Not every ad slot has to sell something to someone else. Some of your best slots can sell something to you: a subscriber.
WB Ad Manager treats an email signup form as an ad type. That means it goes wherever an ad goes, with the same placement, scheduling and targeting controls, and its signups land in a list you can export. It is part of the free plugin.
What an email capture ad is
You create it the same way as any ad, under WB Ad Manager > Add New Ad, and choose Email Capture as the type. The form shows an email field, and an optional name field. When a visitor submits it, the address is saved and they see your success message.
Because it is an ad, you decide where it appears. After the content, after a paragraph, in a sidebar widget, or in a popup are all common places. Show it only to visitors who are not logged in, only on certain categories, or only on mobile, using the same targeting you would give any ad. The placing your first ad zones guide covers the placements.
What you can set
The editor keeps it simple.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Headline | The main line of the form |
| Description | Optional text under the headline |
| Button text | Defaults to “Subscribe” |
| Success message | Shown after signup. Defaults to “Thank you for subscribing!” |
| Show Name Field | Adds a name box. The email field is always shown |
| Redirect URL (optional) | Sends the visitor to a page after signup, such as a thank-you page. Leave it empty to show the success message |
| Dismiss Duration (Days) | How long to hide the form after a visitor closes it. 0 shows it on every visit |
| Privacy Text | A short line under the form |
| Colors | Background, text and button colors |
The colors matter more than they look. A signup form that matches your site reads as part of the page, and one that does not reads as an ad.
Where the addresses go
Open WB Ad Manager > Email Captures. Each row shows the email, the name if you asked for one, the ad it came from, an IP value and the date. The list is paginated.
Two buttons do the useful work.
- Export CSV downloads the list, ready to import into your email service.
- Delete, on each row, removes a single capture. That is the control to reach for when someone asks you to erase their data.
The IP column is anonymised by default, and the plugin’s privacy settings control that.
The plugin collects and lists addresses. It does not send newsletters. To get new signups into your email tool automatically, use the hook below, or import the CSV on a schedule.
Passing signups to your email tool
For a developer, each successful signup fires an action:
wbam_email_captured( $email, $name, $ad_id )
Hook it to send the address to Mailchimp, ConvertKit or any webhook. There are also filters for validating a submission and for changing the privacy text, if you need custom rules.
If you are not writing code, the CSV export is the simple route, and a weekly export and import is a workable routine for a small list.
Measuring it
An email capture ad counts impressions like any other ad, so you can see how often the form was shown. The Email Captures list shows which ad each address came from. Divide the signups by the impressions for one ad and you have its signup rate.
Run two forms with different headlines in the same slot and they will share it by priority, which is a quick way to test copy. How that sharing works is in AdSense and direct sponsors in the same slot, and the same rules apply to any ad type.
A note on privacy
The Privacy Text field is where you say what you will do with the address. It is a line of text, not a consent checkbox, so if you need explicit consent in your region, put that wording in the text and check your own legal requirements. We cannot give legal advice, and rules vary by country.
What the plugin gives you is the means to honor a deletion request, one row at a time.
For the full list of what is free and what is Pro, see the free versus Pro page. Email capture ads are on the free side.