Automattic has introduced a new ad network called Blaze that places ads on free WordPress.com and Tumblr sites. Advertising starts at $5 per month.
Automattic is the company behind WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Akismet, Tumblr, and more.
Founded by Matt Mullenweg, the entrepreneur who developed the free open source WordPress Content Management System (CMS).
Blaze Advertising Network
The Ad Network was originally introduced in April 2022 as an exclusive network for Tumblr users to place ads on other Tumblr pages.
Automattic has announced that the network has now expanded to bloggers on WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress publishers who have the Automattic Jetpack WordPress plugin installed.
Publishers on WordPress.com will be able to use the WordPress Dashboard on their website wordpress.com/advertising To get started, choose pages for advertising.
Advertising pays for impressions, not clicks.
Those who use a WordPress CMS can access Blaze through the Jetpack plugin.
If Jetpack isn’t already installed it should be installed, either the free or premium version will work.
Those using Jetpack can start the campaign from their WordPress.com dashboard https://wordpress.com/home.
From there the user goes to the Posts or Pages screen and scrolls down to select Posts or Pages to advertise, and clicks on the three-dot menu (the ellipsis) to select the Promote with Blaze option.
The interface allows advertisers to choose the audience that will see the ads.
Audience selection is broken down by the continent the ads will appear on, the types of devices that will see the ads (mobile or desktop) and the topic on which the ads will be shown.
Where Blaze ads appear
The ad can appear among the millions of web pages on free Tumblr and WordPress.com.
Blaze ad campaigns are managed through a dashboard interface in Google wordpress.com/advertising.
Campaigns are set up with a daily budget and ad impression dates.
Blaze ads consist of a headline, an excerpt, and an image.
According to the Blaze support page:
Title: This appears above your image as bold text. You can write 80 characters max here, and use it wisely to grab the viewer’s attention.
Excerpt: A short text description of your post that appears below your photo. You can type a maximum of 120 characters here. We recommend using this text to support your headline and give viewers more context about what they’ll see when they click on your ad and get to your content.
Image: Upload an image to represent your post. You can use the crop tool to adjust the appearance of your image in the ad.
Read Automattic’s official announcement:
Introducing Blaze: A new way to spark growth on WordPress.com
Featured image by Shutterstock / Asier Romero
