Creating stick ads for desktop and mobile can help you increase your overall revenue and is specially recommended if you run a graphic design, top 10 type of blogs where the content length is long and monetization via standard ads units might seem difficult. We have seen a lot of publishers who face difficulty in creating fixed/sticky ads on desktop and mobile. Also, a lot of publishers have sent us queries upon seeing sticky AdSense ads and inquire if they are in compliance with AdSense current program policies. In this post, we will answer to all these questions. In this article we will discuss how to run sticky ads on desktop and mobile.
Noramally, running sticky ads via AdSense is a policy violation. However, you can run sticky ads via Google Adexchange i.e. AdX (A large percentage of AdX ads are served through AdSense). Publishers whom you see are using sticky AdSense ads are infact using adx ad codes. Good news is, you also can use AdX. I hope this post will help you answer quite a few queries.
What are Sticky or Floating Ads
Ads which stick around while the content keeps moving are called as sticky/floating ads. Sticky sidebar ads are one of the most popular examples of sticky/floating ads. Other sticky ads include ads in the footer of your content, rail ads etc. In this post we will discuss how you can implement sticky ads to increase your overall revenue from your existing traffic.
Enable Sticky ads for AdX- While you cant use a sticky AdSense ads, AdX, the premium version of AdSense let you have sticky adsense ads. You can use a sticky 300×250/300×600 sidebar ad unit or you can also use a 300×250 sticky bottom ad unit.
Enable Sticky ads for Affiliate Campaigns- If you run a niche blog, you must have a list of selected products which you’d like to recommend to your visitors. Your primary concern is to ensure that you land your visitors to your affiliate websites. More the visitors you redirect, more the conversions. Sticky ads let you deliver the message to the visitors that a particular product/service is promising and you must try them out. Sticky ads grab attention and stand out! If you have a dedicated user base, surely your visitors will check out what you’re recommending.
Running Sticky AdSense Ads on Your Blog?
Google also allows implementing sticky ads via Double Click Ad Exchange. We don’t have scripts for sticky ad units though. You need to configure the ad placement of your site to be sticky and then put the AdX code in there. AdX is provided to publishers with more than 30 million page views and there are only a handful of publishers who have access to an AdX account. However, you can signup with a Certified Google AdSense partner like AdPushup (recommended) and anyone else and ask for AdX codes.
Restrictions for sticky ad units:
– Only ad formats with a width of 300 px or less are allowed.
For example, 728×90 is not allowed.
160×600, 300×600, 300×250, 300×50 and 120×600 are all allowed.
Also, if you’re planning to implement a sticky ad on your mobile traffic,
- Only the 300×50 ad unit can be used on mobile devices
- The sticky ad should be present only at the bottom of the mobile screen
How to Enable AdSense Sticky/Floating Ads on Desktop?
The WordPress plugin repository has a plugin named Q2W3 Fixed Widget (Sticky Widget) which you need to install first. After activating the plugin, go to Appearance » Widgets and click on the widget that you want to make sticky. The plugin automatically adds a Fixed Widget option in all of your widgets. All you need to do is check the Fixed widget box and click on the Save button. Now, you can go to your live site and scroll down. Your fixed widget will now be a sticky floating widget.
The Q2W3 Fixed Sidebar Widget comes handy when you want to want to fix an sidebar widget including AdSense ads or affiliate ads. However, this is only applicable for your desktop traffic since it is a sticky sidebar.
How to Enable Sticky AdSense Ads on Mobile
As already mentioned, you can use a stickly 320×50 ad unit served by AdX on the bottom of your mobile screen for additional revenue. Alternately, you can use in-house promotions/campaigns, app installs or display affiliate products or services.
The Advanced Ads Pro Bundle comes with an addon called Sticky ads. The addon provides sticky and anchor ad functionalities for WordPress.
- position ads that don’t scroll with the screen (sticky ads)
- built anchor ads – most common for mobile apps
- add background color for header and footer bars
- allow users to close sticky placements for a specific time
- center side ads vertically
- provides a fallback for old devices
- set delay in seconds after which the ad should show up
- display with effects (show, fade, slide)
- support and updates for 1 year, unlimited usage afterwards
New Placements
- header bar placement
- footer bar placement
- sidebar ads attached to the main wrapper placement
- sidebar ads attached to the window placement
- make ads sticky to the screen or let them be scrolled away
- add background color for header and footer bars