As a publisher, one of the most consequential decisions that you’ll have to decide on that may make or break your online business is picking an ad network. Specifically, the right ad network to help catalyze your website’s growth and provide value to your content. Monetization is key, and the best ad networks will be your best friends as you continue to pump out new content.
However, picking between them is much harder than it might seem. After all, publishers won’t simply dump and move on to another ad network provider willy-nilly whenever they’re feeling like it. Successful publishers and content creators think ahead to forge long-term partnerships with their ad providers. Therefore, you’ll need to have a good understanding of their nuances.
Some ad providers may monetize more effectively and earn you more than others. Meanwhile, some networks might offer additional tools, services, support, and perks compared to some of the more barebone ones. Certain networks might advertise more creatively than others… And so on. In short, choosing between the best ad networks isn’t easy, nor is it just black and white.
- What To Consider
- Benefits Of Choosing Wisely
- Ezoic
- Mediavine
- AdThrive
- AdSense
- Monumetric
- PropellerAds
- Media.net
- Taboola
- Infolinks
- Amazon Associates
Considerations For Picking An Ad Provider
Before we look at the best ad networks out there that might suit your fancy, we’ll first have to look at what considerations you’ll have to make when signing up with one. Among the crucial factors that you need to ponder over include:
- Minimum Requirements – How much traffic are you pulling? Some ad networks aren’t as easily accessible for smaller publishers. To join, you’ll need to already have high and steady traffic inflows to join up with them.
- Content Niche Or Genre – Not all sorts of content may be welcomed by an ad provider. Some of them only monetize sites that’ll fit a specific niche or genre – such as lifestyle-related content – while others are more open. Moreover, even within the same ad provider, differing genres or topics might earn you more than other niches.
- Ad Types And Formatting – Certain ad networks also feature unique methods of monetization. For instance, they may display video-type ads on your site, floating ad banners, or perhaps an AI-based dynamic ad layout. You’ll have to consider which ones are right for your audience as well as content in general, and ensure that it’s a good pairing.
- Ad Revenue And Earnings – Naturally, you’d surely prefer to sign up with an ad network that can earn you more than the others. Between ad providers, each has unique methods to optimize a publisher’s bottom line. Furthermore, varying ad networks also measure or gauge your earnings differently – some use CPM, while others pick CPA, CPC, EPMV, and so on.
- Features And Services – Many ad networks specialize purely in serving ads and allowing you to manage them… But not much else. These days, the best ad networks have all branched out to provide publishers with additional tools, services, and add-on perks. For example, some of the providers here enable you to host and monetize videos, as an alternative to sites like YouTube.
- Target Audience – You’ll have to better understand your audience, as well. Not all ad providers may serve ads that would best suit your audience’s interests or attract their engagement. For instance, imagine if your tech website is signed up with an ad provider that purely shows ads relating only to food, not tech. Naturally, this isn’t going to be as engaging to your users.
- Budget And Pricing – Most ad networks will charge for their services by taking a cut of your ad revenues. But… How large of a cut will they take, and is it worth it? That’s for you to decide if the amount you’re earning, relative to how much you’re paying your ad provider, leaves you with the better end of the deal. Meanwhile, others might instead ask for a monthly fee.
- Webpage Performance – Oftentimes, injecting ads onto your website will naturally slow down page load times and general smoothness. However, the impact on your site’s user experience will be up to you and your ad network to sort out. Some ad networks have special plugins and tools that could help you streamline and optimize your website’s performance, regardless.
- Customer Service – Beyond having to integrate your website with an ad network, you’ll have to think about how they’ll be able to help you if something happens. Some ad networks offer very extensive and speedy tech support. They might even go the extra mile and assign a manager to analyze your site’s performance, while also providing tips to help grow your website.
Benefits And Importance Of Choosing Ad Providers Wisely
Now, some might question as to why you’d have to be so serious when comparing the best ad networks. Besides, if it embeds the ads correctly and you’re earning something by the end of a month, it should be good, right? Well, no. The impact of your decision-making when picking a suitable ad network provider is far more important for your content than you’d initially think.
In short, partnering up with the right ad network provider entitles you to numerous benefits:
- With most ad networks doing the heavy work and automating processes in the back-end, you can focus more clearly on your work and create more content.
- A good ad network should make every site integration and ad management a headache-free experience, thus not bogging you down with any complications.
- Suitable ad networks that pair well with your website and the content you create would allow you to more effectively maximize your site’s monetization.
- Not every ad provider offers helpful or personalized customer service and tech support, so it’s good to have someone watching your back and making sure all is as it should be.
- Top-tier ad network providers enable you to more flexibly target a wide audience, ensuring that whatever their interests are, they can be shown ads that are relevant to them.
- Compared to a lower-tier ad network, the most well-known providers have extensive bidding options and marketplaces for the best advertisers to show ads on your website.
- While some ad network providers can slow down your website with countless plugins or scripts running in the background, a good ad network should be lean, with minimal resource hogging.
