I’ve been making money online since 2003, and I’ve made a lot of it. Sadly this made me content with my setup and over the last few years things have steadily declined (and gotten stale) and I’m now in a bad situation, but that’s beside the point.
I know there’s a sticky of ad networks and I know ad networks perform differently for everyone. I’m currently using AdSense, ValueClick, and TribalFusion… and lost a few others in recent years. None of them are performing like they used to (but neither is my traffic).
Anyway, I was wondering OVERALL who the top ad networks were these days. Either in terms of the most ads served/publishers or top payout.
It almost seems like nobody is really standing out anymore from what I’ve been reading.
Ad networks are only part of the equation. They won’t magically make me rich again overnight, as we all know (right?). I have a lot of work to do to pull my traffic back up but it’s a lot more inspiring if I can see the dollars increasing again too.
The problem with the internet now is it’s getting more and more oversaturated everyday. Seems everyone wants a slice of any online income via affiliate marketing.
I don’t have any sites in the finance or travel verticals, but I have come across these in the past:
Finance: Forbes, WorthNet.Fox
Travel: Travel Ad Network
In the music niche - IndieClick and MOG are both excellent.
To be honest, I’ve considered starting a private consulting firm to help websites get off the ground.
Take all the guesswork out of it. From setting up the server (be it shared, vps, cloud or dedicated), the domain, and hiring the right web designer for the right price. Then cover marketing, ad groups, promotions, plugs and SEO.
If your videos are not too raunchy, TribalFusion could pick you up there. Unfortunately humor sites have a hard time landing good ad networks, due to the target market of visitors. But if Tribal picks you up, you’re probably at the best you can do. Then have Tribal begin defaulting down.
In most cases, TribalFusion will always be the best bet for sites on SitePoint. I still use them (though one tier down), and I am always impressed with how well they do.
But yeah, like you’ve seen a lot around here, Burst, Casale and ValueClick are also nice, and, if you can get TribalFusion, have it default down to one of those.
I know a couple big (top 10K alexa) sites that still use Casale strictly for their pops, which are supposedly paying nicely this time of year.
So, as a funny video site, you’d have a good chain with
TribalFusion>>Casale>>ValueClick>>Google AdSense
That would pretty much cover all your impressions in best way possible.
Cheers!
Ryan
*Oh, and, if you start getting over 500K page impressions per month (not awstats, but real google analytics impressions), then you should see about getting an invite to BlogAds. Pays less, but you can have them and normal ads.
If you said what your site was, or its target content, people could be more helpful.
In terms of general ad groups, TribalFusion is still the best out there. And yes, Valueclick and Casale still pay on time and all that.
But people on this forum seem to forget about SixApart, Giant Release, IndieClick, GorillaNation (must be targeted to make money with them), NCM (must be film), Comcast, BMAN and plenty more.
The only catch is that these ad groups now typically require a minimum of one-million page impressions per month (sometimes more); and exclusive rights. But, they do lead to better CPMs. I’ve done $20 eCPM on a footer bar and average $4 eCPM with standard banners from another. These listed also do custom skins/themes, which can average over $20 eCPM all together.
IndieClick: They only specialize in Music and Film sites, and I do remember that they require something like one-million impressions at least per month. www.indieclick.com
Yeah the general top tier networks haven’t changed much for a good while.
That said, there are a number of high quality vertical ad networks around now which serve certain niches with higher paying and higher quality ads. What content niche is your site?