Worth separating two different goals here: driving engagement and generating revenue aren’t the same thing, and ads generally serve the second, not the first. Poorly placed ads tend to hurt engagement rather than help it. What ads do reliably provide is a revenue stream from a community that’s already active, which is a reasonable goal on its own, just not the same one as getting more people to participate.
Adding Ads to a BuddyPress Community
BuddyPress Ads places ads directly into BuddyPress-specific locations: the activity stream, group pages, and member profiles, spots a generic WordPress ad plugin doesn’t specifically target.
Real controls available: plain text, rich content, or image ad formats; targeting by BuddyPress context (sitewide activity, a specific profile, or a specific group); showing or hiding ads based on login status, so logged-out visitors and logged-in members can see different ads or none at all; and device-specific display (mobile, tablet, desktop).
Worth Checking First
Last updated April 2024, over two years back as of this writing. Free and still listed for download, not abandoned, but old enough to test carefully on staging before rolling ads out across an active community. A broken ad placement is a worse experience than no ads at all.
If You Actually Want More Engagement
That’s a different toolkit: gamification and badges, visible activity notifications, member-to-member reviews, and making sure core features like groups and messaging are easy to find and use. Ads can fund that work. They don’t substitute for it.
Pricing
BuddyPress Ads: free (v1.5.4). Download it here.