Best CPM Ad Networks For Publishers in 2021 (With Average CPM Rates)

 Agreed, finding the best alternative ad network is easier said than done. However, it isn’t really hard to increase your ad revenue and try different ad networks, when you’ve first-hand experience working with publishers looking for a Google AdSense alternative. As a programmatic monetization partner, we have helped hundreds of publishers to go beyond Google AdSense and that’s why we believe we are the best source to get you the right info on this topic. Then, let’s get started.

Best CPM Ad Networks For Publishers in 2021 (With Average CPM Rates) 

Table of Contents:

  • What’s the Difference Between Ad Network & Ad Exchange?
  • Are the CPM Ad Networks Right For You?
  • Best CPM Ad Networks For Publishers
    • Media.net
    • BuySellAds
    • Conversant Media
    • Criteo
    • Propeller Ads
    • Exponential
    • Revcontent
    • Adcash
    • AdBlade Network
    • HilltopAds
    • RevenueHits
    • Clickadu
    • Adsterra
  • Conclusion

What’s the Difference Between Ad Network and Ad Exchange?

Ad Network acts as an intermediary between Publishers and Advertisers. Typically, it collects the publisher’s ad inventories and bundles them (based on niche, context, etc.) to sell it to the advertisers and takes a cut from your revenue. Whereas Ad Exchange is a marketplace where publishers and advertisers come together to sell and buy ad impressions via real-time auctions.

Are the CPM Ad Networks Right For You?

Well, it depends on how much traffic you’re getting for your website. If you’re receiving less than 1 million page views per month, sign up for an ad network(s). If it’s more than 1 million then you have something better than ad networks to look into.

Long Answer:

Although it is good to partner with the ad networks, you need to ensure that they are the right choice for you. We helped hundreds of publishers to increase their ad revenue by up to 50 percent with the help of ad exchanges and proprietary monetization products. Ad Exchanges can get you better CPM for the same impression and traffic.

So, you can either go to ad exchanges or ad networks. How can you know what’s right for you? The answer is straightforward. What’s your monthly traffic?

  • If it is lesser than 1 Million page views/mo, the list is for you. Go ahead.
  • If it is greater than 1 Million page views/mo, we need to talk. We have better options for you including ad exchanges, private marketplaces, and advanced ad refresh. Reach us today.

If you’ve decided to partner with CPM ad networks, then let us help you.

You know CPM ad networks pay you based on the impressions you deliver. Let’s say you gave them 10,000 impressions and your CPM is $5, then they’ll pay you $50 in total. So, keep an eye on traffic all the time. After all, even the best ad network won’t be able to help you if your traffic is sinking every day. 

Sidenote: CPM rates mentioned here are merely estimates and they will vary based on your site and audience. We have curated the CPMs from forums/communities to give you an idea. It’s always best to contact the ad network and directly discuss it with them to set the expectations right.

What are some Best CPM Ad Networks For Publishers?

1. Media.net

Media.net is one of the leading ad networks with a global presence and premium partnerships. With offices across New York, Los Angeles, Dubai, Zurich, Mumbai, and Bangalore, they run the world’s #2 largest contextual ads program from Yahoo! Bing Network Contextual Ad network. Besides, they have a proven track record of helping long-tail publishers to increase their CPMs.

In order to get approval from them, publishers are required to have original content, which must be updated often, and intellectual property rights must not be violated in the process.

Pros

  • Offers custom ad sizes and standard IAB ad formats (display, native, contextual, and video).
  • Offers reporting interface to enable publishers to monitor their ad impressions and revenue on a real-time basis.
  • Offers customizations so that the ads can match your website’s UI.
  • You get a Personal Account Manager.
  • Payment is sent after the payout has reached $100.
  • Payment via Wire Transfer, PayPal.
  • Customer support is good.

Cons

  • Needs the majority of the traffic from tier-1 countries.

Is it right for you?

If you have original content and are constantly updating the website’s content, and have tier-1 traffic (from the US, UK, etc.), then jump right into the network.

CPM Rates

You’ll likely to get around $1 to $1.25 CPM and car loan, health insurance, mortgage, and credit loan niches are proven to perform better.

2. BuySellAds

With BuySellAds, you can generate revenue, as soon as you are ready to run ads. There are no minimum requirements and conditions to partner with the ad network. They enable publishers to sell the ad impressions on your website using their platform.

The ad network helps publishers in setting direct deals with advertisers. For instance, a healthcare publisher can select any health-oriented advertiser and choose to sell based on ad impressions. Besides, the company also enables the publishers to monetize the traffic that is using ad blockers.

Pros

  • Relevant, quality, and targeted ads.
  • In the case of PayPal, the minimum payment threshold is just $20.
  • You can get the payment within 2-3 working days of making the request. No delay.
  • 100,000 Pageviews per month.
  • Niche publishers can find sponsors.

Cons

  • Prices are non-negotiable.
  • They take 25% of your revenue, which a bit higher than the market standard (20%).

