In-Content Ads are standard banner and native ads that will appear within the actual content column of your website. Unlike traditional sidebar advertising, in-content ads are placed exactly where a user is most engaged: within the content itself.
As a result, in-content ads tend to perform really well and should be a big part of your ad monetization strategy.
How do in-content ads work?
With Mediavine's script wrapper, in-content ads are automatically inserted into your posts and spaced throughout your content per ad policy guidelines using CBA In-Content Logic.
Are they fast?
Oh, yes — very! Our in-content ads are lazy loaded, which means they aren't there at all until a user scrolls near them. Only then the ad will load. Our ads also load asynchronously, which is a technical way of saying that ads will NEVER prevent your content from loading.
We have a lot of controls available for you to customize your in-content placements.
Adjust ad frequency sitewide.
For more information on adjusting ad frequency or density, please see this help page:
Manually place ads
If you are using a post builder or otherwise need to control ad placements, we recommend using Content Hints.
USE CAUTION. Even one hint on a page will cause our script logic to ignore that post and not automatically place any in-content ads.
If you use it once in a post, you must manually place ALL the in-content ads in that post, and are responsible for ensuring you are not violating any placement or frequency rules. We are happy to help check this if you'd like!
We have some device-specific hint codes you can use on pages instead of the standard one. You'll want to remove any general hints before replacing them with the mobile or desktop versions.
Desktop hint:
<div class="content_desktop_hint"></div>
Mobile hint:
<div class="content_mobile_hint"></div>
General hint:
<div class="content_hint"></div>
Use HTML to manually adjust placement
The in-content ads will only appear after HTML "blocks." Those are things such as paragraphs (<p></p>), divs (<div></div>), and lists (ul / ol ).
If you happen to notice an ad appearing somewhere you don't want, simply group together your text into a larger "block" using HTML. This will make sure the ad appears after that block. For example, you could adjust this outcome:
Before:
<p>I don't want an after this paragraphs.</p>
<!-- Ad -->
<p>I'd rather it appear after this one.</p>
After:
<div>
<p>I don't want an after this paragraphs.</p>
<p>I'd rather it appear after this one.</p>
</div>
<!-- Ad -->
By wrapping those paragraphs in a <div> code, you make sure they can't be broken up by our content logic.
We ask that you do this sparingly, as this can reduce the number of ads that appear on your page. On mobile, this could potentially hurt your revenue.
How do I make more money with in-content ads?
Write long content. We recommend at least 300 words for SEO. More content could mean your post has more screenviews in length, and that would mean more opportunities for in-content ads.
Break up longer paragraphs. Shorter, 2-3 sentence paragraphs instead of longer ones, so that you have more chances for them to show.
Move the "focus" of your post to the end. Encourage readers to scroll through all of your in-content ads by placing the highlight of your post (such as a recipe, how-to instructions, a download, printable, or video) at the very end.
Add more photos. Vertical images are best, but any photo will help make your content longer in pixels and screenviews.
Increase your body copy size. Increasing your text size and/or line height by just 1-2 pixels could make all the difference in adding a few more in-content ads. This would make your content take up more screenviews. Consult your theme developer or a graphic designer for help with how to adjust this.
If you can optimize your content for in-content ads, they will be instrumental in making you the most money possible.
Do in-content ads work on Squarespace, Blogger, Drupal, and other non-WordPress sites?
Our script wrapper will try, but it depends on how your HTML (the language of the Internet and how browsers actually read your site) is formatted.
Blogger: Instead of using the correct
<p></p>paragraph tags to separate paragraph, they use multiple line breaks (<br>).Squarespace: This one uses an excessive number of
<divs>to wrap each of their content blocks and image blocks.Other non-WordPress sites: It really depends on how the HTML is formatted.
Our script wrapper will do its best on these sites, but won't always be as optimal as correctly formatted HTML.
Do in-content ads work with post builders like Thrive Content Builder and Visual Composer?
Not very well. We don't recommend post builders at all because the post builders take the building blocks of your site and group them together. For example, it might bundle together a few paragraphs, and our technology has no way to get inside of that bundle to place an ad.
However, if you use a post builder, we can definitely still work with your site. On those posts, we suggest using our Content Hints, spaced out one screen view apart. The hints will override our script wrapper but will allow you to have ads on posts utilizing the post builders.
If I get a new theme, what will happen to my in-content ads?
If you get a new theme and no ads are displaying, we may need to update things on our end to re-target your in-content ads to your new theme.
Once the new design is live, please shoot us an email at publishers@mediavine.com or contact us via the chat bubble in your dashboard.
I'm not getting any in-content ads. What do I do?
Please email us ASAP at publishers@mediavine.com or contact us via the chat bubble in your dashboard!
Our script wrapper needs to know where your content is on your site and a lot of plugins and themes can move these things around.
For example, a particular WordPress plugin that causes a lot of trouble is the Theia Post Slider. Please see our Conflicts & Compatibility List to determine if you have any of our common culprits.
If you have any questions, email us anytime at publishers@mediavine.com.