*There may be affiliate links in this post. (Please see our legal pages, link in the footer, for more information.)
Confession. Monetizing my blog through ads confused me to no end. I couldn’t find a decent guide or blog post to help me understand the basics.
So I decided to make one myself.
Now I can officially say that blog ads are no longer a complete mystery to me!
*Update: I have now successfully installed Google AdSense ads onto my site, learn how here!
Lets start at the beginning.
Wait hold up, you don’t have a blog yet? Well, what are you waiting for! Find out why you should start a blog here and then find out how to create a professional blog for profit here!
What are blog ads?
Blog ads are literally 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.
What happens is a company selling a product will pay an adverting company or ad network to display their product in the form of display ads on different websites.
It’s really the same as TV, radio or any other media, just this time online.
Why would you want to put ads on a 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 really earn from displaying ads on your blog?
The short answer is not a huge amount. But 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:
Easy Baby Life made $3,801 from display advertising with 524,499 pageviews in April 2017.
The Busy Budgeter made $4,744.00 from display advertising with 505,239 pageviews in January 2017.
Making Sense of Cents made $2,825.00 from display advertising with 415,000 pageviews in May 2017.
Crowd Work News made $1,038.75 from display advertising with 114,851 pageviews in March 2017.
Rebekah Allan made $535.53 from display advertising with 80,545 pageviews in April 2017.
Krista Aoki made $4.15 from display advertising with 11,362 pageviews in May 2017.
Nikki’s Plate made $15.44 from display advertising with 9,462 pageviews in May 2017.
See how the money earnt 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. Hence why I would like to install some!
Are there any reasons you wouldn’t want to display ads on your blog?
Yes there are and I list the main reasons below:
- They 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 using these tips from Yoast and use this awesome post from Authority Hacker; The Step by Step Guide on How To Speed Up Your WordPress Website For Non Techy People!
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 and so you may not realise 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.
There are also ad networks now that turn certain words into affiliate links and you receive payment when someone buys from that affiliate link.
Other Important Lingo:
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)
*Still unsure of the difference between CPM and RPM then check out this video from Sovrn.
Fill rate – So 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 pay out – A lot of ad networks will require you to earn a certain level of money before they will pay you.
If you come across any other lingo that you have no idea about then Google AdSense does have a fab glossary that you can use.
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.
Google AdSense:
Google AdSense is probably the most well know display ad network. 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
Minimum Pay Out: $100 or £60
Media.net:
An ad network from Yahoo/Bing and probably the main competition to Google AdSense at least within the blogging community.
Type of Ads: PPC and PPV
Sign Up Requirements: None
Minimum Pay Out: $100
Sovrn:
Another ad network in a similar space as AdSense and Media.net, however, these guys have a much lower minimum pay out making them attractive for beginner bloggers with low pageviews.
Type of Ads: PPC and PPV
Sign Up Requirements: None
Minimum Pay Out: $25
Amazon Native Shopping Ads:
These ads only display products from Amazon that have something to do with your blog post content. So for example, if you write a book review post then the Amazon ad will display books it thinks are relevant to your readers, or you can decide what the ad displays. However for you to earn any money your reader would need to click through the ad and purchase something from Amazon.
Type of Ads: Creates affiliate links
Sign Up Requirements: None
Minimum Pay Out: $10
Viglink:
Viglink creates affiliate links within your text. So it works in exactly the same way as if you embed your own affiliate links except with Viglinks you don’t have to sign up for each affiliate program, instead you just use them.
Type of Ads: Creates affiliate links
Sign Up Requirements: None
Minimum Pay Out: $10 when using PayPal
Skimlinks:
Basically, does exactly the same as Viglink. If you want to use that sort of advertisement on your blog then it’s probably worth trialling both of them to see which one works best for your audience!
Type of Ads: Creates affiliate links
Sign Up Requirements: None
Minimum Pay Out: $10 or £7
BlogHer/SheKnows/Momentum:
These guys tend to pay out a bit more than the previous three PPC and PPV ad networks I have discussed. However, they do ask for a 6-month contract and for no other ads from other networks to be displayed. But you will also get access to sponsored content through them so it could be a lucrative partnership.
Type of Ads: PPC and PPV
Sign Up Requirements: Women orientated, updated weekly and older that 90 days
Minimum Pay Out: $20
Mediavine:
Mediavine is the first of our ad networks that have a pageview or session per month requirement. This is great if you are hitting those numbers because it means you will be paid more for the ads displayed. They also require that they are the exclusive ad network on your site and they optimise the ad placements so you don’t have to worry where you are going to display the ads.
Type of Ads: PPC and PPV
Sign Up Requirements: Minimum of 25k sessions per month
Minimum Pay Out: (Could not find a figure on their site so I can only assume there is no minimum pay out)
*Note: These guys seemed the friendliest from their website. Like they write using language people actually understand and I feel like if you had any questions they would be happy to help!
The Blogger Network / Monumetric:
The Blogger Network is now Monumetric and basically, they have 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 pay out)
AdThrive:
I often hear of bloggers aiming for 100,000 pageviews per month so they can get started with AdThrive. AdThrive has a really great reputation and reckons that bloggers income increases between 100%-300% once they start working with them! It is worth noting that they do have a waitlist.
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 pay out)
So there you have it, some of the key ad networks that bloggers use!
Going through that list I think I would be best to start off with either AdSense or Media.net and then shoot for those 25k sessions per month to start working with Mediavine!
What about you, have you already got ads on your site? If so which company did you go with? Or if you’re in the same position I am which ad network would you use from the list above?
Or maybe you would never have ads, tell me why in the comments below!
I am amazed at what you have accomplished in just a month of blogging, kudos! Your site looks great and I found your information helpful, keep it up!
Yay, I’m so pleased I have been able to help you! And thank you so much for your kind words, I will keep hustling!
I agree with Ashley, this article was really helpful! I’ve been trying to decide whether I should put ads on my site but didn’t realize there were so many options! What do you know about the BlogHer network? I know they have a conference but don’t know if they offer support throughout the year as well.
I’m so pleased you found the article helpful! Before I started writing I didn’t realize there were so many options either!
BlogHer wise I’ve seen their conference advertised but honestly don’t know much (aka nothing) about their level of support. I know some people absolutely adore working with them having their ads on their site and getting sponsored opportunities with them and others just plain don’t! Personally I was put off by the contract you have to have to place their ads on your site, but I now I know ads work okay with my audience I should probably reconsider them as an ad network.
Thank you for mentioning us as an option for digital advertising!
I’m Jenny, the Marketing Associate for Mediavine, and we’re here to help digital content creators passively monetize their content with programmatic display ads. As you said, our threshold to join is 25k sessions in 30 days.
We started out as publishers and we are still publishers with our own sites, so we really believe in publishers being compensated for their awesome content.
We’re here to answer any questions at [email protected].
Thanks again!
Hi Jenny!
Thank you so much for dropping by, I really can’t wait to hit those 25K sessions to sign up with you guys!!!