Is it right for you?

If you have a new blog with a few thousand page views, then BuySellAds might be right for you.

CPM Rates

CPM varies from $0.25 to $2.25 and it usually stays around $0.75.

3. Conversant Media

Conversant Media is a well-known ad network and has been around for 20 years. They have bagged many premium publishers, possess a diversified portfolio, and accept only top-level domains. You can simply go to their official website, select the integration type (“Ad code”), and apply for their ad network.

Pros

  • Diverse types of ads are available in accordance to your needs. For example, display ads, rich-media ads, video ads, native ads.
  • The minimum payment threshold is a mere $25.
  • The publisher can be paid through PayPal, or a cheque can be sent to him/her.

Cons

  • It yields better results only for high traffic websites.
  • The website’s content should be in English.

Is it right for you?

We believe it is the next best option after BuySellAds. They’re capable of running decent ads and generate consistent ad revenue.

CPM Rates

$0.50+ eCPM for banners and skyscrapers, and $3.00+ eCPM for pop-unders (Chrome blocks the ad format by default, so not a good format to go with).

4. Criteo

Criteo runs an advanced marketplace for eCommerce publishers and has over 17000+ retail and brand advertisers. You can set a floor price on the platform, which means you’ll get the CPM rate you want. If the buyer isn’t willing to pay above the desired CPM, it won’t be allowed to buy the ad inventory, so no lower revenue for you.

Pros

  • Extremely competitive CPM rates.
  • Approval is easy.
  • Varied ad formats (from native ads to IAB standards to your own).
  • Asynchronous/Synchronous ad tags.
  • Criteo algorithm determines and displays the right products for your readers.

Cons

  • It offers the ad network for eCommerce publishers only.
  • The minimum payment threshold is $150, which is high.
  • It doesn’t use popular payment methods.
  • Customer support is available through only email.

Is it right for you?

Criteo is right for eCommerce publishers. If you’re getting accepted, we advise you to try them out along with AdSense and other ad networks.

CPM Rates

Criteo usually has a better CPM. It ranges from $1 to $4. If you’re getting tier 1 traffic and have a niche audience, they are the right fit for your monetization.

5. PropellerAds

PropellersAds offers a huge array of ad products including Pop-under ads, interstitial ads, dialogue ads, and standard banner ads. They’re popular among download and streaming sites. However, they can pay you higher CPMs than AdSense, depending on your users’ geo. Obviously, you can do better, if you have good traffic from the US and UK.

Pros

  • Easy to join.
  • Real-time reporting.
  • They give 80% of the revenue to the publishers.
  • Payment methods – Wire Transfer, Payoneer, PayPal, WebMoney, and Skrill.

Cons

  • Your reader may not love to see pop-under or full-screen ads at all. So, lousy user experience and higher bounce rates.

Is it right for you?

Only if you’re having good traffic from the US, UK, and Canada.

CPM Rates

$0.50 to $1.00 for most of the websites. Some niches like file sharing can get over $1.50 CPM.

6. Exponential (Formerly Tribal Fusion)

Exponential, a quality-centric marketplace for both publishers and advertisers offers custom-tailored plans to help you monetize. Starting from basic set up to direct deal opportunities*, you can choose your own plan and experience the potential of the ad network accordingly.

*For Enterprise Service Partnership, direct deal opportunities aren’t available.

Pros

  • It provides elevated CPM rates.
  • An extensive variety of options for ads.
  • You get the payment after 45 days.
  • The ads are of high-quality, and ads that aren’t safe for your brand can be blocked.
  • The minimum payment threshold is just $50.
  • Payment methods – PayPal, Cheque.
  • A huge opportunity to earn revenues with the help of extremely targeted ads.
  • Publishers can block certain domains, categories, and ad-types if they feel ads are bad for their website.
  • Real-time reporting and analytics.

Cons

  • It is extremely difficult to get accepted.

Is it right for you?

If your traffic is over 500,000 unique visitors per month, you can surely give it a go.

CPM Rates

CPM varies from $0.20 to $2 and the technology niche will get you the best CPM in this ad network. The company gives 55% of the total ad revenue generated to the publishers.

7. Revcontent

Revcontent is a content recommendation network that was established in 2013. Revcontent takes in websites that are of high quality, and get a minimum of 50,000 visitors in a month. They offer a set of ad widgets (native, non-native, custom API) for publishers to place along with the content.

Pros

  • The great support team and dedicated account managers.
  • It provides premium CPM rates for all countries.
  • Can monetize your mobile sites too.
  • Quality content recommendations.
  • Extremely precise, and real-time reporting dashboard.
  • The minimum payment threshold is a mere $50.

Cons

  • High minimum traffic requirement. But you can apply even if you have page views between 1,000 and 10,000 per month.
  • It is extremely hard to join, as many applications are rejected because of quality issues.

Is it right for you?

It’s one of the best alternatives to AdSense. If you are getting approved, then you should try it.

