Making money off of your online content has never been easier than today. Advertising networks can allow for various ads to pop up on your pages and thus give you some additional income. For smaller creators, this income can help with maintenance fees. For bigger creators, these ads can become a real source of income.
Probably the most popular advertising network is AdSense (from tech giant Google). AdSense is used in over 10 million websites. It is lightweight, reliable, and efficient at what it does.
Google AdSense is an incredibly popular and potent tool that enables millions of people to make money online. It can help monetize websites, blogs, videos, and a lot of other online material. But sometimes AdSense can be a difficult tool to use as Google constantly changes its rules and algorithms. Therefore, in this article, we are going to explore the best alternatives to AdSense to monetize your content.
Why you need an AdSense alternative
What are the main reasons that people search for Google AdSense alternatives? Well, there are a lot of disadvantages that Adsense has, which the competition simply doesn’t. And this can make a massive difference. Here are some of the biggest differences:
Requirements
Adsense as well as most networks require some sort of eligibility confirmation before you can start running ads. While Google isn’t that strict with their requirements, they do have a more rigorous control system than other networks. If Google doesn’t approve your page for advertising, or your AdSense account is disabled for some reason, you will need some sort of alternative.
Customization
Google AdSense is built to cover a broad slate of websites, blogs, video platforms, and other online content. This means that if you are in a specific niche, AdSense might not be the best decision for you. Some alternatives have much better customization and can provide a tailored solution for your specific case.
Revenue Share
Publishers receive 68% of the revenue generated with AdSense. This is in no way a bad rate, but there are better rates that can make you more money. You will have to have a great website with high traffic to qualify for those bigger cuts.
Minimum Payout
AdSense has a minimum payout of $100. If you have a small website that doesn’t get a lot of traffic, this might be a big number for you. Some Google AdSense alternatives have smaller payouts that are much more attractive to small pages and blogs.
Additional Revenue
Sometimes you won’t want to completely replace AdSense. This is why a lot of marketers use companion networks to run alongside AdSense. This leads to an additional income source that is not directly tied to one company. You will have to check if you are breaching some ToS doing this before you decide to sign up for multiple networks though.
Best Google AdSense Alternatives
Monumetric
Previously known as “The Blogger Network”, Monumetric is a blog-focused advertising network. Unlike most networks, It runs cost-per-impression (CPI) instead of cost-per-click (CPC). This is perfect for popular blogs whose audiences don’t convert as much as they would like to.
Monumetric has four monetization tiers which are based on your monthly visits. You will need a minimum of 10,000 monthly visits and if you are under 80,000 you will have to pay a $99 fee to set everything up. Payout on the other hand is great, the minimum is only $10 and you can do it via PayPal or direct deposit!
RevContent
If you are big into native ads, RevContent might be the perfect AdSense alternative for you. The platform has a great reputation amongst publishers and advertisers. RevContent offers ads in display, video, and mobile formats, but that’s not all. It is partnered with publishers that usually generate a lot of hits, and pay higher commissions. The catch is that the selection process is very tough to get through. To even be considered, you will have to get more than 50,000 visitors monthly.
Payments are usually done monthly and the minimum payout is $50.
Adnimation
Adnimation is a Google Certified Publishing Partner (GCPP) that specializes in optimizing ad revenue and RPMs for publishers. With hundreds of publishers both in the US and worldwide, Adnimation combines advanced technology and expert human guidance to maximize revenue while ensuring an excellent user experience.
Adnimation offers a complete ad management solution, including all of the highest-performing ad units and proprietary ad technology. With no lock-in contract and full transparency, publishers can be sure that they are receiving the best possible results and service.
AdThrive
AdThrive takes great care of its bloggers. It’s a CPI network that works closely with advertisers and publishers to optimize everything. This AdSense alternative gives an incredible 75% payout directly to the publishers. Which is one of the highest percentages in the industry. But this ad network is not for newcomers. It has tough requirements like a minimum of 100k monthly visits, of which the most have to be from the US.
