One of the most common methods of making money with a blog is by putting ads from a ad network. This allows you to not worry about managing advertisers and focus on writing quality content.
This post in Make Money Blogging series focuses on making money with ad networks. To read other posts, check the Make Money Blogging series page.
Ways To Make Money Blogging With Ad Networks
- Getting Paid Per Click: You can get paid for clicks through CPC or Cost Per Click ad networks. When someone clicks your ads and goes to advertiser’s website, you get paid. Example of CPC networks are AdSense and Bidvertiser. These networks usually add text based ads to your blog.
- Getting Paid For Page Views: CPM or Cost Per Mille ad networks pay you for every 1000 page views. Instead of text ads, they ad banners to your blog.
- Getting Paid For Sales: One common thing about CPC and CPM networks is that you need good traffic to make some serious money, else you will get paid in pennies! But making money from generating sales for others can make more money. A single sale can generate $10 to $300 or even more easily. CPA is also the most versatile method as you have freedom to choose between text links, banners and even articles.
Which One To Choose
Choosing the best method will require some answering from your side. So, dear reader, let’s get started and decide which method you want to use. Just answer following 10 questions.
Do You Have Lot Of Traffic?
If you get about 10,000 or more page views per month, your blog can easily make money with CPC(Cost Per Click) and CPM(Cost Per Month) ads. It is best to choose a network like AdSense because advertisers might not be interested at this time.
Do You Have Time?
If you have time to promote one product at a time, it is better to use CPA as these offers often require more than adding a banner to sidebar. However, if you are short on time, it is best to use CPC or CPM ad network.
Are Your Readers Ready For Ads?
If you are planning to add ads to to your blog after building a reader base, you need to make sure that readers are ready for ads and ads are not forced on them. You can start by adding small ads to sidebars and other non distracting places.
What Kind Of Ads Do I Want?
Ads have lot of factors associated with them. For example, many CPM ads use Flash which are distracting as well as big in size. So, you might want to add text only ads. CPA ads give you most freedom. They can be easily added as a banner or a link.
Joining The Ad Network
Once you have decided the type of ads you want to add, next is looking for a good ad network.
Here are some good ad networks you might want to join:
- Google AdSense: The biggest network around. It is contextual i.e. ads are targeted according to your content. However, they have pretty tough rules and you can easily get banned if you do something wrong like clicking own ads.
- BidVertiser: BidVertiser is a good AdSense alternative. However, it is not contextual and sometimes, ads might not be related to your content at all.
- Chitika: Chitika is not a AdSense alternative but companion. You can display Chitika ads alongside AdSense. Chitika ads show up only to the seaerch engine traffic and don’t bother your regular readers.
- AdBrite: AdBrite is another good network that offers PPC ads.
You can also join any small network but make sure to read a bit about them online to avoid any frauds. In my opinion, AdSense is the way to go as the ads are targeted and even with small traffic like 5,000 page views per month, you can make $10-20 per month easily.
Placing The Ads
OK, so you have joined a good ad network and are ready to make money. But you also need to add the ads to your blogs. Here are some tips about ad placement:
- Think About Readers First: Do not forget that the readers are life of a blog. You irritate them, you lose your blog and money. So, whenever placing ads, make sure that they don’t come between reader and content.
- Place On Prominent Spots: Place ads where they have maximum chances of getting attention. For example, top of sidebar and at top or bottom of posts is a good placement.
- Do Not Overdo: Excess of everything is bad. Same is the case with ads. Add too much ads and readers will leave.
Keep Experimenting
Once you have added ads, do not stop. See where the ads convert best and where they do not. Emphasise on good places and remove ads from bad performing spots. Do not stop, keep experimenting.
That’s all you need to know for making money with ad networks.
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About Ishan Sharma
Good post…
The big G is very strict and not approving absence accounts easily now…
Can you advise any other reliable and tested ad network.
I am happy with adsense.
I have used chitika and adbrite. chitika is good.
Very true !!
Placing adds is similar to placing posts according to their relevant order.
It's not a problem now-a-days for people to find ways to construct content but they face problem in : "how to tick up the content with their blogs?".
I appreciate your effort towards providing such a guidance to your audience.
Shiven
Hi Shiven,
Well, that is very true. Only difference is that people love to see even unorganized posts but when it comes to ads, you need to be pretty strict!
Thanks for commenting.
I actually like my ads to be same color as my site so it can blend thus won't really be a bother to my readers. However, you are right about experimenting, at my other sites, ads would work better if they stand out or are of another color but at my other sites it works better if it looks the same as my site. So, it actually depends on what will work best for you or your site.
Hi Andrew,
Well, every blog is unique and different methods work or don;t work. So, experimenting is the key here.
Thanks for commenting!
Wow, great timing! I just wrote a post about where to place ads on a blog, and this post ties in great with that!
That's interesting… I didn't know Chitika ads only show up to visitors from search engines. Hmmm…
Thanks, Ishan!
Hi Tristan,
Well, as I had said, we must be some long lost brothers! Same schedule, same timing and now even same ideas! Well, Chitika shows to search engine traffic from Canada and U.S. only while Chitika Select ads appear to non search traffic too(I don;t remember exact criteria, however!)
Thanks for commenting!
Hi Ishan
Very informative post!
You're right in the fact that it's all about trial and error. That's one of the best ways to learn what's working with your blog and what isn't. I've talked to a few blogger's that complain about not getting the results they desire yet they cannot tell me anything about trial testing.
I'm glad you made it a point to stress that we should never stop testing and experimenting with our blogs!
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Hector,
Testing and experimenting is the best way to learn and earn more! Something we should never stop.
Thanks for commenting!
Ishan,
I like the most, selling other people product, the result is big
But for the long run, Adsense is the nice one, though Chitika is crappy at the earning if you have non-gadget niche blogs..
Thanks for the list.
Hello Kimi,
Yes, result is big when selling affiliate products. Chitika have not performed that well recently.
Thanks for commenting.
Hi Ishan
Thanks for the information. I haven't started putting ads on my site yet, but this is an informative post to read. Will have to consider which ones I want to eventually use.
Thanks for sharing with us Ishan. Much appreciated.
Patricia Perth Australia
Hello Patricia,
Glad that you found the post useful. Thanks for commenting.
I've tested a few ad networks, but the only one I've earned some decent money from is Text Link Ads… but it made my PR change from 4 to 0, and I lost a lot of visitors from search engines. So I decided to stop and remove the ads. I'm still looking for a way to earn money from my blog (other than by recommending products and writing reviews).
I'll take your advice and will continue to experiment
Well, that's a big problem with selling links. Recommending products and writing reviews is the best way to learn money in my opinion.
Good luck with experimentation!
Thanks for commenting!
Text links are no longer relevant in blog monetizing after Google start cracking down on them some time ago.
@Ishan: You might want to include Blogads in the list. You can charge a fixed rate monthly and the ads are not intrusive. The only downside is they don't accept new sign ups openly.
Yep, unfortunately, we learned that hard way. And by the way, companies are still trying to attract more traffic.
Well, restrictive nature of BlogAds is something that prevents me from adding it!
Thanks buddy, for the post and for the help
No problems! Thanks for the comment!
Nice post.
I am hoping to launch my own ad network this weekend! Hopefully it will start making it onto lists like this one!
Hey David,
Thanks for the comment! Do let us know about your ad network. We will be happy to review it here!