How To Get Ads On Your Website: Adsense, Mediavine and More

If you want to monetize your blog, you need to learn how to get ads on your website. Display ads are one of the most popular ways to earn passive income from your site’s traffic.

Because honestly, if you get good traffic, your website is prime real estate property for advertisers! And it’s time you started charging rent.

Getting display ads up and running on your site can be a game-changer for your revenue.

So today we’re diving into the ABCs of ad platforms – from the ever-popular Google AdSense to the exclusive Mediavine network, and a few more you might not have heard of.

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So, buckle up and get ready for a fun ride through the land of website monetization!

What Are Blog Ads, or Display Ads?

Blog ads, are advertisements shown on a website. They can be an image, text, video and audio, or a combination of all four.

Often called display ads, although display ad really refers to an image style ad.

First things first – how does this whole website monetization thing work?

In simple terms, you allow advertisers to place their ads on your website. When your visitors click on these ads, cha-ching! You earn money. The more traffic and engagement your website has, the higher your potential earnings.

What happens is a company selling a product will pay an advertising company or ad network to display their product in the form of display ads on different websites.

It’s similar to TV, radio or any other media, just this time online.

Why Would You Want To Put Ads On Your Blog?

Well because the advertising company will pay you for taking up that space on your blog. It’s kind of like renting out real estate.

Therefore if your blog receives a lot of traffic the advertising company will pay you more, because your blog’s space is more valuable.

How Much Can You Earn From Displaying Ads On Your Blog?

It completely depends on your traffic. The higher the traffic the more money you can make. Also when you have high traffic you can join better-paying ad networks, which in turn increases your potential paycheck.

To give you an idea of the sort of money that’s possible with ads I have scoured a few blogger’s income reports:

• Spencer from Niche Pursuits earns about $22,000/month (that’s about $750 a day!) from display ads. His website gets over a million monthly visitors.

• Easy Baby Life earns $3,000/month from display advertising with 524,499 monthly pageviews.

• The Busy Budgeter earns $4,744.00/month from display advertising with 505,239 monthly pageviews.

• Making Sense of Cents earns $2,825.00/month from display advertising with 415,000 monthly pageviews.

• Crowd Work News earns $1,038.75/month from display advertising with 114,851 monthly pageviews

• Nikki’s Plate earns $16/month from display advertising with 9,462 monthly pageviews.

See how the money earned from ads is very much dependent on pageviews. Also, note how whilst you won’t make millions it can be a nice little ‘bread and butter’ passive earner for your blog.

Are There Any Reasons Why You Wouldn’t Want Ads On Your Site?

Yes there are. The main reasons being:

• Ads can slow down your site
• Some people hate using websites with ads
• They can distract from selling your own products
• Some ads can make your site look spammy, particularly pop-up ads

Bar the fact that some people just hate ads on a site (and you can’t please everyone) the other negatives can be mitigated somewhat.

For example, you can ensure you don’t have too many ads per page (8 is often suggested as a maximum), and you can also keep an eye on your site speed, too.

Different Types Of Ads

There are two main types of ads. Ones that pay when people click them or ones that pay when people view them.

Pay-per-click (PPC) ads often pay more, but the click-through rate can be quite low, so you may not realize as much money as you anticipate.

While pay per view (PPV) ads will normally pay less but will tend to be a more stable income as long as you can maintain your blog traffic.

What Ad Options Are Available For Bloggers?

There are other ad networks out there but these are the ones that tend to be most popular with bloggers.

1. GOOGLE ADSENSE

Google AdSense is probably the most well-known display ad network.

It doesn’t pay as well as the other networks on this list, but I’ve noted it here first for a good reason.

That is, to be approved by any of the other networks below, those networks will require that your site is already approved by Google Adsense. Google is the golden standard.

With Adsense, you have to decide where you wish to display the ads and place them on the website yourself but it tends to be the network that most bloggers start with.

• Type of Ads: PPC and PPV
• Sign Up Requirements: None (but site quality must be good)
• Minimum Pay Out: $100

APPLYING TO ADSENSE

Applying to Adsense is very straightforward, but to ensure you are accepted you must have:

• A Google account (ideally it’s the one attached to your blog and Google Analytics account)
• Be over 18

To increase your chances of being accepted, ideally, your blog should have:

• Privacy policy
• Disclaimer
• Content (I had over 30 posts when I was accepted)
• Contact me page

2. MONUMETRIC

Monumetric (formerly Blogger Network) is my #1 pick if your site doesn’t get enough traffic to be eligible for Mediavine or Raptive.