- Publishers deserve to have more control over what ads get to appear on their website, and a good ad network provider should respect that by offering them additional configurability.
- Many lower-tier (and even some higher-tier) ad networks tend to fill up your website with low-quality or spammy ads, whereas they should instead serve quality and interesting adverts.
Top 10 Best Ad Providers
With that in mind, let’s now take a look at the top 10 best ad networks that you can rely on as a publisher, wholeheartedly…
Best Ad Networks #1: Ezoic – Sign Up Here
In my experience, Ezoic more than handily takes the cake as the best ad network, hands down. What makes Ezoic rather unique compared to other ad providers is its use of AI and machine learning. This computation-first approach might seem daunting for most publishers to try and wrap their heads around at first. But, its effectiveness in practice is quite profound, indeed.
Quite simply, Ezoic’s AI and machine learning algorithm will monitor your website in real-time. And, based on how well or poorly your audience interacts and engages with those ads, Ezoic’s computer brain then automatically and dynamically alters those ads. It’ll change in placement, sizing, density, type, and formatting, while Ezoic regularly optimizes and fine-tunes this layout.
This dynamic ad layout optimization is tailored for each user, and understanding which layout could earn you – the publisher – as much as possible in ad revenues. Besides this, there are lots of other tools and services that Ezoic offers to publishers. For example, they have an extensive data analytics dashboard, as well as an optimizer tool to help speed up your page load times.
Best Ad Networks #2: Mediavine
Mediavine has a much narrower focus compared to most other ad networks. Primarily, they’ll only work with publishers that create content with a lifestyle focus. This includes subjects such as food, travel, personal finance, DIY, wellness, culture, and so on. However, its single-minded approach also makes Mediavine one of the best ad networks out there… If you’re in this niche.
They have a creator-first approach, seeing that Mediavine’s founders also started as content creators themselves. Unlike Ezoic though, getting into Mediavine is quite tough. They have a high minimum requirement, meaning that it’s mostly limited to established publishers. But if you can qualify, you won’t go wrong with joining Mediavine and its tailored approach to ads.
They’ll help you out with managing and optimizing the ads on your website. Moreover, they’re well-regarded among publishers owing to Mediavine’s often high ad revenues. That’s partly a side-effect of Mediavine opting to partner mainly with major brands and advertisers. Plus, it has a well-knit community of similarly-minded publishers and advertisers with shared goals.
Best Ad Networks #3: AdThrive
Similar to Mediavine, AdThrive specializes in lifestyle-related niches. Both of whom, in fact, are incredibly popular among publishers and bloggers who want to write about food, travel, home, personal finance, and so forth. To be fair, and just like Mediavine, you won’t need to be in that specific lifestyle-only niche to join. But, you’ll get better results if you’re covering that genre.
And the results are pretty impressive, with AdThrive sharing the triple crown with Ezoic as well as Mediavine as the top-earning ad networks when taking into account would-be ad revenues. Although, there is a high cost to this – entry requirements. You need pretty high traffic to start off with before you can even join. And, that traffic has to come from English-speaking regions.
But if you do meet that criterion, it’s well worth checking out AdThrive if you’re covering any lifestyle subjects. Another neat touch is AdThrive’s payout-guarantee benefits. This means, that in the event that an advertiser doesn’t pay AdThrive, you’ll still get ad earnings from displaying their ads. AdThrive’s ad layouts and formatting are all pretty effective and look good, too.
Best Ad Networks #4: AdSense
If you’re just barely starting out with creating online content, you can’t shrug off Google’s own AdSense. Granted, AdSense’s ad revenues are pretty low compared to most other ad networks here. However, we can’t easily ignore its low entry requirements and general ease of use. You can think of them as the ideal stepping stone before moving to a more featureful alternative.
Google’s AdSense works through contextual advertising while optimizing its ads to show the most relevant and engaging ones to your audience. Besides that, AdSense even leverages its clever AI and machine learning to optimize the ad layout on your webpage, too. Beyond that, it could display ads in a number of unique combinations, such as video or interactive adverts.
It’s a pretty hands-off experience, as AdSense intelligently adjusts those ads depending on what device you’re using, among others. Onboarding with them is pretty easy, and integrating your website to show its ads is a breeze. Again, AdSense doesn’t pay nearly as much as some, but if you’re just beginning your content creation journey, AdSense is the ideal companion for you.
Best Ad Networks #5: Monumetric
It’s inevitable that embedding and injecting ads onto a website will negatively impact the user experience. After all, those scripts and plugins running in the background will slow down page loading and general site-wide performance. Not to mention, trying to read or browse through with a million ads being shown at once can be quite distracting. If not, it’s rather annoying.
