If you want to make a bit of extra income from your blog, you might consider placing advertisements on your site.
To do this, you’ll need an advertising network — a service that connects online advertisers with website publishers.
Google Adsense is one of several online ad networks that enables you to earn revenue by setting up display ads on your website.
The entire process of implementing it on your site is fast and easy.
Since its launch back in 2003, AdSense has managed to acquire millions of active users. But despite the platform’s evident success, it does have its own limitations.
So in this post, we will discuss whether using Google Adsense is beneficial for your website and if not then what are the best Google Adsense alternatives available to replace it with.
So let’s get started.
What is Google Adsense?
Google Adsense is basically an ad placement service provided by Google.
This is a program that is designed for publishers who wish to earn an income by displaying advertisements on their websites.
When the site visitors view or click on the ad the publisher earns a certain amount of money. This is one of the most lucrative methods to earn money with your blog or business website.
Is AdSense Right for You? The Pros and Cons of Having Ads on Your Site
Now that we’ve established what AdSense is, let’s discuss the pros and cons of using it within your site. We’ll also take a look at some alternatives so that you can have a well-rounded view of all your options.
The Pros of Using AdSense to Monetize Your Site:
- Adsense is completely free: The best part of Google Adsense is that it is absolutely free of cost, unlike many other ad networks you don’t need to pay a monthly fee inorder to use adsense
- Relevance: Adsense has an excellent algorithm that always finds the most relevant advertisements for individual users
- Easy to use: Google Adsense does not require you to have specialized training. Anyone with basic computer literacy can learn how to use adsense within minutes
- Design Flexibility: Google Adsense allows for a great degree of customization with the ads it supplies.
- Ads are directly created by Google: this gives more creditworthiness to the displayed advertisers
The Cons of Using AdSense to Monetize Your Site:
- No diversification: You can’t use any other ad network in conjunction with adsense
- High payment threshold: Adsense only pays out at a minumum 100$ threshold
- Unclear approval requirements: the approval requirements for adsense are not mentioned hence there is a lot of confusion regarding it
- Low CPC: CPC is short for cost per click, or the price you pay for each click in your pay-per-click (PPC). Adsense offers one the worst CPM and CPC rates for publishers which translates to lower levels of blog income.
20 Best Google Adsense Alternatives for small websites:
A high-quality AdSense alternative will help you secure an additional revenue stream that can motivate you to produce more blog content and help cover the cost of running your website. hence almost all of these alternatives pay higher than Adsense.
So these are the 20 best Google AdSense alternatives for small websites:
1.) Taboola
Easily one of the most popular advertising platforms, Taboola offers a 100% fill rate across any geographical location and has a ton of fancy features, including promoted product listings, in-feed units, customizable widgets, and much more.
The three main places you can effectively use Taboola are using Google’s ‘sponsored’ search area, across social media and networking websites (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the sorts), and then on your personal website.
Everything is handled from a central dashboard, but there is a minimum page view of 500,000 if you want to get started.
2.) Media.net
Media.net is one of the leaders in contextual advertising and a major Google AdSense competitor.
It’s a Yahoo and Bing-based contextual ad network that’s employed by bloggers and website owners all around the world.
The biggest advantage of Media.net over Google AdSense is its high revenue per thousand impression rate (RPM).
Media.net’s targeting is performed through keyword search terms. This technology contributes to the highly contextual ads and prompts more clicks.
Another major benefit of Media.net is that it gives you access to the searches from the Yahoo! and Bing networks. Also, the platform gives you access to a network of clients, so you can boost your ad revenue and take advantage of a rich search market.
3.) MediaVine
MediaVine is one of the highest-paying ad networks out there. You can generate an RPM of over 15-45 $ using it.
Most networks (such as Adsense and BlogHer) give you the ad code, which you then input into your blog yourself.
Mediavine takes care of all of the implementing and configuring of your ads (making it one less blogging-related task to take care of).
Mediavine is an example of an ad management platform, which works a bit differently than networks such as Adsense. Mediavine is a community, not just an ad network.
Their response time is lightning-fast. When you have a problem or a question, you don’t have to log in, find an elusive contact form, and pray someone gets back to me within a week.
New publishers have to complete a threshold of at least 50,000 monthly sessions to get selected to the Media Vine network.
4.) Adversal
Adversal is another easy-to-use ad-serving platform that lets you set up native ads in just a few minutes. The platform has an intuitive interface, making it easy for you to start, stop, and pause your ad campaigns.
Adversal allows you to add video, display, and native ads to your website or blog. There is also a default tag management system that filters ads and prevents various frauds.
