AdFlow documentation

• WordPress 6.4 or newer.
• PHP 7.4 or newer.
• A Google AdSense account for AdSense ads. Your own banners, text ads and other networks' code work without one.
• AdFlow Pro is an add-on: it needs the free AdFlow plugin installed and active.

AdFlow adds one menu, AdFlow, with these screens: Dashboard, Ad Units, Placements, Reports, Earnings (Pro), Settings and Docs. Settings are grouped in tabs rather than separate menu items.

1. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New and search for AdFlow (plugin slug simple-google-adsense), or download it from WordPress.org.
2. Click Install Now, then Activate.
3. Open AdFlow → Dashboard. The setup checklist shows what is left to do.

The complete documentation is also inside WordPress under AdFlow → Docs, searchable, with links straight to each screen.

1. Go to AdFlow → Settings → General and paste your AdSense Publisher ID (pub-1234567890123456; the ca-pub- form also works). Click Save changes.
2. Leave Enable Auto Ads on if you want Google to place ads for you, or turn it off and place ads yourself.
3. Go to AdFlow → Settings → ads.txt, turn on Let AdFlow manage ads.txt and save, so AdSense stops warning "Earnings at risk".
4. To place your own ad units: go to AdFlow → Ad Units → Add Ad Unit, enter the ad slot ID from AdSense and publish. Then switch on a placement under AdFlow → Placements, or add the AdFlow Ad block to a post.
5. Check AdFlow → Dashboard. The Site health panel lists anything that could stop ads from showing.

New AdSense accounts and new sites can take a few days before Google fills ad spaces. Empty spaces during that time are normal.

• Publisher ID: in AdSense, open Account → Settings → Account information. It looks like pub-1234567890123456. AdFlow checks the format; an ID that is not "pub-" followed by 10 to 20 digits is flagged and no ad code is sent.
• Ad slot ID: in AdSense, open Ads → By ad unit, create a unit (Display, In-feed, In-article or Multiplex) and copy the number after data-ad-slot in the code Google shows you.
• Layout key: in-feed ads also have a data-ad-layout-key value. Copy it into the ad unit too; in-feed ads do not serve without it.

Google's help: find your publisher ID and create an ad unit.

AdFlow → Dashboard shows your setup at a glance:

• Setup checklist: add your Publisher ID, authorise your site with ads.txt, start showing ads (Auto Ads or placements). With Pro active, four more steps appear: activate your licence, connect AdSense earnings, turn on click protection and add a Pro placement.
• Status cards: Auto Ads on or off, number of ad units, ads.txt status.
• Site health: the most common reasons ads do not show, checked for you: Publisher ID missing or invalid, no ads configured, ads.txt problems, ads that failed to render, campaigns ending within 7 days, ads hidden for administrators, caching plugins that need purging, consent setup, statistics being blocked by the server, ads waiting for review, and another ad plugin still active after an import.
• Shortcuts: create an ad unit, place ads automatically, inspect ads on your site, manage ads.txt.

With Pro, the Dashboard also shows today's AdSense earnings, your licence status and whether the earnings dashboard is connected.

Auto Ads let Google decide where ads go on each page. Go to AdFlow → Settings → General:

• Auto Ads → Enable Auto Ads: on by default. The Auto Ads code is added only once a valid Publisher ID is saved.
• Turn off on: tick content types that should never show Auto Ads (for example products), and list single posts or pages under Specific posts or pages (IDs, comma separated), such as contact or checkout pages.

On excluded pages, AdFlow still loads the AdSense library for your own ad units, but without the Auto Ads part, so only the units you placed appear.

Which Auto Ads formats Google uses (anchor, vignette, in-page) is set in your AdSense account under Ads → By site, not in WordPress.

Auto Ads and your own placements work together: Google fills the rest of the page around the ads you placed.

With Pro, the AdFlow Ads box in the post editor can turn off Auto Ads on a single post. See Per-post ad controls.

ads.txt tells ad buyers you are allowed to sell ads on your site. Without it, AdSense shows "Earnings at risk" and may limit ads.

