Every webmaster wants to convert their website traffic into some money regardless of the site being a blog, service, tool or anything else for that matter. If your website receives a good number of visitors, there is no reason why you shouldn’t consider using an advertising network to monetize the traffic. There are many leading advertising networks all around the web but you have to be wary when choosing the right one that suits your niche. Some advertising networks just don’t work with certain niche websites due to content issues or lack of ad relevancy. It goes without saying that the type of ads served on your site should be relevant to the content on your site.
When you have finally decided to monetize your website traffic, it is important to sort out the good ones from the bad. There are a lot of good-for-nothing advertising networks that you should steer clear from. We have created a list of top 10 advertising networks that are legitimate and do good business, for you to choose from.
1. Google Adsense
Google Adsense is undoubtedly the most popular PPC based advertising network on the web. Many bloggers and webmasters use it as their primary source of income. Adsense offers highest CPC rates and provides more targeted ads for most of the niche sites. The CPC rate of adsense falls between $0.02 and $15 depending on the factors like niche of your site and the location of your visitors. It is not so easy to get into the adsense program as they have strict policies about the content of the website you are applying for. The minimum payout is $100 via check or wired transfer.
2. Chitika
Chitika is a great advertising network for those looking to have search targeted, mobile and local ads. They give more preference to organic traffic from search engines and that is essential for their system to work. It is considered as an adsense alternative as they accept smaller sites too but high organic traffic is required to actually earn from it. Their minimum payout is $50 via checks and $10 via paypal.
3. Media.net
Media.net is a contextual ad network backed by Yahoo and Bing and gives the publisher varied options to customize the ads displayed. It has all the tracking tools and you can see real time statistics of your sites. Media.net has a measly approval process and it helps if your traffic comes from US, UK or Canada. The site applying must be strictly in English and other languages are not accepted. Their minimum payout is $250 via paypal or wire transfer.
4. Burst Media
Burst media is a CPM based advertising network that publishers can monetize their sites with. It provides the highest CPM rates in the industry and is a trusted company in business for several years now. Your site should be having a minimum of 5000 unique visitors and 25,000 page views per month to qualify for Burst media. The application procedure is simple and takes very less time compared to other ad networks. Burst media will issue your payment when your earnings hit the $50 threshold and you can get paid through paypal or check.
5. Infolinks
Infolinks is an In-text link based PPC advertising network and can be used as a supplementary ad network with other major ad networks. You need to have text based content in your website to use infolinks. It does not need dedicated space for banners or ads and works by showing targeted ads from the relevant keywords in your text content. For this reason, it is easy to use other advertising networks along with infolinks. The approval process is liberal and most sites can get into the program if it has sufficient textual content. The minimum payout amount is $50 and can be received through paypal or wire transfer.
6. Kontera
Kontera works similar to Infolinks and is an In-text ad network with not so impressive but good enough features. As it is an In-text ad network, other major ad networks can be used along with it. The approval process is liberal and quick but the CPC rates are as low as $0.001 – $0.4. You can withdraw your earnings via paypal if it crosses $50. This ad network works well only for US/Canada and other European traffic.
7. BuySellAds
BuySellAds is a very popular and top paying advertising network and comparable to adsense. It is required that your website have a decent or rather high amount of traffic to get into the publisher program of BuySellAds. It is not a PPC program like adsense and you are paid for ad space sold, not for clicks. BuySellAds will share 75% of the advertising revenue with publishers and it works well for high traffic established sites. Approval process is not that easy and only high traffic websites get into the program. BuySellAds offers payment via paypal and you can make two checkouts in a month.
8. Commission Junction
Commission Junction is one of the largest affiliate marketing websites on the web. The products and services being advertised are of huge and well recognized companies, so the revenue opportunity is also big. Banners, search boxes, text links are usually provided to the affiliates for displaying on their websites. Revenue is in the form of commission for products bought through your affiliate ads.
9. Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates is another affiliate marketing program from amazon which is a very trusted company in the industry. It is a very easy one to start and you can market all kinds of products on your website using banners, widgets and text links. Amazon has a wide variety of products and ad options and most niche websites will find something that’s relevant for them.
10. Clickbank
Clickbank is an affiliate marketing site that deals with the promotion of digital products on websites. Each time someone makes a purchase by clicking through your affiliate ads, you earn a commission. It is a very to get started with clickbank and they have all the tools to kick-start your marketing campaign. The sales commission offered on clickbank is really good and you can get up to 75% per sale in some cases.
David is a web hosting expert at VPS Hosting Reviews where he specializes in writing VPS tutorials and reviewing different web hosts. Helping readers find a reliable web hosting provider is his passion.