordPress, the CMS. Create the adverts in the dashboard and assign them to the ad locations you have set up.

That sounds much easier. No messing with code, or much less, and you’ll handle new adverts with a few clicks and much less time spent than editing many ad locations.

Ads make the world go round

Why is this important? Pretty much everywhere you look you’ll see ads. Even if you’re unaware of it, someone, somewhere, is trying to sell you something. The internet is no different.

If you’re starting a website and want to generate extra income. Or even more important, your entire website relies on ad revenue, you should make the ad management process as easy as possible. This lets you focus on your content, and spent less time on figuring out ads.

An ad plugin is designed to make that easy for you. This will save you time and effort.

Meet AdRotate

One of the more popular plugins for WordPress is AdRotate Banner Manager. AdRotate is my solution for making ad management easy on. That’s right, AdRotate Banner Manager is a FREE ad plugin that helps you increase your revenue.

If you need more features, I also have a more feature rich version called AdRotate pro. Chances are you saw either already mentioned on this website. In many ways AdRotate Pro works the same way as AdRotate Banner Manager, but it provides even more features and functions to manage your ads.

Do you need unlimited ads and place them on strategic locations on your site but you do not know any code? AdRotate can help you.
Or do you want to target a specific area in the world, say a city or country? AdRotate Pro can help you with that. This is called Geo Targeting.

AdRotate handles scheduling of your ads. This lets you plan ahead and set up that holiday season ad far in advance. If this a repeating campaign, or a seasonal advert? Add more than one schedule with AdRotate Pro.

AdRotate works with any kind of ad, you can make them yourself with a few basic HTML functions. You can place more advanced Javascript ads that advertisers send to you. Or you can simply use Google Adsense or some similar ad network such as Media.net. Affiliate links and referral links are ads too. So all of those work as well, in much the same way as regular ads.

AdRotate Banner Manager, and AdRotate Pro even more so, provides a complete set of features and functions to place ads all over your website and work efficiently with them. If you’re considering advertising products on your website, be sure to consider AdRotate Banner Manager or AdRotate pro!

AdRotate Pro 5.15.4 – Better groups, imports and fixed clicktracking

Based on more recent user feedback I have removed the restriction for dynamic groups on mobile devices. Dynamic mode is now always enabled if the group is using it. Geo Targeting has been refined a bit and now better deals with error responses, this will help with a smoother user experience.

Click tracking

The pure-JS clicktracker for groups didn’t reliably work for all adverts. So this has been reverted to the previous iteration. Let me know how this works for you. With that, the clicktracker requires jQuery again. If your theme or another plugin doesn’t already load jQuery you can enable it from Settings > General in the AdRotate Settings. Just like before.

Imports and Exports

With all the updates and changes to adverts over the years the way ads are imported no longer worked reliably. This has been updated to modern standards. Importing adverts from a CSV file should now reliably. This has been tested with files containing up-to some 2000 adverts. Common files are expected to have a few dozen to a 100 or so. So in practice, there is no real import limit anymore other than the file size.

The file size restriction of 4 MB still exists. This is more of a server thing than anything else. Not all servers allow larger files. If your file is larger, simply split it into multiple smaller files.

For exporting files all current features have been added to the export file. This includes mobile options and Geo Targeting settings.

Changes in AdRotate Professional 5.15.4

  • [update] Rollback to v1.1 for clicktracker Javascript
  • [update] Export files now include all current ad features
  • [removed] Restriction on dynamic groups for ads cycle length
  • [removed] Restriction to disable dynamic groups on mobile devices
  • [fix] Better handling of large CSV files for imports
  • [fix] Better handling of MaxMind error responses
  • [fix] Removed left over ‘other_os’ code from export columns
  • [fix] Better validation of numeric values in export files

Download

The update is available now, you can update through automatic updates in your dashboard or via direct download in your dashboard. Or if you do not have AdRotate Pro yet, get your copy today through the product pages below.

AdRotate Banner Manager 5.12.7 available now!

A maintenance update fixing a number of smaller issues. The color coding of adverts in the dashboard did not match that of AdRotate Pro. So that’s corrected now. A small issue with Dynamic groups has been resolved where the cycle of ads now works much better. And as reported by users, a number of conversion issues with PHP 8 have been fixed.

Choose to manage your own adverts

AdRotate Banner Manager lets you easily manage your own adverts but also works great with premade ads like you get from Google AdSense, Amazon Affiliates or other advertising networks. Whether you sell your own ad spaces to local businesses and get their banner or run a more automated setup. AdRotate easily handles it all.

Place your ad campaigns with easy to use Blocks, Widgets, Post Injection or Shortcodes with little to no knowledge of code. Schedule the campaigns ahead and make it easy on yourself. Read more about the pro’s and cons of using ad networks here – Use an advertising network or sell ad space yourself?

Changes in version 5.12.7

  • [fix] Color coding of adverts when editing groups
  • [fix] Color coding labels below adverts
  • [fix] Color coding labels below schedules
  • [fix] Dynamic groups not always hiding first advert
  • [change] Reworked group output and made it more efficient
  • [change] Improved PHP 8 compatibility

Download

Grab your update today, available through automatic updates in your dashboard or via direct download through my website. Or if you do not have AdRotate Banner Manager or AdRotate Professional yet, get your copy today through the product pages below.

AdRotate Pro 5.13 – Quality of life improvements

AdRotate Professional 5.13 improves and fixes a number of things in the Advertiser dashboard and improves management of advertiser created adverts. Color coding of ads now works more logical and the moderation dropdown menu when approving or rejecting ads works easier now.

AdRotate Pro has been tested to work on WordPress 6.3.1. A new version of MobileDetect has been bundled. MobileDetect handles on which device or operating system adverts are shown. And the AdRotate Geo database, on my server, has been updated to the latest GeoIP database from Maxmind. This is of-course important for Geo Targeting accuracy.

Setting up AdRotate Professional with Google Analytics 4 Earlier this year AdRotate Pro stats for Google Analytics 4 got overhauled. If you’re using GA4 you can read in the manuals below how to set it up. Several people have voiced concerns over missing data or events not being reported to Google Analytics. I have tested this and both the Universal Tag and Tag Manager implementation work as intended with all data being present. The dashboard from Google Analytics 4 is really terrible set up though, so it’s easy to miss where your data goes. I don’t use GA4 myself, if someone knowledgable with its event reporting has a better idea to send/receive data for stats then get in touch, perhaps we can improve the display of data withe a better manual or by sending events differently.

Changes in AdRotate Professional 5.13

  • [fix] Typo in DONOTCACHEOBJECT constant name
  • [fix] Wrong weight for advertiser created adverts
  • [fix] Advert status selector when moderating advertiser adverts
  • [update] Updated MobileDetect to version 3.74
  • [tweak] Description text for Advert Generator
  • [tweak] Added title to weekday ticks for schedules
  • [tweak] Added title to impression ticks for schedules
  • [new] Devices logic checks to advertiser dashboard
  • [new] Dashboard notification when ads are queued up
  • [removed] Experimental weight levels from advertiser dashboard
  • [api] Updated AdRotate Geo IP/country database

Download

The update is available now, you can update through automatic updates in your dashboard or via direct download in your dashboard. Or if you do not have AdRotate Pro yet, get your copy today through the product pages below.