1. Add your Publisher ID under AdFlow → Settings → General first.
2. Go to AdFlow → Settings → ads.txt and turn on Serve ads.txt → Let AdFlow manage ads.txt (off by default).
3. The AdSense line is added automatically from your Publisher ID: google.com, pub-…, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0.
4. Under Other ad networks, paste one line per network exactly as the network gives it to you (domain, account ID, DIRECT or RESELLER, optional certification ID). Comments and variables such as contact= are allowed.
5. Check the Preview, then click Save changes.

The Status panel fetches your live /ads.txt the way Google does and shows Authorized or Needs attention with the reason. Click Check again after a change. Good results are cached for 12 hours, problems are re-checked after 10 minutes (an unreachable site after an hour).

Lines that do not follow the ads.txt format are listed in red and left out of the file. A physical ads.txt file in your site root is served by the web server instead of AdFlow's; delete or rename it, or copy its lines into AdFlow. If WordPress is installed in a subdirectory (for example example.com/blog), WordPress cannot answer for /ads.txt at the domain root: upload the file shown in the preview to the root yourself.

Go to AdFlow → Settings → General.

Your own banners and text ads carry their own disclosure label (see Your own ads); the Ad label setting applies to AdSense units.

An ad unit is an ad you set up once and reuse in placements, the block, the widget and shortcodes. Change it once and every place updates. Go to AdFlow → Ad Units → Add Ad Unit, give it a name (for example "Sidebar 300x250"), choose the Ad type and publish.

The Ad Units list shows each unit's type, slot or link, status (Running, Scheduled, Expired), the last 30 days of impressions and clicks for your own ads, which placements use it, and its shortcode (click to copy).

The Use this ad unit box on the edit screen shows the Will this ad show? check (see Will this ad show?), 30-day statistics for your own ads, a link to choose a placement and the shortcode.

A trashed ad unit is restored with its previous status, so a live ad comes back live.

For AdSense types, match the type of the unit you created in AdSense. AdFlow outputs Google's exact markup for each type.

In-article ads are output as fluid, centred in-article units; Multiplex ads use the autorelaxed format.

With Pro, every unit also gets Reserved height (desktop and mobile) and Sticky in sidebars. See Lazy loading, reserved height and sticky sidebar ads.

Run sponsor, affiliate or house ads next to AdSense, or code from any other network.

• Image banner: choose an image from the Media Library and add Alternative text. Tip: avoid words like "ad" or "banner" in the file name, as ad blockers hide those.
• Text ad: Headline, Text and an optional Button text such as "Learn more".
• Custom code: paste code from Google Ad Manager, Media.net or any network. It is output exactly as entered. Only users allowed to post unfiltered HTML (administrators on a single site) can add or edit it.

For banners and text ads, the Link is where a click goes. Links always get rel="sponsored" as Google asks; Open in a new tab is on by default and Also add rel="nofollow" is optional. Links can carry tracking macros: {ad_id}, {placement}, {site} and {cachebuster}, for example https://example.com/?utm_source=mysite&utm_content={placement}.

Delivery box

Your own ads use neutral class names, so generic ad-blocker rules are less likely to hide them. Custom code that could still be held back by a browser-side rule (consent, schedule, Pro caps, days and hours or countries) waits until the rule allows it, so it never loads and is then hidden.

With Pro, the Delivery box adds a frequency cap, dayparting, country targeting, advertiser details, performance emails and a campaign price. See Frequency caps and dayparting, Country targeting and Advertiser reports, emails and pricing.

A rotation group shows one of its ads per page view. Create one under AdFlow → Ad Units → Add Ad Unit with the type Rotation group.

1. Under Ads in this group, pick the ads and give each a Weight (1 to 100). Need more rows? Save and more empty rows appear.
2. Choose the Rotation: Random, by weight (weight 3 is shown three times as often as weight 1) or In order - each visitor sees the next ad.
3. Publish, then use the group like any ad unit: in a placement, the block, the widget or a shortcode.

The choice is made in the visitor's browser, so rotation keeps working with page caching, and the ads that were not chosen load nothing and count nothing. Only ads that may show right now take part: ads outside their schedule, and with Pro capped, out-of-hours or other-country ads, are skipped.

