Advertise

Advertise puts your own promotions in front of your members: an event, a membership upgrade, a course, a partner’s offer. You make each campaign in WordPress, choose where it shows and who sees it, and the Ads table counts how often it was seen and tapped.

Advertise is included on every plan, Free too. It runs entirely on your site: there is no ad network, no advertising identifier, and nothing about your ads or who saw them is sent to Memberside.

Switch it on

1. In WordPress, open Memberside → Services.
2. Switch Advertise on.
3. Choose Manage to open the Ads table.

There is nothing to authorise. Switching Advertise on also switches on the Advertise endpoints under Memberside → REST API, which your app and your website read ads from.

The Ads table on a demo community with sample numbers: one campaign's views and taps, then its editor

Where ads show

Each campaign picks its places under Where it shows.

Place	What members see
News feed	A card between posts in the site-wide feed: the Ultimate Member - Social Activity wall and the BuddyPress or BuddyBoss activity stream. Not in a member’s own activity or a single post
Group discussions	A card between posts in a group’s own discussion, Ultimate Member - Groups or BuddyPress
Group list	A card between groups in the Ultimate Member - Groups and BuddyPress lists of all groups. Not in a member’s own groups, and not in the BuddyPress grid layout
Forum list	A card between forums in the ForumWP and bbPress forum lists, counted across categories
Topic list	A card between topics in ForumWP and bbPress topic lists. Not on My Forum Activity
Job list	A card between jobs in the JobBoardWP job list. Not in an employer’s jobs on their profile
Popup	A card over the app a little after it opens
Push notification	A notification sent at the time you choose, and again whenever you schedule another send
Notification emails	One ad at the foot of the notification emails Memberside sends
Website	The lists you ticked, on your site’s own pages too, and a popup on the site when Popup is ticked

A place your site cannot fill is greyed out with the reason: Forum list needs ForumWP or bbPress, Job list needs JobBoardWP, Push notification needs Push switched on and authorised.

How often ads appear is set once for the whole site, on the Settings tab:

• Each list takes a first ad after a number of rows, then one every so many rows. The defaults are after 3 then every 8 in the news feed, group discussions and the job list; after 3 then every 10 in topic lists; after 4 then every 12 in group and forum lists.
• Popup waits a number of seconds after the app opens (20 by default), shows at most a set number per visit (1), and then waits a number of hours before the next (24).

Every ad carries the label Sponsored, which you can reword on the Settings tab. Both app stores expect ads inside content to say what they are.

Create a campaign

1. In the Ads table, choose New campaign.
2. Give it a Name. Only you see it.
3. Under Content, choose Image, Video or Text, and add the picture or video from your Media Library, a headline and some text.
4. Under Call to action, choose what the button does.
5. Tick the places under Where it shows.
6. Set the Audience, When and Delivery sections, described below.
7. Choose Save and run, or Save draft to finish later.

The preview beside the form shows the card as members get it.

Video ads

A video comes from your Media Library (MP4 plays everywhere) or from a YouTube or Vimeo link — a watch page, a share link, a Shorts link or an unlisted Vimeo link all work.

Choose how it plays under Playback:

• Thumbnail first, play on a tap — members see the thumbnail and start the video, with sound.
• Play automatically — it starts muted once half of it is on screen, and goes back to the thumbnail when it scrolls away. A tap plays it with sound.

The Thumbnail is the picture you choose. Leave it empty and a YouTube or Vimeo ad uses the one the video has; a Media Library video needs one to show anything before it plays.

YouTube and Vimeo play in their own player, inside your app and on your site.

Call to action

Choice	What a tap does
No button	Nothing; the ad is information only
Open a screen in the app	Opens that tab of your app, as if the member had tapped it in the nav — Events, Shop, Groups. If your app has no such tab, the tap does nothing. On the website and in emails the button goes to your home page
Open a page on this site	A link to a group, post, event, product, profile or topic opens on its own screen in the app. Any other page on your site opens in the app’s browser
Open a web address	Opens in the app’s browser, or in the phone’s own browser when you tick Open in the phone’s browser

Audience

Leave the section empty to show the campaign to every signed-in member.

• Roles — only members with one of the roles you tick.
• Membership levels — with Paid Memberships Pro active, only members who hold any of the levels you tick. Tick none for any level, or none.
• Profile fields — rules on fields from Ultimate Member or BuddyPress profiles: is, is not, is one of, contains, is filled in, is empty. With more than one rule, choose whether a member must match all of these or any of these. Comparisons ignore capitals and spaces at either end.
• Has bought and Has not bought — the in-app products a member holds, from Memberside → In-App Purchases. Use Has not bought to keep an upgrade offer away from members who already upgraded.
• Also show it to logged-out visitors on the website — visitors see the campaign only when it has no role, membership level, profile field or Has bought rule, since none of those can be true of somebody who is not signed in.

When

• Starts and Ends — leave Starts empty to begin as soon as the campaign is Active. Tick Forever for no end.
• Days — tick days of the week, or none for every day.
• Hours — up to four windows a day, or none for all day. A window whose end is before its start runs overnight: 22:00 to 02:00.

All times are your site’s own, as set under Settings → General → Timezone. A site never given a timezone runs on UTC. When your site’s clock differs from yours, the editor says so, and Send at shows the time you typed in your own clock as well.

