Looking for a CPM Alternative to AdSense? Will Reinhardt from Calico Monkey (RSS) shows you 12 of them in this post.
Video content publishers face a unique capitalization challenge on the internet today. Sites that rely on new media for the bulk of their content are unable to earn as much from Adsense as those sites that feature more traditional written articles.
Improving CPM in a New Media Era
There are CPM alternatives to the pay-per-click model that can offer video content publishers better monetization than Adsense. These impression based publishing networks have often been around for many years, while some are new to the field and thus have less stringent traffic requirements. While the CPM amount that can be earned varies depending on the niche and number of unique visitors/pageviews per month, for new media publishers this amount is often higher than Adsense revenue.
The following publishers are ordered by their traffic requirements, in parentheses.
AdsDaq (no requirement) – While they only provide CPM ads to specific countries, their ability to display backup ads from any network makes them an easy first choice for somebody looking to test the waters of the CPM market.
Ad Dynamix – (no requirement) – While not quite as intuitive as AdsDaq, their minimal requirements make Ad Dynamix quite approachable even though their customer support is poor.
ValueClick (3,000 pageviews per month) – While their pageview requirements are quite low, ValueClick is known to be picky with the type of site they will approve.
Morning Falls (10,000 pageviews per month) – A relatively low traffic requirement, solid customer service, simple implementation and easy to understand reports make this a good CPM publisher for beginners.
CPX Interactive (10,000 pageviews per month) – A relatively new face on the advertising scene, CPX Interactive offers good integration and solid reporting. Meeting the traffic requirements is not always good enough, however, as their internal approval process is on the strict side.
Burst Media (20,000 pageviews per month) – Burst Media is an intermediate advertising publisher. Their overly-complicated integration and reports, as well as their poor customer service hold them back from the upper echelon of advertising networks.
Casale Media (10,000 unique visitors per month) – A good intermediate ad publisher, perfect for an established site that has not quite reached A-List status just yet. Casale Media handles larger sites as well, making them a good long-term choice for many sites.
Tribal Fusion (60,000 unique visitors per month) – A solid pay scale, depending on your niche. Tribal Fusion represents hundreds of sites with a wide range of categories.
Brightroll (100,000 video views and 250,000 pageviews per month) – Along with Video Egg, Brightroll is the only other advertising publisher on this list that is truly centered on new media. Their video view requirement automatically puts them in the advanced category.
Adtegrity (500,000 pageviews per month) – While their orange and green color scheme may make you scratch your head, Adtegrity is known for their quality customer service and is quickly becoming a leader in the advertising network field.
Advertising.com (2 million pageviews per month) – One of the heavy hitters of online ad publishing, their high pageview entry point means only well-established sites need apply.
Video Egg (10 million video views per month) – The cream of the new media crop, Video Egg concentrates entirely on advertising in online videos.
Conclusion
Once a new media site has obtained a solid audience a close examination will reveal that Adsense simply doesn’t have as much clout as it should. As your site grows, consider other advertising methods and networks. Your bottom line will appreciate your efforts.
The Author
Will Reinhardt shows his own cartoons and discusses making a living creating animation at Calico Monkey (RSS). He also teaches animation at Toon Boom Tutorials.
These definitely are some great alts to Ad Sense. Thanks for sharing and also for the Calico Monkey… great stuff there as well seeing as though I’m trying to make a living in a similar field (not animation but webcomics). This is my first post here and turned out to be 2 for 1 deal. Thanks.
peace
Nice list. I’m sure it’ll help me. By the way, is there a problem with the 1st site? Or is it just me?
And yeah, once your site reaches a certain popularity level, the effectiveness of AdSense nosedives. AdSense is only great for small niche sites, not flagship ones…
Thanks, great list, 4 of them are totally new for me!
Thankx Darren, for collecting this list of sites for online advertisements, since I was only aware of few of them.
Cheers.
Don’t forget about the BlogHer Ad Network. I’m not sure what the traffic requirements are, but I have to say they have lovely ads and great CPM rates. http://www.blogherads.com
I’m not sure what the traffic requirements are, but I know they review each blog for content and quality before approval.
Excellent article. I’m looking at some of these companies for my website right now.