Mix sponsor ads with an AdSense unit in the same group so the space is never empty.

Placements insert an ad unit into your content without editing posts. Go to AdFlow → Placements. If no ad unit exists yet, create one first.

1. Switch a placement on with its toggle.
2. Choose an ad unit (or a rotation group) from Choose an ad unit….
3. Under Show on, tick the post types (Posts is ticked by default). No post type ticked means the placement shows nowhere.
4. Click Save placements.

Paragraphs inside quotes, tables, lists, figures, code blocks, details, asides, navigation and forms are not counted, so an ad never lands inside them. Placements only run on the main content of single posts and pages, not in excerpts, feeds or related-post widgets.

Pro adds Middle of the article (after X%), Before comments, Between posts, Sticky anchor, Popup and three WooCommerce placements, plus targeting, scheduling and A/B tests on every placement. See More placements.

In the block editor, add the AdFlow Ad block (Widgets category) and choose a saved unit under Ad settings → Ad unit. The block supports wide and full alignment.

You can also choose - Enter the ad manually - and fill in an AdSense Ad Slot ID, Ad Type, Ad Format, Full Width Responsive and, for in-feed ads, a Layout key. For Google's exact in-article or multiplex code, save the ad under AdFlow → Ad Units and pick it in the block instead.

The block name is simple-google-adsense/adsense-ad.

1. Go to Appearance → Widgets (classic widget areas) and add the AdFlow Ad widget to a sidebar.
2. Enter an optional Title and choose the Ad unit.
3. Save.

In block-based widget areas you can use the AdFlow Ad block instead.

With Pro, turn on Keep in view while scrolling on the unit and place the widget last in the sidebar to make it sticky on desktop.

The recommended shortcode shows a saved ad unit (the ID is shown in the Ad Units list):

[adflow id="123"]

AdSense shortcodes without a saved unit

[adsense ad_slot="1234567890"]
[adsense_banner ad_slot="1234567890"]
[adsense_inarticle ad_slot="1234567890"]
[adsense_infeed ad_slot="1234567890" layout_key="-fb+5w+4e-db+86"]
[adsense_multiplex ad_slot="1234567890"]

[adsense_matched_content] is an alias of [adsense_multiplex]. The plain [adsense] shortcode always outputs a display unit unless layout_key is given; use the typed shortcodes or a saved unit for in-article and multiplex markup.

Pro adds [adflow_advertise] for self-serve ad sales. See Sell ads directly.

Will this ad show?

Every published ad unit shows a Yes or No answer in its Use this ad unit box, with each check listed: manual ads switched on, Publisher ID and slot ID set, layout key for in-feed ads, image, headline or code present for your own ads, schedule status, ads.txt authorisation, which placements use the unit, and whether ads are hidden while you are logged in. Pro adds its own checks (for example caps, dayparting, countries and Ad Manager settings).

Ad Inspector

1. Open any page of your site while logged in (the WordPress toolbar must be visible).
2. In the toolbar, choose AdFlow → Inspect ads on this page. You can also use Inspect ads on your site in the Dashboard shortcuts.
3. Every ad is outlined with its unit, slot and placement and marked Filled, Unfilled (Google had no ad for this slot right now), Requested (waiting for Google) or Not requested (AdSense script blocked, lazy loading or a targeting rule). Auto ads and your own ads are labelled too.

The Inspector is available to users with access to AdFlow. If Do not show ads while I am logged in is on, it tells you so; check in a private window instead.

Google requires consent before personalised ads for visitors from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland. Show the consent message with AdSense's own Privacy & messaging (a Google-certified TCF message) or with a consent plugin such as Complianz, CookieYes or Cookiebot. Then go to AdFlow → Settings → Privacy & consent.

Your consent tool shows which consent plugin AdFlow found (Complianz, CookieYes, Cookiebot, GDPR Cookie Compliance, Cookie Notice & Compliance, Real Cookie Banner, iubenda, WP Consent API), or "None found", which is fine when you use AdSense's own message.

Many consent plugins can set Consent Mode themselves. Turn Consent Mode on in only one place. Without a consent plugin or AdSense's own message, Consent Mode stays "denied" in the EEA.