The minimum payout is $25, which is not that important since you should expect a lot more from such a massive blog!
Mediavine
Mediavine is similar to AdThrive but requires a lot fewer monthly visitors (min. 50,000). It is great for long-form content blogs and its ads are mostly catered to the lifestyle niche. The team at Mediavine can also brag about their incredible support, which is always helpful and available.
The minimum payout is $25 for PayPal and $200 for international direct deposit.
Media.net
Contextual advertising is what this AdSense alternative is made for. Media.net is run by Bind and Yahoo, and it’s considered one of the best alternatives to Google’s platform. Most features are very similar to AdSense, even the ad types, approval, and expected revenue. Its connection to Bing and Yahoo gives you exclusive access to contextual ads from searches on these engines.
The ad network requires your traffic to come mostly from the US, UK, and Canada, which can be an issue for some foreign blogs.
PropellerAds
PropellerAds is one of the biggest AdSense alternatives. Their offers range from banners, sponsored links to push notifications and video ads. It serves mobile, desktop, and applications as well. Currently, its reach is estimated at around 1 billion users! It has a lot of automation and ad optimizations built-in so that you get the most from your deal with this ad platform.
There is no minimum requirement for site traffic.
And the payout minimum is only $5! This makes this one of the best platforms for those just starting!
Amazon Native Shopping Ads
Amazon is one of the biggest tech companies out there. While your first thought of Amazon might lead you to the online shopping part of it, Amazon is a tech company. Advertising is one of the biggest parts of it, revenue-wise. Amazon Native Shopping Ads is a part of the Amazon Associates programs and it is focused on placing native product listings on your blog pages.
This Google AdSense alternative can make you a lot of money if you are selling or advertising popular products on your blog page. Its reputation makes your pages sound even more legit and it gives users trust that you are legitimate.
MGID
MGID is one of the biggest advertising networks with more than 850 monthly unique visits that focus on Native Ads. They offer a wide variety of integration types to satisfy the needs of every advertiser and publisher. Moreover, MGID owns an award-winning AI-algorithm connecting the right users to the rights ads at the right moment, making sure that the relevant content is displayed. This approach helps to boost earnings for both: publishers and advertisers.
The minimum payout is $100 and works on NET30 day terms. This means that your June earnings will be paid out at the end of July.
AdCash
AdCash serves over 200 million active users and is responsible for over 800,000 app installs each month. It supports most ad formats and its ads are easy to place and customize. There is an option to view real-time reports. Like most advertising networks AdCash uses a Pay per action model for their ads.
The payout minimum is $25 and you can be paid via an array of payment methods.
Bidvertiser
As the name might imply, Bidvertiser is an alternative that operates on a bidding system. Rather than placing the ads, Bidvertiser seeks ad space on your page to the highest bidder.
This has some pros and some cons. The pros are that if you have a popular page, advertisers might bid themselves to incredible amounts. This can leave you with a much bigger paycheck than you would usually get. But the reverse is true as well. If your page is small and unimportant, you might not get any bids at all.
Before joining you should make sure that your blog is at least somewhat popular and ranking good in the niche it is trying to operate in. The approval of Bidvertiser is simple and I doubt anyone will have any issues with it.
The minimum payout is $10 through PayPal, and I am sure you will get a lot more out of this incredible platform!
Running Ads Without AdSense
Google AdSense is an incredible platform, but luckily it’s not the only one on the web. There are plenty of competitors worth checking out to fight the monopoly that Google has established on the market 😉 There are a lot of AdSense alternatives that can bring you more money and more freedom while advertising. Always compare the available choices and pick the one that makes the most sense to you, your page, and obviously brings you high returns!
But don’t forget that if you use multiple channels for advertising, it’s smart to bring all of your results to a single dashboard for proper analysis. Take a look at our solution for ad tracking & conversion attribution to find new ways to skyrocket your return on ad spend!