Thanks for the great list. Exactly what I needed for a trafficked site which doesn’t perform with adsense at all.
I can’t believe there was a time when I was upset about not having an Adsense account (I got banned). Now that I do, it doesn’t even make up 5% of the total revenue I generate online.
What about Google’s new Adsense for Videos program? Do you have any knowledge and/or experience with it? Given that it is tailored specifically toward video it may solve the monetization problem that you are referring to.
Darren,
Could you please rate the networks. It would be good to the readers including me since I don’t know about any of them. If you rate them, then I would be able to try some of the top listed ones.
theres a lot out there i see, but most are for the bigger players, not looked into many of them but i guess i should
thanks for the tip. I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve my adsense revenue.
I have heard of a new firm – Komli (komli.com), as well that’s coming up..though am unaware of the specifics as of now..
This is a great guide. Good job.
CPM though never really pays as much as CPC, which is what I use. Nevertheless, why not :)
If you are banned from Adsense, Consider checking out my post on how you can start using it again, through a different system!!
http://bradblogging.com/adsense/google-adsense-alternative-got-banned/
Enjoy!
Thanks for this list! I really need somethings else than adsense!
I hardly ever use Adsense on my sites anymore; instead I use the eBay affiliate program. They offer customized layouts as well and give you a way to monetize extremely niched sites quite effectively.
Don’t know most of them, probably since my blog hasn’t even reached 10,000 pageviews a month yet (I researched more on CPC programs)
2 million pageviews per month, wow.
as new adopter to blogging, without blowing your trumpet to much… this information is fantastic and worth its weight in gold thanks for highlighting. I would not of consider this approach over the google approach.
Cheers
James@littlenomads
I’ll be checking each of them, well the first four actually. Since my site currently qualifies for their requirements.
It would’ve been nice to see how much revenue potential one can get from any of these networks as compared to AdSense.
Thanks for this valuable information. As a beginner I see I have a long way to go, but it puts the mountain I’m climbing in perspective.
CPM companies are one of those things that I really enjoy researching — it always feels like there’s a more profitable site just a few clicks away.
Since writing this article, I have the following to add:
Lookery (lookery.com) – A good introductory CPM site with an interesting guarantee of $.125 payout. While this may sound quite low, if you use AdsDaq as your primary ad provider with a CPM of around $1.25, Lookery makes a good backup ad provider so that you’re always earning.
The News Room (thenewsroom.com) – A more difficult recommendation, The News Room offers intrusive embedded text, image and video content with their banner ads contained within. The problem is that their embedded units are gigantic. The upside is that they pay well, at $1 CPM. They have no “above the fold” requirements however, so if your site can fit it in, try adding it to the bottom of your pages.
I cant see them being so useful to most blogs as they dont get the traffic. For big websites with low click through rates they will be amazing though.
Hi,
Joining a good CPM publisher is not easy :(
from their website:
requires that web sites provide Tribal Fusion at least 2,000 unique users per day for each Ad Space listed with Tribal Fusion.
This was truly something interesting.. Many are still into adsense nowadays, but this post would really be a great help for most website owners..
Which one of those 12 has the best CPM payment ?
Thanks,
B
Great list! I’ve been looking for a good alternative to AdSense, but nothing I found was very appealing until I checked out these sites. I’ve applied to a couple already. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks,this is definitely useful resources for me as Adsense now are quite slow.
Thanks Darren. I have been looking for Adsense alternatives and tried a few that just didn’t cut it.
Most of what I have looked at so far don’t do contextual ads very well. They actually suck and I end up taking them off my blogs.
It’s nice to see that none of the ones I have tried are in your list. I can see what I will be doing for the rest of today.
I better go get another coffee.
@Search Marketing Courses: Google Adsense for Videos came out after this article was written, but more importantly, it’s still in beta. It seems unwise to write about a beta program in this capacity. If you’re interested though, your site can qualify if you get more than 1,000,000 video views per month.
@Tom Beaton: I agree, these programs clearly need at least a moderate level of traffic to sustain them. The impetus for this research stemmed from a flood of StumbleUpon traffic — they’re notorious for never clicking on Adsense ads. CPM seemed to be the best way to monetize that traffic.