Delivery

• Weight — how campaigns that show in the same place share it. A campaign with weight 30 beside one with weight 10 comes first three times as often, and both still appear.
• Most times a member sees it per day — 0 for no limit.
• Members can opt out — on by default. See Opting out.

The push notification

Tick Push notification and the campaign gets a Push notification section: a title and a message (the headline and text when left empty) and Send at.

1. Save the campaign as Active.
2. Choose How many would get it? It counts the members it would reach, lists those it would skip and why (outside the audience, hid this ad, turned promotions off, had a promotion in the last day), and says whether you would get it yourself.
3. Choose Send a test push to me to see it on your own phone. Lock the phone or leave the app first: the app does not show a push while it is open. A test goes only to you, whatever the audience, and is not counted.
4. Choose Save and schedule.

It is sent at Send at, in your site’s timezone, to members in the audience who have your app installed with notifications allowed. A time already past is refused; leave Send at empty to send as soon as you press Save and schedule. Tapping it counts as a tap and opens the call to action.

Once it has gone out, the campaign shows how many members it went to and how many of their phones the push service reached. To send it again, change Send at and choose Save and schedule another send. Earlier sends stay listed below.

Two limits protect your members: a member who chose Stop showing me promotions gets no push from a campaign that allows opting out, and nobody gets more than one promotional push a day across all your campaigns. A push still scheduled is cancelled if you pause, draft or end its campaign before it goes.

Notification emails

Tick Notification emails and one ad is added at the foot of the emails Memberside sends — a reply, a mention, a new follower — chosen for the member it goes to. Ultimate Member’s and BuddyPress’s own emails are not touched.

The view is counted when the email is sent. There is no tracking pixel, so whether it was opened is not known. The button goes through a link on your own site that counts the tap and then forwards the reader.

Serving ads from Media CDN

With Media CDN switched on and authorised, switch on Store ad images and videos on Media CDN on the Advertise Settings tab. Your ads’ pictures and video files are then mirrored to Media CDN and served from there, in the app and on your website, instead of from your server.

• They count toward your Media CDN storage.
• Ad videos are mirrored even when Media CDN’s Member videos is off. Your members’ own videos stay as that switch says.
• Switch it off and the files are removed from Media CDN and served from your site again.
• YouTube and Vimeo videos stay on YouTube and Vimeo. Their thumbnails are not copied.

Opting out

A member can say no in two ways, on any campaign with Members can opt out switched on:

• Hide this ad — that campaign never shows to them again.
• Stop showing me promotions — no campaign that allows opting out shows to them again, in the app, on the website or in emails. An ad in an email has a Stop showing me promotions link of its own.

Switch Members can opt out off only for something every member must see, such as a renewal reminder. Those ads show no Hide control.

Reading the numbers

The Ads table shows each campaign’s views, taps, tap rate and hide rate since it began. Choose the chart icon on a row for its views and taps by day over 7, 30 or 90 days, by place and by surface — app, website, email or push.

What counts	As
An ad shown in the app or scrolled into view on the website	A view, once for each place it is shown
A notification email sent with an ad	A view
A promotional push sent	A view
A tap on the button, the push or the email link	A tap
A member choosing Hide this ad	A hide, the first time that member hides that campaign
A member choosing Stop showing me promotions while looking at an ad, in the app, on the website or from an email	An opt-out against that campaign, the first time that member opts out

The hide rate is hides and opt-outs together, as a share of views: the campaign’s negative feedback. A rising hide rate says the ad is reaching people it is not for — narrow the audience, or lower Most times a member sees it per day. An opt-out made from a member’s own settings, with no ad in front of them, counts against no campaign.

Views from the builder’s preview are never counted.

Store declarations

Your ads are your own, so neither store asks for an advertising identifier declaration or a tracking prompt. Google Play still counts them as ads: under App content → Ads in Play Console, answer Yes if your site runs campaigns in the app. The store submission checklist reminds you.

What breaks

Symptom	Cause	Fix
No ads in the app	Advertise is switched off, or the Advertise endpoints are off under Memberside → REST API	Switch the service on; it switches its endpoints on with it
A campaign never shows	It is a draft or paused, outside its dates, days or hours, or no member matches its audience	Check its status badge in the Ads table and its When and Audience sections
A campaign shows to some members only	It reached its Most times a member sees it per day, or those members opted out	Raise the limit, or switch Members can opt out off if everyone must see it
Push notification is greyed out	Push is not switched on and authorised	Set up Push first
The push reached fewer members than the estimate	Some had a promotional push in the last day, or turned notifications off on their phone	Expected; the daily limit protects them
The push came hours early or late	Your site’s timezone is not yours. WordPress runs on UTC until one is chosen	Set Settings → General → Timezone, or type the time the editor shows in the site’s clock
Your own phone got no push	Your account hid the ad, turned promotions off, had a promotion in the last day, or has no phone registered	How many would get it? says which. Send a test push to me ignores all of them
An Open a screen in the app button does nothing	Your app has no tab of that type	Choose a screen your app has, or link to a page instead
No ads on the website	Ads on the website is off on the Settings tab, or the campaign does not tick Website	Switch both on
A YouTube or Vimeo ad shows a black box	The video is private, or its owner does not allow embedding	Make it public or unlisted, and allow embedding
Play automatically does not start a video	The phone’s low-power or data-saver mode blocks autoplay	Expected; the member can still tap to play
Ad pictures still load from your site	Media CDN has not mirrored them yet, or Store ad images and videos on Media CDN is off	Wait for the next sync, or switch it on