Monumetric offers four different programs based on the number of pageviews you get.

• Propel (10k – 80k pageviews per month)
• Ascend (80k – 500k pageviews per month)
• Stratos (500k – 10mm pageviews per month) and Apollo (10mm+ pageviews per month).

However, to join Propel you do need to pay a one-time $99 fee but that does give you access to learning material as well as their premier ad network.

• Type of Ads: PPC and PPV
• Sign Up Requirements: 10k pageviews per month to join their Propel program
• Minimum Pay Out: (Could not find a figure on their site so I can only assume there is no minimum payout)

3. MEDIAVINE

Mediavine is one of the best ad networks around, which seems to have a reputation for higher RPMs above Google Adsense or Monumetrc.

But, it’s pretty exclusive as you’ll need at least 50,000 monthly sessions to be eligible to join.

This is great if you are hitting those numbers because it means you will be paid more for the ads displayed. They also optimize the ad placements so you don’t have to worry about where you are going to display the ads.

Of all the ad networks I’ve worked with I like Mediavine the best and find it has the best dashboard from a user experience perspective.

• Type of Ads: PPC and PPV
• Sign Up Requirements: Minimum of 50k sessions per month
• Minimum Pay Out: (Could not find a figure on their site so I can only assume there is no minimum payout)

Joining Mediavine involves an application process, but once you’re in, you’ll enjoy the benefits of better-paying ads and more control over ad placement.

4. RAPTIVE (FORMERLY ADTHRIVE)

I often hear of bloggers aiming for 100,000 pageviews per month so they can get started with Raptive (aka Adthrive).

Raptive has a great reputation. They also claim that site owners’ income increases between 100%-300% once they start working with them.

• Type of Ads: PPC and PPV
• Sign Up Requirements: 100,000 monthly pageviews
• Minimum Pay Out: (Could not find a figure on their site so I can only assume there is no minimum payout)

5. MEDIA.NET

Media.net is the ad network from Yahoo/Bing. The platform is a bit out dated looking in my opinion, and I actually don’t know anyone who still uses it.

• Type of Ads: PPC and PPV
• Sign Up Requirements: None
• Minimum Pay Out: $100

Best Practices for Displaying Ads

Here’s the tricky part – balancing ads with user experience. You don’t want to bombard your visitors with ads. Place them strategically – in your content, sidebars, or as pop-ups (but use these sparingly).

The goal is to make ads noticeable without being intrusive.

Tracking and Analyzing Your Ad Performance

Once your ads are up and running, keep an eye on how they’re performing. Use tools like Google Analytics to track clicks, impressions, and earnings.

Analyzing this data helps you understand what works best and tweak your strategy for maximum returns.

Navigating Challenges and Common Pitfalls

The road to ad revenue isn’t always smooth. You might face challenges like low click-through rates or ad blockers.

The key is to stay adaptable, experiment with different types of ads and formats, and always keep your audience’s experience in mind.

Display Ad Lingo To Know

Impressions – Number of times an ad is viewed

Click through rate (CTR) – The amount of impressions that lead to clicks on an ad

Cost per click (CPC) – How much you are paid per ad being clicked

Cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) – Amount that you are paid per 1,000 impressions/times the ad is viewed (total earnings per adzone)

Revenue per thousand impressions (RPM) –RPM is the amount you are paid for all the ads displayed on a page per 1,000 pageviews (total earnings per page)

Fill rate – Sometimes you may have ads placed in certain areas of your blog but there are no ads available to fill the space, when this happens you won’t earn money so you want to aim for a high fill rate.

Minimum payout – A lot of ad networks will require you to earn a certain level of money before they will pay you.

How To Get Ads On Your Website – Conclusion

And there we go! You’re now equipped with the know-how to invite those shiny ads to your website party.

Remember, getting ads on your site is like planting a garden – it needs care, patience, and a bit of strategy to flourish.

Whether you choose AdSense, Mediavine, or any other platform, the key is to keep experimenting and optimizing for the best results.

Don’t forget, the goal is not just to make money but also to keep your visitors happy and coming back for more. So don’t overwhelm them with too many ads – keep the placements classy.

What about you, have you already got ads on your site? If so which company did you go with?

Or maybe you would never have ads, tell me why in the comments below!