AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) can speed up your website significantly giving your visitors a better user experience and increase visibility in search engines. Ads on those pages are reported to have higher click rates and click prices than those ads on the default version. Good for you, that you can convert your AdSense ads into AMP with just one click now when using WordPress.
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How to convert your WordPress site into AMP
There are a couple of WordPress plugins to create an AMP version of your site.
We recommend using either of these two plugins:
- AMP by Automattic
- AMP for WP – Accelerated Mobile Pages
Both plugins just need you to enable them to have the AMP version of at least your posts created. I’d recommend keeping that basic setup for now. You can always come back to improve your AMP settings if it proves to perform well for you.
After you installed an AMP plugin, you should be able to add /amp to any single post URL to see the AMP version. No need to tell Google about this. They will notice it and decide automatically whether to show your AMP pages in the search results or not.
AdSense on AMP pages in WordPress
AMP-sites are super fast. They are also used by Google to show the content of your page without the user visiting it. You shouldn‘t miss showing ads on those pages for two reasons. First, you lose the monetization opportunity and second, AdSense on AMP pages can also perform much better than on your WordPress site. More on that at the end of this article.
The AMP-code is different from “normal” web code, so your AdSense ads won’t work without creating an AMP version of them.
While a default AdSense ad code looks like this
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style="display:block"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-1234567891234567"
data-ad-slot="1234567890"
data-ad-format="auto"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>
The format of the AMP version of it would look like below.
<amp-ad width="100vw" height="320"
type="adsense"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-1234567891234567"
data-ad-slot="1234567890"
data-auto-format="rspv"
data-full-width>
<div overflow></div>
</amp-ad>
There is also one additional line needed to be put in the website’s header to initialize AMP ads.
<script async custom-element="amp-ad" src="https://cdn.ampproject.org/v0/amp-ad-0.1.js"></script>
Converting AdSense to AMP automatically
Our AMP Ads add-on converts your AdSense ads automatically to the AMP format. You can also change the size of the ads on AMP pages or disable some AdSense ads on AMP pages completely.
- To fully support AdSense AMP ads in WordPress, you need Advanced Ads installed and our AMP Ads add-on
- Set up your AdSense ads in Advanced Ads according to this tutorial
- If you are using Auto ads, then enable the AMP Auto ads option under Advanced Ads > Settings > AdSense > AMP
- Your AMP and non-AMP pages should show up AdSense ads now
That’s it!
How do AdSense Ads behave on AMP?
The main difference between AdSense on non-AMP and AMP pages is that responsive ad formats must have a fixed height. We have chosen the default height based on recommendations made by AdSense. You can change them for each individual ad unit.
| AdSense Ad Type | AMP behavior |
|---|---|
| Display ads with a fixed size (e.g., 300×250) | same as non-AMP |
| Display ads with a responsive size including vertical, horizontal, and rectangle format | 100% width, 320px height |
| Display ads with manual responsive sizes | same as non-AMP |
| In-article ads | 100% width, 320px height |
| Matched Content with a fixed size | same as non-AMP |
| Matched Content with responsive size | 100% width, 320px height |
| In-feed ads | disabled on AMP |
If you are using the Full Width option for responsive AdSense ads then the ad will cover 100% of the screen size width.
The Layout option of Matched Content ad units is currently not supported by AdSense.
AdSense does currently not support In-feed ads on AMP pages, so Advanced Ads removes them from AMP pages. But other AdSense formats work there. You can use the Post Lists placement to include them in your feed or archive pages.
Using individual AMP settings
You can override the default behavior of your AdSense ads on AMP pages on the ad edit screen. If you have an AMP plugin installed, you will see the following block in the Ad Parameters options for all AMP-compatible AdSense ad types.
Please note that the “dynamic size with a ratio” option is not referring to the exact size of the ad in pixels. That size will scale up if the width of the content is higher. E.g., a ratio of 300×100 will try to load an AdSense ad with the size of 600×200 if the available width is 600px. If the ad container is too large, AdSense will not show any ads in them.
Show AdSense only on AMP version
Since a lot of elements are stripped from an AMP version and often only the main article shows up, you should make sure to have your AdSense ads within the content.
If your desktop version has most ads outside the main content, like in the header or sidebar, you might want to move a few of them into the post content in the AMP version.
To show a specific AdSense ad on AMP only, you can create it like any other AdSense ad in Advanced Ads and then add the Accelerated Mobile Pages Display Condition.
Just set it to is to show this specific ad on AMP pages only.
As you can guess, setting it to is not would hide this ad on AMP pages.
AMP Auto ads
If you don’t want to manage ad positions on your site manually you can use Google AMP Auto ads. Enable AMP Auto ads through Advanced Ads > Settings > AdSense > Auto ads > AMP Auto ads.
Please note that AdSense does currently not offer a way to manually place ads to non-AMP pages without Auto ads while running Auto ads on AMP. There is only a general setting to enable/disable Auto ads. If they are turned on, AdSense will place Auto ads also through manually placed ad units on non-AMP.
Limitations and Issues
AMP pages come with a lot of technical limitations. Not all placements from our add-ons might work on AMP. Read more about limitations in the General limitations for AMP ads section in this article.
If you test AdSense AMP ads on a desktop device then be aware that too large sizes wouldn’t show up. E.g., if you have a responsive AdSense AMP ad in the content and that content is 1000 pixels wide on a desktop, the ad would have a size of 1000×666. Such large ads would cover too much space and therefore not show up. Just decrease the screen width for testing.
Are AdSense AMP ads on WordPress paying well?
According to this AdSense article, ads on AMP pages can lead to
- higher viewability rates
- higher CTR
- higher eCPMs
compared to non-AMP pages. Well, of course, they would say that since Google is a large contributor to the AMP project.
I tested our WordPress AdSense AMP feature one month before the release on my personal blog. While the ad impressions made on AMP pages were just about 27% of the overall traffic, the revenue from AdSense on AMP pages was 32% of the revenue. That was an increase in revenue of 50% compared to not using AMP ads before. The RPM of those AMP ads was even 130% higher.
These numbers result from just one test. I would love to gather more data on how significant the share of AMP revenue is on your sites. Please reach out and let us know.
While I wouldn’t say that every WordPress site needs an AMP version, a WordPress site with AdSense ads on it and an AMP version should definitely make sure that those ads also run on their AMP version.
Google AdSense AMP only for mobile devices?
Technically, you can enable AMP for desktop and mobile devices.
However, Google search only links to AMP pages in search results on mobile devices. So unless you switch your complete site to AMP by default, only mobile users would practically see the AMP version.
I see a lot of publishers testing their AMP site on desktop, though, since that is the device on which they maintain their website. This can lead to unexpected behavior when placing AdSense AMP ads with scaling width and height. The higher the ad, the less likely it is to show.
When you are wondering where your ads are on a large screen, check it out on a mobile device or decrease the width of your current screen.