Keep in mind that starting an Adversal account requires you to have a minimum of 50,000 page views per month. Also, to be eligible your site must have its own domain name.
5.) AdCash
AdCash is another well-known ad serving platform. The platform helps 200 million active users increase their conversions and app installs.
Adcash allows you to add various ad types, from pop-under ads to standard display ads. Worldwide coverage is another Adcash’s benefit.
The platform serves ads for 196 countries, meaning that if your website is located outside the US, you can still monetize your content and traffic with respect to your geographical location.
Another benefit you will get is Adcash’s Anti Adblock Technology. This means that website visitors with enabled Ad Blocker will still get to see ads on your website or blog.
This happens because Adcash manages to bypass adblockers to increase your
6.) PropellerAds
Propeller Ads is used by over 150,000 publishers around the world and has been serving these sites for over eight years now.
Propeller Ads has a special focus on making sure you don’t receive any spammy-looking ads by offering a unique 24-hour moderation service.
This leaves you with only legitimate, relevant ads, and there’s even the ability to sneak past the majority of ad blockers.
This can easily increase your revenue by up to 20%. Just head over to the website, sign up for an account, and then start pasting your shortcodes into your website to start making money.
7.) Adthrive
Adthrive is one of the largest programmatic advertising networks for bloggers. It specializes in full-service ad management for publishers and content creators.
AdThrive serves all popular desktop ad units and formats you would expect from a premium ad network such as 300×250, 728×900, 160×600, 300×600, sliders, and video units.
They run a header bidding auction for all their ad inventory, this is how they are able to provide one of the highest CPMs in the market.
This network guarantees at least a 20% RPM earnings increase and possibly provides the best earnings rate to publishers.
8.) PopAds
Popunders is a general term for pop-up ads you see across the internet in all their varying and different forms, and PopAds is, as you can probably imagine, the fast-growing vendor that helps you to create, manage, and profit from such ads.
The service has been around since 2010, giving them a decade’s worth of experience in the ad industry that you can benefit from.
You only need 1,000 visitors a month to sign up, and you’ll receive a minimum of $4.00 for reaching this threshold.
However, you can withdraw your money at any time into an AlterPay or PayPayl account, and each ad cost is based on a per-impression basis, meaning each time a user sees an ad, you get paid! Easy!
9.) InfoLinks
InfoLinks is one of the leading experts in in-text advertising. With InfoLinks, you can create effective video and banner ads.
Utilized by over 100,000 websites and blogs around the world and operating in over 128 countries, including some of the leading brands such as Netflix, Virgin Airlines, Netflix, and many more, Infolinks makes it super easy to monetize any website easily while maximizing engagement and not ruining the style of your website.
There are plenty of ad types to choose from that are also regularly updated, so you know they are only displaying the most relevant and up-to-date content. All you need to do is post the HTML code on your website, and you’ll be good to go!
10.) Sovrn // Commerce
If you already have a ton of ad links on your website that you want to monetize, Sovrn // Commerce is the ad platform you’re going to want to use.
You can automatically create links to your own eCommerce products, Amazon products, or most other well-known affiliate programs (around 30,000 in total). The links are added automatically, and payments are made by PayPal to keep things easy and simple.
The platform also allows you to develop custom integrations, from creating customized visual experiences to getting data from the entire sales to funnel.
The Sovrn // Commerce dashboard enables you to keep track of the performance metrics so that you can adjust and improve your strategy.
Additionally, you can compare performance metrics across different channels and discover where your viewers go after leaving your website or blog.
11. Carbon Ads
Owned by BuySellAds, Carbon Ads is the perfect choice for an ad platform if the main audience you’re working with and writing to is developers or designers.
As a tech-based website or blog, you can showcase ads that are highly specific for these niches, meaning the chances are much higher your readers will interact more, and you’ll make more money.
Some of the leading technology providers that use this service for their ads include Get Bootstrap, World Vector Logo, JSFiddle, Dribble, Sketch App Resources, Font Awesome, Coding Horror, Laravel, and many more.
As you can see, there’s a lot of potential for high-quality ads, no matter what area of design and development you’re into.
As you would expect from design-based ads, the ads found here are extremely high quality and highly targeted so you can ensure your website will stay looking great.
However, there are a few criteria you need to meet in order to get an account, such as monthly page views and has vacancies available in their ads program.
12. Revcontent Native Advertising
While you may not have already heard of Revcontent, you definitely will in the future since this is one of the fastest-growing ad platforms in the world, and it’s continuing to make waves across the industry again and again.