Understanding how significant of an issue that is, Monumetric wants to help publishers find a sweet spot… Maximizing a site to make bank for you, while at the same time, maintaining the user experience at a pleasant and enjoyable level. With that in mind, Monumetric provides an in-depth selection of unique ad layouts and formats. For example, there are in-line video ads, and much more.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that Monumetric will take care of everything for you. They’ve got an entire team of specialists that’ll analyze your site to optimize the layout as well as your ad revenues. Yet, you still have a lot of granular control. If you don’t want a specific type of ad or banner showcasing a particular company or subject, you’re never forced to keep shilling it.
Best Ad Networks #6: PropellerAds
The one downfall with traditional monetization techniques is that they can sometimes appear stale or old-fashioned. In other words, a static banner on a website would no longer suffice to attract maximal user interaction and engagement. You need to be more creative, and this is a problem that PropellerAds aims to solve by providing the most unique monetization possible.
Specifically, PropellerAds enables publishers to adopt distinct ad layouts and formats, such as smart links that display relevant offers or promotions to your audience. Or, you may include a browser push notification-style ad or two, which is quite unique among ad providers. Some of their “traditional” ads are sleek too, like pop-under ads that neatly blend in with your content.
All of this is wrapped up in a platform that’s very publisher-friendly. With PropellerAds, you’d be able to get paid weekly instead of having to wait for a month or two. Moreover, they have loads of clever AI and optimization tech running in the background to gradually optimize the effectiveness of the ads. You could even engage in affiliate marketing with them, as well.
Best Ad Networks #7: Media.net
At first glance, Media.net appears like a somewhat old-school ad network that may or may not necessarily appeal to Gen Z bloggers. However, they’re a pretty solid choice if you’re looking to find a suitable alternative to Google AdSense. In that vein, Media.net provides publishers with a contextual focus on advertising. Thus, aiming to serve relevant and engaging ads to your audience.
They’re actually one of the largest contextual ad network providers, so clearly, they know what they’re doing. Media.net can even inject these ads in colorful and unique formats. Such as, ad units in both text and display forms. If you’re not too bothered with having to manually set up each ad banner, you can instead let them automatically optimize the layout and sizing for you.
Ad revenues, by comparison, might not be as impressive as the others. However, Media.net is able to deliver returns consistently. Should you ever need to dive even deeper, publishers can access an in-depth dashboard for analytics. Moreover, you have plenty of configurability that lets publishers granularly play around. And, setting up the ads and how it impacts your page.
Best Ad Networks #8: Taboola
Have you ever scrolled all the way down a webpage and noticed entire banks of content being recommended to you like a newsfeed? Fun fact, those are also considered ads, and they’re pretty fun to scroll through if you’re doing it right. Taboola is one such ad provider which has excelled in picking out and offering the most engaging content suggestions to readers.
This is a fairly unique approach to monetization, I must say. Rather than simply showing your audience a bunch of ads, Taboola actively displays relevant content that your users may also find interesting. Such a simple model, but it’s incredibly effective at driving engagement and interaction. Besides that, Taboola also offers a variety of other ad formats, such as videos.
This newsfeed-style contextual advertising has made Taboola one of the most sought-after as well as coveted ad network providers out there. Unfortunately, Taboola has pretty high traffic requirements. Therefore, the only way you’re getting in is if you’ve already grown to become an established and successful publisher. If so, Taboola is most certainly worth checking out.
Best Ad Networks #9: Infolinks
As with Google’s AdSense, Infolinks is a contextual ad platform. Simply put, rather than trying to recommend new or unique content to your audience, it would understand and choose ads based on what a specific webpage is dedicated to. Then, embedding ads of a similar niche or subject to complement your content. However, Infolinks has a very neat approach to this.
Rather than placing an ad banner on the side of a page, Infolinks is able to place ads within a specific set of keywords in your content. So, they’re basically like hyperlinks. In other words, adding highlights to a word or two with an ad that your audience might find useful. Better still, it’s not merely a static link, either. As you hover your mouse over those links, you can see the ads popping up.
Publishers can play around with numerous other ad formats with Infolinks, too. For example, there are floating ads that stick to the bottom of a page. Or, ads that appear as you load new pages. In addition, Infolinks has vertical ads that fill in unused spaces on your website. So, if you’re viewing on a widescreen monitor, you can say goodbye to those empty side margins.
Best Ad Networks #10: Amazon Associates
With e-commerce and online shopping booming left, right and center, it would be a shame to miss out, no? Affiliate marketing is one way to take part in this exciting new era. Nonetheless, it’s typically a tedious process, requiring you to manually embed singular product links onto a webpage, one by one. But hey, at least it pays off eventually with all those commissions.
Well, what if I told you that there’s a better way to do this – Amazon Associates. Basically, it’s an easier approach to showcase commissioned and sponsored affiliate links on your website, but without all the hassle. Using Amazon’s Native Shopping Ads tool, you can have it display relevant products on your website that your audience may find interesting, automatically.
It’s certainly a more convenient and time-efficient method of including affiliate product links. Although, the one downside is that your audience has to checkout and pay before you could earn any commissions. On the bright side, if a user were to add other items into their carts by following and clicking through your affiliate link, you’d still earn commissions this way, too.