Both options work with page caching. Saving this tab asks common caching plugins to purge.

AdFlow counts impressions, viewable impressions and clicks of your image banners, text ads and custom code. AdSense statistics come from Google; AdFlow does not count AdSense impressions itself.

• Impression: the ad was displayed on a page a real browser showed (for banners, the image loaded). Hidden, prefetched and prerendered pages do not count.
• Viewable impression: at least 50% of the ad was on screen for at least one continuous second (IAB/MRC standard).
• Click: a link in the ad was opened. A scroll that starts on the ad is not a click.
• Not counted: known bots and crawlers, headless browsers, link previews, prefetches and logged-in administrators.

Counting is cookieless: only daily totals are stored, with no IP addresses, cookies or visitor IDs, and it works with page caching. Days follow your site's time zone.

Settings

Go to AdFlow → Settings → Tracking.

AdFlow adds a suggested paragraph about ads and statistics to the WordPress privacy policy guide (Settings → Privacy).

AdFlow → Reports shows impressions and clicks of your own ads:

• Totals for Impressions, Viewable (with viewability rate), Clicks and Click-through rate.
• A chart of Impressions per day.
• A By ad table with status, impressions, viewability, clicks and CTR.

Choose Last 7 days or Last 30 days, filter to a single ad, and click Apply. The Full report link on an ad unit opens the report for that ad.

Pro adds Last 90 days, Last 12 months and custom dates, CSV export, breakdowns by placement, device and advertiser, and sponsor eCPM next to your AdSense RPM. See Full reports and CSV export. AdSense earnings are under AdFlow → Earnings.

Give editors, an ad manager or your sales team access without making them administrators. Go to AdFlow → Settings → Access, tick the permissions per role and click Save access.

Any role with at least one permission also gets the AdFlow menu. Administrators (anyone who can manage options) always have full access, and the Settings screen stays with administrators.

A user who may create but not publish ads gets Submit for Review instead of Publish. When an ad is submitted:

1. Everyone with Publish ads (no review) is emailed (up to 20 people) with a link to the ad.
2. The Dashboard shows Ads waiting for review with a Review link.
3. A reviewer checks the ad and publishes it.

Live ads are read-only for users without the publish permission, so saving can never pull a running ad off the site while it waits for review.

1. Go to AdFlow → Settings → Switch to AdFlow. AdFlow lists what it found from each plugin. The other plugin does not have to be active.
2. Click Import (or Import new items for a plugin already imported). Ads, rotation groups, placements and, for AdRotate and WP QUADS, statistics are copied. Nothing in the other plugin is changed, and importing again never creates duplicates.
3. Review the report. AdSense code for your Publisher ID becomes a native AdSense unit, linked banners from your Media Library become image ads with tracking, and everything else is kept as custom code so it looks exactly as before. Placements only fill AdFlow placements that are still empty. Notes list anything worth a look, such as paused ads imported as drafts or positions AdFlow placed differently.
4. Deactivate the old plugin so ads are not shown twice. Its shortcodes keep working through AdFlow.

Custom code can only be imported by a user allowed to post unfiltered HTML. Code containing PHP is imported for review but never run. A Publisher ID found in the other plugin is copied into Settings.

1. Keep the free AdFlow plugin installed and active. Pro is an add-on and shows an error notice with a Fix it link when the free plugin is missing or out of date.
2. Download adflow-pro.zip from your account, then go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, upload it and activate it. You are taken to the AdFlow Dashboard, which now shows the Pro setup steps.
3. Go to AdFlow → Settings → License, paste your License key (in your purchase email and your account) and click Activate license.

The licence enables one-click updates and priority support. Pro features keep working if a licence expires; renew to receive updates again. Use Deactivate on this site to move a licence to another site. When all activations are used, the licence screen tells you so.

When Pro is active, the Upgrade to Pro menu item disappears and Pro options appear inside the existing screens: new Settings tabs (Click protection, Performance, Sell ads, Import / Export, License, Activity log), new placements and fields on ad units.