It’s used by top publishers, including news sites like NBC News and Forbes, who consider it to be a top content delivery and advertising platform.
Hosting over 250 billion content recommendations, this is not a platform you’re going to want to ignore.
There’s an easy minimum payout of $50, which means you can get your money fast, and you can use and customize the widgets to fit any website or blog, and there’s a huge range of earning potential once you tap into what this platform has to offer.
To apply successfully, your site needs to report at least 50,000 monthly visitors and generate valuable content regularly. Publishers are paid monthly, and the minimum payout is $50.
13. Bidvertiser
Bidvertiser is the final advertising network closing our list of AdSense alternatives.
It is another trusted and reliable ad network that specializes in helping publishers monetize their content. With Bidverstiser, you will be able to target ads based on location, keywords, and channels.
You can customize the ad layouts to fit into your website’s design. When it comes to payment, you’ll earn money for every ad click.
The platform offers a low withdrawal threshold of only $10. Additionally, you will get extra revenue for click conversions.
All of the Bidvertiser’s ad formats are mobile-friendly and include the following: Native ads, Banners, Pop-unders, Smartlinks and, Sliders.
14. Ezoic
Ezoic is a Google-certified publishing partner that provides publishers with access to thousands of ad networks, exchanges, and ad partners and includes various sophisticated ad technology with our core Monetization products.
Ezoic also helps publishers more easily access and navigate sophisticated and premium ad operations through their monetization features.
And the best part – anyone can use it. No coding or technical experience is required. Ezoic works with every CMS, host, or website configuration.
15. Yllix
A less known alternative to Google Adsense is Yllix Media. It is one of the fastest-growing ad networks.
Yllix uses a combination of CPM, CPC, and CPA to pay publishers. There are no traffic requirements, making it extremely easy to join the network.
They provide you with ads in multiple formats and a 100% worldwide fill rate. Ylixx also offers daily payments with a very small $1 minimum payout threshold when you withdraw with paypal
16. Adsterra
Adsterra is a world-renowned ad network with a Partner Care approach, serving over 30 billion ad impressions per month worldwide. 18K+ direct publishers and 12K+ brands, affiliates, media agencies, and ad networks dealing with mainstream and non-mainstream verticals.
The setup takes less than a minute, supports all ad-formats, and provides a seamless API integration.
Adsterra is not recommended for publishers with bare-minimum traffic. To unlock its true potential, you’ll have to have decent traffic.
The site should have at least 5000 impressions to qualify for the banner ads. Payment Invoices are usually sent around the 10th of each month for the previous month.
17. RevenueHits
RevenueHits offers several ad types to its publishers such as interstitials, banners, top & footer style banners, pop-unders, sliders, and buttons.
If RevenueHits does not find any content on any page, it doesn’t allow ads over there.
Geo-targeted ads and contextual ads are the exceptions of their services as they cater services based on CPA, CPC, or CPM network performances. \
They make sure the visitor takes action instead of only clicking on the ad.
They also offer a good payout of a minimum of 50 USD through PayPal and Payoneer.
18. AdNow
It takes less than a minute to get yourself registered on AdNow and to get going. With support available in over 16 languages,
They specialize in providing the best widget-based native ads. So, if you have plans to monetize your site through native ads, Adnow is the best platform for you.
They also have a vast network of publishers, and their goal is to create a hybrid ad format in the future.
This unique ad format will be a combination of both native ads and media banners in a single campaign to benefit the clients and brands as well.
19. Dianomi
Dianomi, a native advertising platform, is a right fit for premium publishers across the globe.
Their algorithms analyze, react, evaluate, and act in real-time to ensure your readers are presented with advertising in a manner that complements and enhances both the quality and reputation of your publications.
Dianomi works with over 250 premium business and finance publishers to place Dianomi sponsored ads, including articles, videos, infographics, and white papers, on their sites. Some of these publishers are WSJ, BBC Global, Forbes, and Reuters.
20. Criteo
Criteo is a global technology company that powers publishers with trusted and impactful advertising through their world-leading Commerce Media Platform.
Criteo is extremely easy to set up retarget your traffic simply by adding Criteo script to your website.
Conclusion Best Google Adsense Alternatives
So which Adsense alternative is best for your website or blog?
Well, the answer is: it depends. But if you want to maximize your ad earnings, you might want to consider Mediavine.
So the best ad network is whatever fits your requirements the best.
Now that you have gone through this article, what premium ad network do you think deserves to be on this list, let us know in the comment section.
