AdSanity - Conditional Ad Appearance

You sell a slot, but your advertiser buys an audience

Imagine a brand that only wants to appear on your posts about animals, while your banner runs across the whole site. With an ad that always displays the same way, you have two ways out: also offer the pages it does not care about, or say no.

A single ad slot brings together many different audiences, and offering them separately takes a rule of its own on each ad.

Conditional Ad Appearance is an AdSanity add-on that adds that rule to each ad. You decide where it appears and to whom: on which content, for which type of user and on which device. The slot stays the same, and what changes is the ad loaded in each case.

A three-part rule for each ad

The add-on adds a box called Conditional Ad Appearance to the ad creation screen. Each condition has three parts:

• Condition type: a dropdown with options such as a specific user, all pages, specific posts, categories, taxonomies, post types, page templates and user roles.
• Operator: "is equal to" or "is not equal to" whatever you select.
• Value: a list that changes with the type. With Post Taxonomy, for example, it fills with your categories and tags.

Two types look at the visitor:

• Device Type: desktop, mobile or tablet.
• Membership: specific MemberPress memberships.

An ad accepts several conditions. Joining them with "And" reduces the places where it appears, and joining them with "Or" expands them. So you can show it on your pages or on the posts of one category.

Three ads in a group, one per device

Conditions stay with the ad whether it displays alone or inside a group. This allows a simple setup for responsive designs:

1. Create three versions of the ad, each sized for one screen.
2. Enable conditions on each version and choose Device Type with its value: Desktop, Mobile or Tablet.
3. Put all three in one group and place that group in the slot.

Each visitor loads the version that matches their device, without you placing three different blocks in the template. The same logic works for hiding an ad in a category: that ad stops showing there and the others in the group keep showing.

Clashes between rules and with other add-ons

These points are worth checking:

• Conflicting instructions: it is possible to create conditions that work against each other and give opposite orders about the same ad.
• User Role Ad Visibility: it achieves similar results, and the careful choice is to use one of the two, not both, so they do not override each other.
• Weighted Ads: if you combine them, an ad with more weight may be barred from certain pages.
• Memberships: the Membership condition relies on MemberPress, so it only helps if you use that plugin.

The box comes disabled, and each ad needs its checkbox ticked for conditions to count.

Requirements and your first condition

You need AdSanity installed and active, because all its add-ons depend on the main plugin.

1. Install and activate the add-on on your AdSanity site.
2. Create an ad or open an existing one.
3. Tick the checkbox in the Conditional Ad Appearance box.
4. Choose the type, operator and value of the condition.
5. Add more conditions with "And" or "Or" if you need them, and save the ad.
6. Check the result in each place and device you included or excluded.

Managers and add-ons to compare

Within AdSanity, User Role Ad Visibility focuses on hiding ads by user role, and Weighted Ads works on how often each ad in a group appears.

If you prefer to compare with other ad managers, look at Advanced Ads Pro and Ad Inserter Pro.

Answers about Conditional Ad Appearance

Can I exclude a single category?

Yes. Choose Post Taxonomy, use "is not equal to" and select that category. The ad keeps showing in the other allowed places.

Are conditions lost when I add the ad to a group?

No. Each ad keeps its own, however it is displayed.

Can it show an ad to certain members?

Yes, if your site uses MemberPress. The Membership condition lets you target specific memberships, and there are also user role conditions.

Does activating it affect all my ads?

No. Rules apply only to the ads where you enable the box.