The earnings dashboard reads your AdSense reports through Google's AdSense Management API with read-only access. Only administrators can connect it. You connect it once with your own Google Cloud OAuth client (about five minutes):

1. In Google Cloud Console, create or select a project and enable the AdSense Management API.
2. Configure the OAuth consent screen (External) and set its publishing status to In production. Apps left in "Testing" lose access every 7 days and must be reconnected.
3. Create an OAuth client ID of type Web application. In WordPress, go to AdFlow → Earnings, click Copy next to Authorized redirect URI and add that address as an authorised redirect URI of the client.
4. Paste the Client ID and Client Secret into AdFlow → Earnings and click Save credentials.
5. Click Connect with Google, sign in with the Google account that owns your AdSense account and allow access to AdSense.

AdFlow picks the AdSense account that matches the Publisher ID in Settings → General. If none matches, it uses the first account and says so.

To keep the credentials out of the database, define them in wp-config.php; the form is then replaced by a note:

define( 'ADFLOW_GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID', '1234567890-abc.apps.googleusercontent.com' );
define( 'ADFLOW_GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET', 'your-client-secret' );

If a one-click Connect with Google button is offered at the top of the Earnings screen without any credentials, that connection service is available for your site and you can use it instead; the own-project setup then sits under Advanced: use your own Google Cloud project instead. When no such button is shown, use the steps above.

Changing the Client ID or secret revokes the old connection. Disconnect removes the connection from WordPress.

Once connected, AdFlow → Earnings shows (for users with the View reports permission):

• Key figures: Estimated earnings, Page views, Page RPM, Impressions, Clicks and Page CTR.
• Daily earnings chart for the chosen period.
• Ad unit performance (A/B testing): earnings, impressions, clicks, CTR and RPM per AdSense ad unit. Units that match an AdFlow ad unit (by slot ID) are linked and tagged AdFlow. The unit with the highest RPM is marked Winner once at least two units each have enough impressions (1,000 or 10% of the busiest unit, whichever is higher).
• Top pages: the ten pages that earn the most, with page views, page RPM and clicks.

Choose Today, Yesterday, Last 7 days (default), Last 30 days or This month, and tick This site only to leave out other sites on the same AdSense account. Reports are cached for one hour; Refresh fetches fresh data. Today's earnings are estimates and may change.

Administrators also get an AdSense Earnings (AdFlow Pro) widget on the WordPress Dashboard, and an Earnings today card with this month's total on the AdFlow Dashboard.

Repeated clicks from one visitor are the most common reason AdSense limits accounts. Go to AdFlow → Settings → Click protection:

A visitor who reaches the limit is flagged in their browser and stops receiving ads for the block period. Flagged visitors never even load the AdSense script, so no ad is ever hidden (hiding ads breaks AdSense policy). The tab shows how many visitors have been blocked so far.

Click protection reduces risk; no tool can guarantee Google's decisions about your account.

Also on AdFlow → Settings → Click protection:

• Max manual ads per page: keeps pages within Google's "more content than ads" guidance. 0 (default) means no limit; up to 50. A rotation group counts as one ad. Auto Ads are managed by Google and not counted.
• Ad-blocker message: turn on Show a message to ad-block users to show a polite, dismissible note to visitors who block ads, and edit its Text. Off by default.

Lazy loading

Go to AdFlow → Settings → Performance and turn on Lazy load manual ads (off by default). Ads are requested only when they are about to scroll into view: a faster first load and better viewability. Start loading sets how far below the screen an ad starts loading (default 300 px, 0 to 2,000). Auto Ads are managed by Google and not affected.

Reserved height

To stop pages jumping when ads load, edit an ad unit and set Reserved height for Desktop and Mobile in pixels. Typical values are 90, 250 or 280; 0 turns it off.

Sticky sidebar ads

On an ad unit, turn on Sticky in sidebars → Keep in view while scrolling and place the unit last in your sidebar (widget or block). On desktop it stays in view while the visitor scrolls past a long article. Google allows this for vertical ads in a sidebar; in-content ads are never made sticky.

