In-Text Ads

In-text ads turn words in your own articles into ad links. The most frequent words and phrases of the text are matched to advertisers’ keywords; the ones that match are underlined, and a small ad card opens when a reader hovers or taps them. No layout change, no extra space on the page. See in-text ads live.

Text ad format example

How in-text ads work

The in-text zone runs inside the goCtrl ad tag you already place on your pages. When the page loads, it reads the article text and picks its most frequent words and two-word phrases. Each one is looked up the way a site search would be: campaigns that target a matching keyword are candidates, and the best one is picked.

Every word or phrase that got an ad is underlined at its first appearance in the text. A reader who hovers it, or taps it on a phone, sees a small card with the ad’s image, title, description and the advertiser’s address. A click on the card opens the advertiser’s page.

  • The impression is counted when the card opens, not when the page loads.
  • Links, headings, menus, header and footer are never touched.
  • You choose how many links a page may get, from 1 to 10.

Built on Search Ads

In-text is a mode of the Search Ads zone. Advertisers buy one keyword-targeted Search Ads campaign and reach both: readers who type into a publisher’s search box, and readers whose article mentions their keywords. The same built-in blocked-term list applies to both, so words about minors, non-consent or violence never get an ad, and every publisher can add their own blocked terms on top.

Set it up

  1. Create a Search Ads zone and set Where the ads show to In-text.
  2. Enter the Article selector, the part of the page that holds your article text. Leave it empty and the page’s article or main content is used.
  3. Set Ad links per page and paste the zone code once per page.

Every setting is also available in the API, so the zone can be created and changed by your own tools. For the other ways to place ads on a page, see the ad formats and the publisher ad server; every format has a live demo.