Understanding WordAds Earnings Fluctuations

By Jon Burke | | 26

One of our ad buyers recently paused their partnership with us. This will lead to some WordAds sites experiencing a decline in their earnings this month.

The WordAds platform is not dependent on a single buyer, and other buyers have started taking up the slack already. So the model is working but we wanted to be up front that some sites, especially smaller ones, may see lower earnings until the inventory fully rebalances.

Some general guidelines to help improve earnings:

As always, you can maximize your earnings by continuing to focus on writing high quality content, posting regularly, and engaging and cultivating your audience.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is another important tactic to potentially increase traffic to your site and enhance your earnings. If you are hosted on WordPress.com, we recommend reviewing these SEO tools, and if you are self-hosted and running Jetpack, you can take advantage of Jetpack SEO tools.

In addition to advertising, our Simple Payments tool might be worth considering for your site. Simple Payments lets you create and embed credit and debit card payment buttons on your WordPress.com or Jetpack-enabled site. If you have goods or services to sell to your audience, you can easily add Simple Payments by following these instructions.

Some potential traps to avoid:

As we have noted in the past, it will hurt your earnings if you pay for potentially fraudulent traffic or if you post content or images that are not family friendly.

We appreciate your continued partnership and are working hard to refresh momentum on your earnings. To follow product updates that might help inform potential site improvements, please subscribe to the WordPress.com blog or, if you are a self-hosted site and running Jetpack, the Jetpack blog.

Comments

  1. The Wordads operations team has never been supportive to me. I have tried to register my blog over a few years now and all i got both times is that my blog is not eligible. Can someone bother to tell why? So, if you have possible solution to this issue, could you help me?

    1. Asha,

      I can see in our systems that your application to WordAds has been pending for a while. The most common reason this happens is simply due to a lack of sufficient traffic on the site in question. I would work on increasing your visitors and views. Your application will be automatically approved when you reach the required level.

      Thanks!

      1. And what is the required level, if I may ask? I have about 5k followers? How much more is needed? Or what exactly? I ask so as to know what and where I need to work to improve my stats. Adam?

        1. Asha,

          And what is the required level, if I may ask? I have about 5k followers? How much more is needed? Or what exactly?

          We don’t disclose the required traffic level because then we’d see spammers and others cheat their way just over the threshold and try to fraudulently make money.

          Sorry!

  2. Will be great that we could use the wordpress affiliation, when there aren’t ads displayed. Better would be not having a floor price. It’s unfair that below the floor price the ads are to WordPress, when users are paying for the blog.

    1. Daniel,

      There is no floor price. If any advertiser is willing to pay anything, then we will show that ad. If there are no buyers, then we show a house ad.

      Thanks!

  3. For a month now, WordAds ads only show up the standard WordPress ads like Auttomatic, simplenote, and wordpress itself, not being bound by any other type of ad. This sounds strange to me because I’ve been in contact several times with the support and they always tell me the same thing, everything is normal, but I have not had any gains since then, I wanted to know if there was any kind of penalty on my site for some reason I do not know? Why is not any type of ad linked, only the platform ads?

    1. Christiane,

      WordAds ads only show up the standard WordPress ads like Auttomatic, simplenote, and wordpress itself, not being bound by any other type of ad.

      This might be true for you, but I see ads for other stuff on your site. For example, here’s a screenshot:

      https://d.pr/i/qzKPI3/TJ4jIT75Id

      It’s important to keep in mind that each person will see different ads depending on their profile.

      I have not had any gains since then, I wanted to know if there was any kind of penalty on my site for some reason I do not know?

      As for why this may be the case, I would read the first two paragraphs of the post above. 🙂 There is no penalty specific to your site.

      Thanks!

        1. My understanding is that it is most likely a pause, but we do not yet have a timeline for when they will resume buying.

          Sorry I don’t have more info. 😦 Follow this blog for more news as we get it.

    1. Hello Your Friend,
      Since the beginning of February, I have been experiencing this too. Here on my site, ads are not being linked, only ads from Wordads Automatic itself. On the 18th, my site had close to 26k of linked ads, with CPM of $ 0.04, and a total revenue of $ 0.96.
      I think the reason is due to the lack of advertisers as reported by WordAds.
      The way is to wait.

  6. Hi, my earnings from WordAds have basically stopped since Feb, perhaps due to this change. I have unpaid earnings of more than $40 in my account as of now. How can I stop WordAds so as to receive this unpaid amount? Thanks in advance!

    1. Looks like form 1st April, Advertisers PAUSE Again.

      Hmm, I don’t think so. What makes you say that? Everything seems to be working normally from what I can see.

      Thanks!

Comments are closed.