@Side-Line Gothic: It’s difficult to compare all 12 CPM programs with each other. The more niche your site is the more you can earn. Tribal Fusion has rates as high as $7 CPM. Another direct comparison difficulty is that all 12 programs are not going to be applicable for any one site. AdsDaq is a great starting point though, as you can set your own CPM and backup tags. If you know you earn $1 CPM in Adsense, then set AdsDaq to $1.50 and use Adsense for your backup tag.
Hello Will:
Thanks for responding. I think you’re right to wait until it’s be tried and tested before including it.
I actually stumbled upon a site called Rubicon Project (www.rubiconproject.com). It actually helps you to figure out what type of advertising works best for your site over the long run.
It rotates and figures out what service is best automatically, but you can always manipulate all the information as you choose.
I’ve heard some great reviews about it so far and have been making more money off of this service than AdSense alone.
Thanks,
Richard Rinyai
http://www.theprofessionalassistant.net
CPX Interactive requires “30,0000 unique users per month” according to “Section 5. Minimum Traffic” of their Trems and Conditions.
Great list, I’m on the case. Just viewed my AdSense cents and am highly motivated to try others.
The Morning Falls minimum appears to be wrong. This is from the publishers page:
Requirements
– 3,000 Monthly Unique Visitors
– Website Must be in English or Spanish
– Website may not Contain Anything Illegal in Nature
wonderful list thank you for sharing, btw, im thinking if what CPM is best for newbie blogger?
thanks
Thanks for publishing this information
Thanks for this list. Adsense is doing nothing for us, and we were looking to evaluate different advertisers.
Cents from Adsense indeed!
@poytspot, I recommend AdsDaq for a new blogger, with Adsense as a backup tag.
Will – when you mention CPM are you talking about net or the split that goes to the publisher? $1 net CPM at 50% rev share is obviously .50 cents. Sounds low.
Thanks for the great list!
Never heard of some of these.
Thanks for sharing.
thanks for the info. As a suggestion, it would be great for non US citizens to know which ad programs/services works internationally (add a small note saying “US only”, “English sites only”, “Worldwide” etc).
which one of em is as good as adsense? can u rate the above mentioned alternatives ….. not taking into account the one which requires 1million pageviews
@Chuck, the CPM that the networks refer to is after they’ve already taken their percentage. Most networks take either 35 or 40%.
.50 sounds awful at first, but with a video site the site traffic is typically much higher. That same site with Adsense will earn about .20 CPM.
Thanks Will! I don’t run a video site but I’ve seen an offer for guaranteed $3 CPM to the publisher which sounds pretty good now. As long as they’ve got the traffic to ramp up.
I’m wondering which site with 2 or 10 mln pageviews will be interested in showing ads from Advertising.com and Video Egg. If the site have such huge pageview per month I’m almost sure that all ad area will be already taken.
But anyway thanks for sharing!
Wow, I’m surprised at the negative comments toward Burst and everyone I know who uses them are happy with the service and the site/tools aren’t bad.
CPX is NOT new, however. They are a rebranded BUDS (B.U.D.S. Inc.) using Right Media’s Yield Manager. The company has had a pretty bad rep for serving low quality ads, especially ActiveX installers back in the day.
Thanks for a very informative post on alternative revenue streams! I will be sending your blog link to my readers.
thanks for the list of alternatives. I’ve had great results with Tribalfusion in the past but stopped using them for some private reasons.
Will probably give some of those you listed a shot. Cheers.
Does anyone know of a CPM program that allows Blogger/Blogspot blogs? I can’t seem to find one yet. My site gets > 30,000 impressions a month. Thanks!
Tom, unfortunately as you’re likely aware, all of these advertising options require a top level domain (www.something.com). That’s the double-edged sword of Blogger blogs: great publicity but you’re almost forced to use Adsense.
Thanks for the great list. I’ve been testing a few of the display networks you listed, and decided to set them up in a chain.
Tribal > ValueClick > Morning Falls
The problem is that Morning Falls has a higher CPM than ValueClick for a couple ad sizes. How can I set it up so that MorningFalls receives only certain sizes before ValueClick, but nothing else about the chain is distributed?