CPM Rates

The average CPM of the Revcontent network is $0.44, but it can go up to $3.

8. Adcash

Adcash, an ad network, claims to fill your inventories 100% of the time. They offer dynamic CPM optimization to ensure better monetization and user experience. However, you can opt-in for the manual process too.

Pros

  • Easy approval.
  • There is no minimum traffic requirement in order to get approval.
  • Supports diverse languages and ad formats e.g. native, interstitial, banner, and pop-under.
  • Personal Account Manager.
  • Contact Support is good, and easy to get in touch with.
  • Let’s you control your ads manually
  • Numerous payment systems are available.
  • Reporting API to track your ad earnings in real-time.
  • The minimum payment threshold is $25 (If you use wire transfer, it’s $100). 

Cons

  • CPM rates tend to be lower than the market average (but it depends on the publisher (site) and audience).

CPM Rates

CPM rates of Adcash are highly volatile going from $1 to over $10.

9. AdBlade Network

AdBlade is popular among the publishers for its content-style ads, which receive higher clicks from sponsored content. Besides, they offer display ads and sponsored ad formats along with DMP. They prefer quality publishers with a minimum of 500,000 monthly pageviews. 

Pros

  • The AdBlade ads can be run together with Adsense.
  • Unique Ad formats.
  • Quality ads.
  • Robust reporting and analytics.

Cons

  • Low acceptance rate.
  • The minimum payment threshold is $100.

CPM Rates

CPM is $2 on average and it will increase if you have tier 1 traffic and tech-related content.

10. HilltopAds

HilltopAds reportedly delivers 12 billion monthly impressions to its network and a go-to choice for long-tail and mid-market publishers. It provides an internal ad server and a clean interface to get you started on monetization. In addition, you can utilize its real-time optimization system to increase eCPM.

Pros

  • Beginner-friendly.
  • Internal Ad Server and Real-time Optimization
  • Net7 payout via PayPal, Wire, ePayments, Bitcoin.
  • 24*7 support.

Cons

  • Fewer ad formats.
  • Relatively new to digital advertising space.

CPM Rates

For tier 1 traffic, CPM ranges from $3 to $5 and for tier 2 and 3 traffic, CPM can go below $1.

11. RevenueHits

RevenueHits is a subsidiary of Intango Ltd, the world’s leading media tech company. Although they’re new to the ad tech ecosystem, they serve publishers seamlessly with the help of their self-serving model. As a publisher, you have access to a huge set of ad formats (Shadowbox, Slider, Notifier, to name a few) and can fill your mobile impressions.

Pros

  • Higher CPMs for tier-1 traffic.
  • Uses both CPC and CPA models.
  • Net30 payout cycle.
  • Self-serving platform.
  • Optimization system to find the best paying ads.

Cons

  • Lack of information on technology.
  • No information on the demands.

Is it right for you?

CPM rates are high for selective formats like Pop-under. So, if you want to try them, you can go ahead. But, do consider the influence of user experience while testing the network.

CPM Rates

Over $1.5 in the US, UK, Germany, and Canada. Traffic from the rest of the world can get you around $0.5.

12. Clickadu

Clickadu has a wide variety of ads available for publishers. It provides 5 different ad formats. Pop-under ads for both mobile and desktop, instant message and push notifications that are best suited for mobile, video ads, and skin ads that can add links to advertisers from website elements like text, images, icons, etc. The expected CPMs for all the different ad formats are provided explicitly on its website.

Pros

  • No minimum traffic requirement.
  • Multiple payment methods like PayPal, Web Money, Paxum, Wire Transfer.
  • The low minimum threshold ($10).
  • Flexible payment periods ( Net7, Net15, and Net30).

Cons

  • User experience might not be good with formats like instant messages and push notification ads.

Is it right for you?

If you are a publisher with a small amount of traffic then Clickadu can work for you.

CPM Rates

You can expect $0.5 to $2.0 depending on your traffic without considering popunders.

13. Adsterra

Adsterra is a Scottish company with a global presence. It works with quality advertisers to provide higher CPM. It provides a variety of ad formats including popunders, direct links, pre-roll videos, push notifications, and interstitial ads. The company also claims to provide 100% fill rates to publishers.

Pros

  • A variety of ad formats to choose from.
  • A variety of payment methods including PayPal.
  • Net15 Payment.
  • Provides all kinds of campaign models – CPM/CPC/CPA/CPL/CPI.

Cons

  • It is not safe to use pop-under ads with Adsense.

Is it right for you?

If you are not running Adsense, or if you are unable to get Adsense approval then you can try Adsterra.

CPM Rates

The CPM rates are typically b/w $0.5 and $1.5 without considering the popunder ads.

Conclusion

As you know, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution in adtech. The best way is to experiment. However, it is important to know how to properly experiment. Cutting off the cpm ad networks abruptly might put a big hole in your revenue. Go through and decide what’s right for you. And, then start with a few top CPM ad networks at first. Test, measure, and optimize.

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