Advertising
Wire reserves two Google AdSense placements: a banner above the header and a unit inside the post, between the header and the first paragraph. Both are off out of the box.
Paying members never see either one.
Looking for the sponsor cards and the promo card on the demo homepage? Those are not AdSense — they are fed by your own content and are covered in Sidebar widgets.
What You Need From AdSense#
Each placement is a separate ad unit in your AdSense account, so you need three values in total:
| Value | Where to find it in AdSense | Looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher ID | Account → Settings → Account information | ca-pub-1234567890123456 |
| Ad unit ID for the banner | Ads → By ad unit → Display ads, after you create the unit | 1234567890 |
| Ad unit ID for the post | Ads → By ad unit → In-article ads, after you create the unit | 0987654321 |
When AdSense shows you the code for a new unit, the ad unit ID is the value of data-ad-slot. Copy the number only, not the whole snippet.
Create the banner as a Display unit and the post slot as an In-article unit. The theme already sets the format and layout for each, so pick the defaults in AdSense.
Setup Instructions#
- Go to ⛭ Settings → Design
- Click Customize
- Open the Theme tab
- Paste your publisher ID into Adsense publisher id
- Paste the banner unit ID into Adsense header slot id
- Paste the post unit ID into Adsense in article slot id
- In Disabled features, delete
header-ad,in-article-ad, or both - Click Save
A placement needs all three things before it appears: the publisher ID, its own ad unit ID, and its value removed from Disabled features. Leave any of them out and that slot is not written into the page at all.
That is deliberate. An ad unit without its ID can never be filled by Google, so rendering one would only leave an empty box on your site.
Placements#
| Feature | Setting | Where it appears | On which pages |
|---|---|---|---|
header-ad | Adsense header slot id | A full-width banner above the site header, at the very top of the page | Every page of the site |
in-article-ad | Adsense in article slot id | Between the post header (title, byline, feature image) and the body of the post | Post pages |
Newsletter issues are ordinary posts in Ghost, so the in-article slot also appears on the web version of every issue. It does not appear in the email itself — Ghost builds emails from its own template rather than from the theme, so no theme can place anything in a sent newsletter.
Which ad appears in a slot is decided by your AdSense account, not by the theme.
Paid Members#
Ads are hidden from paying members automatically, in two ways at once:
- The slots are not written into the page for a paid member, so there is no empty gap where an ad would be.
- The AdSense script itself is not loaded for them, so no ad request is made on their behalf.
Free members and logged-out visitors do see ads. There is no setting for this — it is how the theme behaves.
Turning Ads Off#
- To remove one placement, add its value back to Disabled features, or clear that slot's ad unit ID.
- To remove both, list both values, or clear Adsense publisher id. Clearing the ID also stops the AdSense script from loading for anyone.
Notes#
- When AdSense has no ad to serve, it marks the unit as unfilled and the theme collapses the slot, so an unsold placement leaves no empty box behind.
- Ads are excluded when a reader prints a page.
- Google may take a while to start serving on a new site or a new ad unit. If a slot stays empty for everyone, check the state of your AdSense account before changing theme settings.
- The full list of values for the features field is in Features.