MonetizeMore, an ad revenue optimization company, has acquired the Advanced Ads plugin and will be hiring the team behind the products.

The plugin’s ad management tools are used by more than 150,000 websites to create, display, and rotate ad units, as well as schedule and target ads based on preset conditions. It integrates with many other popular plugins like BuddyPress, bbPress, Elementor, MailPoet, Paid Memberships Pro, and more. The plugin is distributed on WordPress.org with commercial upgrades and add-ons available.

Advanced Ads creator Thomas Maier launched the plugin 2014 after finding that most WordPress ad plugins didn’t support responsive ads, cached websites, or split testing for better performance. Over the past nine years his team has grown to 12 people supporting 40 million impressions.

Maier said he “never found much joy in fulfilling the executive and administrative roles in such a successful project” and will be returning to working on a team with Advanced Ads’ customers as part of MonetizeMore.

“I haven’t felt comfortable with a managing (aka ‘boss’) position for a while and wanted to get out of it before losing fun working with my team, product, and customers,” Maier said. “It was more a process than a specific turning point.

“Luckily, I built relationships with potential buyers long before thinking about selling. This helped me last year to get multiple qualified offers in a short period of time. I also asked people who have sold their WordPress [businesses] for advice, which was often very honest and open.”

Maier said the administrative burden wasn’t the problem, as his team did most of the daily tasks already. In selling Advanced Ads he was looking to move into a new role by passing the ownership on to a company that he believes to be a “sensible market participant.”

“My energy was drained by me feeling responsible for everyone, the team, customers, and partners, to be happy,” Maier said. “I couldn’t shut up thinking about that even when everything was running smoothly. After 13 years running my own companies, I am looking forward to stepping away from the driver’s seat.”

This acquisition allows MonetizeMore to expand its ad optimization tools with Advanced Ads’ features, which allow users to manage and target their ads without coding skills.

“Their expertise complements our existing programmatic advertising tools and products suite, keeping our publishers at the forefront of the industry,” MonetizeMore CEO and founder Kean Graham said. “As we are set for exponential growth this year and on track to cross the $100M ARR mark this year, we will remain selective in making strategic acquisitions and partnerships with organizations that also empower ad-monetized publishers.”

Maier said he doesn’t expect any changes with the plugin’s pricing as the result of the acquisition. There are currently no changes planned for active subscriptions, existing product features, or service levels.