You can earn money on your site from ads through the WordAds advertising program. This guide shares answers to the most common questions and issues you may encounter with WordAds.
There can be various reasons for ads not showing up on your site. The most common reasons are:
- You just recently enabled WordAds: It can take time for ads to begin displaying after enabling WordAds for the first time.
- Your site is new or lacks content: Sites without much content or traffic may not display ads yet.
- Ads are turned off in your ads settings: Go to Jetpack → Monetize → Ads → Settings and make sure ads are enabled in your ads settings.
- Ad placements are not selected: Make sure at least one ad placement is selected under Jetpack → Monetize → Ads → Settings.
- You’re using an ad blocker: Ads may not appear if your browser has an ad blocker enabled. Try viewing your site in a private browser window with extensions turned off.
- Your ads.txt file is misconfigured (plugin-enabled sites only): If your site uses a custom ads.txt file, check that your ads.txt file is correctly set up.
- Your site doesn’t meet brand safety guidelines: Ads may be disabled if your content doesn’t meet advertiser safety standards.
Even if ads are working correctly, site owners often won’t see them. Advertisers prefer to show ads to your visitors — not to you — so it’s normal for ads to be hidden from frequent site admins.
WordAds earnings follow a set schedule:
- Finalized earnings are posted in your ad dashboard 15 days after the end of each month.
- Payments are sent around 45 days after the end of the month in which the revenue was earned. For example, earnings from September are typically paid in mid-November.
To receive payment:
- Your total earnings must reach at least US$100. If you earned less than $100 in a given month, your earnings will carry over to the next month instead.
- You must have a valid PayPal account connected to your site.
If it’s been more than 60 days since the end of the month and your finalized earnings exceeded $100, feel free to contact support to check the status.
It’s common to see low earnings unless your site receives thousands of visits per day. A few cents from thousands of ads is a normal outcome.
Advertising rates fluctuate constantly. The online ads system is similar to the stock market where advertisers bid in real time. What you earn can vary greatly per site, depending on factors including:
- The number of site visitors.
- Where your traffic comes from (North American visitors typically generate higher ad revenue).
- Whether visitors use ad blockers.
- The value advertisers place on your audience based on their cookies.
- The type of ads shown.
You earn money per ad impression (when an ad is shown to a visitor), so the more visits your website gets, the more you’ll earn. For this reason, growing your audience is the best way to grow your ad revenue.
In your ads dashboard, the “Ads Served” is the number of ads that we attempted to display on your site. In other words, it’s how many times we’ve made a request to the ad server to fill an ad slot with an actual ad.
But not every ad served will result in a paid impression. This can happen when:
- A visitor is using an ad blocker software on their device, preventing ads from showing.
- A visitor leaves your site before the ad is fully loaded in their browser.
- There were no advertisers who bid to display an ad.
This is expected behavior and part of how all advertising networks work. Learn more about ads stats in our guide to tracking your ads.
While you can’t choose specific ads, we block inappropriate content at the network level.
If you see an ad featuring offensive or inappropriate content:
- Click the report option on the ad, if available.
- If there’s no option, take a screenshot and right-click the ad to copy the linked URL (don’t click the ad directly, as it will probably redirect to a different URL). Contact support and we will investigate.
Site speed tools may flag WordAds as a performance issue, but WordAds runs asynchronously, meaning it loads after your content and doesn’t block your site from displaying.
Tools like GT Metrix may suggest removing ads, but for real visitors, your site content loads first, and ads load afterward in the background.
If you want to run ads on your site (through WordAds or any ad network), some added resources are required to make the ad program work.