Administrators see an AdFlow Ads box in the sidebar of the editor for every public post type:

• No ads on this page: turns off every AdFlow ad and Auto Ads on that post or page.
• No Auto Ads on this page: keeps your own placements and units but turns off Google's Auto Ads there.

With Pro, AdFlow → Placements gains these placements, grouped under Inside posts & pages, Post lists & archives, Site-wide and WooCommerce:

The WooCommerce placements appear when WooCommerce is active. Every placement, free or Pro, also gets targeting, scheduling and A/B testing (see Targeting, scheduling and A/B tests).

Sticky anchor

A small, closable bar at the bottom of the screen. Page content is padded so the ad never covers it, as AdSense requires. Use a horizontal display unit, for example 320x50 or 728x90.

Popup (your own ads)

For sponsor banners, text ads, custom code from other networks and rotation groups of those. Google does not allow AdSense in popups, so AdSense units (and Ad Manager units) are never shown there.

The popup is a labelled dialog that closes with its close button or the Esc key.

On AdFlow → Placements, open Targeting, schedule & A/B test under any placement:

Browser rules work with page caching, and an ad that should not show never requests an ad from Google. Date rules make it possible to schedule AdSense units, not only your own ads.

A/B test

Under A/B test: also rotate with, tick extra ad units. Each page view shows one of the placement's unit and the ticked units. Compare them under AdFlow → Earnings → Ad unit performance.

The A/B choice is made when the page is generated. With full-page caching, each cached copy keeps its unit until the cache is refreshed; for a choice on every view of a cached page, use a rotation group.

Create an ad unit with the type Google Ad Manager (GPT) (under Other ad servers):

Key-value macros: {post_id}, {post_type} (home or archive on list pages), {category} (first category slug) and {placement} (manual for shortcode, block or widget).

section={category}
pos=sidebar

GPT loads once, asynchronously, only on pages that show such a unit, and respects placement rules, click protection and "Load ads after consent". Whether a slot fills depends on your line items in Ad Manager.

In the Delivery box of your own ads (image, text, custom code):

• Frequency cap: stop showing this ad to a visitor after N impressions per day (0 = no cap, up to 100). The count is stored only in the visitor's browser.
• Dayparting: tick days (Mon to Sun) and choose hours From and to, in your site's time zone. Nothing ticked = every day.

Both rules are applied in the browser, so they work with page caching. In a rotation group, an ad that is capped or out of hours is skipped and another ad is shown.

Sell a sponsorship to one market only. In the Delivery box of your own ads, set Countries to Only in or Everywhere except and list two-letter country codes, for example US, CA, GB. Put the ad in a rotation group with an AdSense unit so other visitors still see an ad.

Where the country comes from

1. A country header from your CDN or host, if present: Cloudflare (turn on "IP Geolocation"), Amazon CloudFront, Google Cloud, Vercel, or a host header such as X-Country-Code, GeoIP-Country-Code or X-Geo-Country, or a server GeoIP module.
2. Otherwise the optional free country database: click Use the free country database in the Countries field. It downloads DB-IP's free database (about 5 MB, CC BY 4.0) to your uploads folder and refreshes it monthly. Visitor IPs are looked up on your own server and never stored or sent anywhere. Remove turns it off.

The field shows which source was detected and your own country. The country is looked up per visitor in the browser, so targeting works on cached pages. No IP addresses are stored.

Without any country source, "Only in" ads stay hidden and "Everywhere except" ads show to everyone. The Dashboard warns you when ads use countries but no source is found.

In the Delivery box of your own ads:

• Advertiser: company name and optional contact email, used for reports, the report link and reminders. Turn on Email the advertiser before the campaign ends to include them in expiry reminders.
• Performance emails: Off, Weekly (Mondays, last 7 days) or Monthly (1st, last month). The advertiser receives impressions, viewability, clicks, CTR, campaign totals and the live report link. Email me a preview sends you the same email.
• Campaign price and currency (default USD): what the advertiser pays for the whole campaign. Used to work out the sponsor eCPM, shown next to your AdSense RPM in Reports.

Report link

In the ad's sidebar, Advertiser report → Create report link makes a read-only page with the ad's impressions, viewable impressions, clicks and CTR, day by day, with no login. Turn off link disables it at any time.

Expiry reminders

For ads with an end date, AdFlow emails the site's administration email address (Settings → General in WordPress) once in the 7 days before the campaign ends and once after it has ended, with the numbers so far and an edit link; the advertiser is included when the reminder option is on. The Dashboard also lists campaigns ending within 7 days.

Emails are sent with WordPress mail. If previews do not arrive, check that your site can send email (an SMTP plugin usually helps).

1. Create a rotation group (AdFlow → Ad Units → Add Ad Unit, type Rotation group) and put it in a placement. Sold ads then take turns in that spot automatically.
2. Go to AdFlow → Settings → Sell ads and fill in a package: Name, Description, Ad (Image banner, Text ad, or Banner or text; banner size such as 300x250; number of days, default 30), Shows in (the rotation group approved ads join, or I will place approved ads myself) and Price & payment (price, currency and your payment link: a Stripe Payment Link, PayPal.me or any checkout page). Click Save packages. Up to 20 packages; For sale hides a package without deleting it, and emptying the name removes it.
3. Create an "Advertise with us" page containing [adflow_advertise].
4. Advertisers choose a package, enter their name, email and link, upload a banner (JPG, PNG, GIF or WebP, up to 2 MB) or write a text ad, and optionally pick a start date. After submitting they see Pay … now, which opens your payment link with the order number added as ?order= (and client_reference_id).
5. The order waits under AdFlow → Ad Units as Pending, and everyone who may publish ads is emailed. Its Order box shows the package, price, days and requested start. Check the creative and the payment, click Mark as paid, then Publish.
6. On publishing, the ad gets its run dates (from the requested day or now, for the paid number of days), joins the package's rotation group, and the advertiser is emailed with the dates and a live report link. They also receive weekly performance emails. The ad stops by itself at the end date.

No card data ever reaches your site: payment happens on your payment provider's page. The form works on cached pages and is protected against spam with a signed timestamp, a honeypot field and a limit of 5 orders per visitor and 30 per site per hour. Deleting a rejected order also deletes the banner uploaded with it.

With Pro, AdFlow → Reports adds:

• Date ranges Last 90 days, Last 12 months and Custom dates (from and to).
• Export CSV for the chosen range and ad.
• Breakdowns By placement (including "Shortcode, block or widget"), By device (Mobile, Desktop & tablet) and By advertiser.
• Advertiser and Sponsor eCPM columns in the By ad table.
• Direct deals vs AdSense: your best sponsor eCPM next to your AdSense RPM for the last 30 days (with the earnings dashboard connected), so you can price deals with confidence.

Go to AdFlow → Settings → Import / Export.

• Export: Download export file saves your settings, ad units, placements, ads.txt, privacy and statistics settings, Pro settings and ad packages as one JSON file. The AdSense connection and the licence are not included.
• Import: choose an AdFlow export file (up to 2 MB) and click Import. It replaces your current AdFlow settings and adds the ad units from the file. Ad units you already have (same name and type) are kept, not duplicated, and placements, rotation groups, fallbacks and packages are pointed at the right units.

Importing replaces your current settings. Custom code in imported ad units is only kept when the importing user may post unfiltered HTML.

AdFlow → Settings → Activity log records every change to ad units (created, updated, trashed, restored, deleted), placements and settings, access, the licence and incoming ad orders: when, who and what. Entries are kept for 12 months.

$context contains source (shortcode, block, widget or placement) and placement (the placement key, or empty).

The ad unit post type is adflow_ad; its settings are stored in the _adflow_ad post meta. Statistics are daily rows in the {prefix}afx_stats table.

Authenticate with an Application Password (Users → Profile → Application Passwords) or a logged-in session with a REST nonce.

Parameters of /stats:

curl -u "user:app-password" \
  "https://example.com/wp-json/adflow/v1/stats?from=2026-09-01&to=2026-09-30&by=placement"

The response contains from, to, timezone, totals and rows; each row has impressions, viewable, clicks, ctr and viewability (as percentages).

wp adflow ads [--format=table|csv|json|yaml]
wp adflow stats [--from=YYYY-MM-DD] [--to=YYYY-MM-DD] [--days=30] [--ad=<id>] [--by=day|ad|placement|device|none] [--format=table|csv|json|yaml]

wp adflow ads lists ID, title, type, status, advertiser and end date. wp adflow stats prints rows grouped as requested and a totals line in the site's time zone. Examples:

wp adflow stats --days=7 --by=ad
wp adflow stats --from=2026-09-01 --to=2026-09-30 --by=device --format=csv > september.csv

1. Look at the Site health panel on AdFlow → Dashboard and the ad's Will this ad show? box.
2. Open the page while logged in and choose AdFlow → Inspect ads on this page in the toolbar. Every ad is outlined as filled, unfilled or not requested.
3. If Do not show ads while I am logged in is on (Settings → General), you will not see ads. Check in a private window.
4. Administrators see a notice in place of an ad that cannot render, for example "AdSense Publisher ID not configured", "Ad Slot ID is required", "Manual Ads are turned off" (turn Show manual ads back on) or "Ad unit not found" (the unit was deleted or is not published). Visitors see nothing.
5. Purge your caching plugin after changing ads, and exclude adsbygoogle.js from JavaScript "delay" or "combine" features.
6. With Load ads after consent on, ads wait until the consent banner is answered.
7. In-feed units without a layout key do not serve. Placements are skipped on posts with fewer paragraphs than the chosen number, and show nowhere when no post type is ticked under Show on.
8. Unfilled AdSense spaces are Google's decision (new site, low traffic, policy). They are not an AdFlow error.

With Pro, also check placement targeting and dates, Max manual ads per page, the AdFlow Ads box on the post, country rules, and whether you were flagged by click protection while testing (clear your cookies for the site).

After fixing, click Check again. AdSense itself can take a few days to re-crawl the file.

• Visits by logged-in administrators, bots and link previews are not counted by design. Test in a private window.
• Check that Count impressions and clicks is on under Settings → Tracking and in the ad's Delivery box. Statistics are only for your own ads; AdSense numbers are in AdSense (or AdFlow → Earnings with Pro).
• If Wait for statistics consent is on without a WP Consent API plugin, nothing is counted; the Tracking tab warns you.
• If the Dashboard says Your server refuses statistics requests, a security plugin or firewall is blocking both the REST API and admin-ajax. Allow them for visitors. When only the REST API is blocked, AdFlow switches to admin-ajax by itself.
• Ads without a link cannot count clicks.

If the shortcode shows "No ad packages are for sale yet" (to administrators only), add a package under Settings → Sell ads and make sure For sale is on.

Deactivating or deleting AdFlow keeps your ad units, settings and statistics, so reinstalling or switching plugins never loses them. To remove everything when the plugin is deleted, first turn on Also delete all AdFlow ads, settings and statistics under Settings → General → Your data. On multisite, each site decides for itself.

AdFlow stores no visitor IP addresses, cookies or visitor IDs for statistics. Only daily totals per ad, placement and device type are kept, for the period set under Settings → Tracking.

Is the free plugin limited?

No. There is no limit on ads, placements or sites, and no AdFlow branding on your ads.

Does AdFlow work with page caching?

Yes. Rotation, statistics, schedules and the browser-side targeting rules run in the visitor's browser, so they keep working with WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, Cloudflare and other caches. Saving an ad unit asks common caching plugins to purge.

Does AdFlow slow my site down?

The AdSense script and AdFlow's styles load only on pages that show an ad (or everywhere when Auto Ads are on, as Google requires). A broken ad never breaks the page: it is skipped and reported on the Dashboard.

Can I use AdSense and another network together?

Yes. Use Custom code units for other networks, add their lines to ads.txt, and mix them with AdSense in placements or rotation groups.

Do Pro features stop working if my licence expires?

No. Everything keeps working; the licence provides updates and support.

Can I use AdSense in the popup?

No. Google does not allow AdSense in popups, so AdFlow never shows AdSense units there. Use the sticky anchor for AdSense.

Where do I get help?

Free: the support forum on WordPress.org. Pro: priority email support with an active licence.