Written on March 3rd, 2008 at 12:03 am by Darren Rowse

12 CPM Alternatives to Adsense

Advertising 76 comments

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.

Share This

Screen shot 2009-10-08 at 4.27.35 PM.png



76 Responses to “12 CPM Alternatives to Adsense” - Add Yours

  • Maddpenciler

    March 3rd, 2008 12:48 am

    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

  • Ruchir Choudhary

    March 3rd, 2008 12:49 am

    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…

  • Make Money Talks

    March 3rd, 2008 1:48 am

    Thanks, great list, 4 of them are totally new for me!

  • Sangesh

    March 3rd, 2008 2:06 am

    Thankx Darren, for collecting this list of sites for online advertisements, since I was only aware of few of them.

    Cheers.

  • jennydecki

    March 3rd, 2008 3:03 am

    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.

  • Ian

    March 3rd, 2008 3:24 am

    Excellent article. I’m looking at some of these companies for my website right now.

  • Learn SEO

    March 3rd, 2008 3:34 am

    Thanks for the great list. Exactly what I needed for a trafficked site which doesn’t perform with adsense at all.

  • Amin

    March 3rd, 2008 3:36 am

    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.

  • Search Marketing Courses

    March 3rd, 2008 3:48 am

    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.

  • nitinpai

    March 3rd, 2008 4:32 am

    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.

  • simon

    March 3rd, 2008 4:32 am

    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

  • Javi

    March 3rd, 2008 5:04 am

    thanks for the tip. I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve my adsense revenue.

  • fc

    March 3rd, 2008 5:28 am

    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..

  • Bradblogging.com

    March 3rd, 2008 5:53 am

    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!

  • www.yissels.com

    March 3rd, 2008 9:06 am

    Thanks for this list! I really need somethings else than adsense!

  • Barbara Ling

    March 3rd, 2008 9:47 am

    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.

  • Michael Aulia

    March 3rd, 2008 9:51 am

    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.

  • James

    March 3rd, 2008 10:04 am

    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

  • jhay

    March 3rd, 2008 10:37 am

    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.

  • Bob McLean

    March 3rd, 2008 11:57 am

    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.

  • Will Reinhardt

    March 3rd, 2008 12:04 pm

    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.

  • Tom Beaton

    March 3rd, 2008 12:09 pm

    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.

  • Olaf

    March 3rd, 2008 4:33 pm

    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.

  • Edwin Joseph

    March 3rd, 2008 5:35 pm

    This was truly something interesting.. Many are still into adsense nowadays, but this post would really be a great help for most website owners..

  • Side-Line Gothic Industrial Music Magazine

    March 3rd, 2008 7:58 pm

    Which one of those 12 has the best CPM payment ?

    Thanks,

    B

  • Raivyn

    March 3rd, 2008 8:12 pm

    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.

  • Tech Blogger

    March 3rd, 2008 8:19 pm

    Thanks,this is definitely useful resources for me as Adsense now are quite slow.

  • James Mann

    March 3rd, 2008 10:00 pm

    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.

  • Will Reinhardt

    March 4th, 2008 1:32 am

    @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.

  • Search Marketing Courses

    March 4th, 2008 3:44 am

    Hello Will:

    Thanks for responding. I think you’re right to wait until it’s be tried and tested before including it.

  • Richard Rinyai

    March 4th, 2008 4:46 am

    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

  • Tad Chef

    March 4th, 2008 9:04 am

    CPX Interactive requires “30,0000 unique users per month” according to “Section 5. Minimum Traffic” of their Trems and Conditions.

  • Glenn Abel

    March 4th, 2008 9:53 am

    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

  • poytspot

    March 4th, 2008 1:00 pm

    wonderful list thank you for sharing, btw, im thinking if what CPM is best for newbie blogger?

    thanks

  • LiNTEK

    March 4th, 2008 7:14 pm

    Thanks for publishing this information

  • Ebony Jones

    March 5th, 2008 12:35 am

    Thanks for this list. Adsense is doing nothing for us, and we were looking to evaluate different advertisers.

    Cents from Adsense indeed!

  • Will Reinhardt

    March 5th, 2008 1:50 am

    @poytspot, I recommend AdsDaq for a new blogger, with Adsense as a backup tag.

  • Chuck

    March 5th, 2008 4:32 pm

    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!

  • esvl

    March 5th, 2008 8:47 pm

    Never heard of some of these.

    Thanks for sharing.

  • Paul

    March 5th, 2008 8:48 pm

    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).

  • Icelebpics

    March 6th, 2008 12:23 am

    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

  • Will Reinhardt

    March 6th, 2008 3:36 am

    @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.

  • Chuck

    March 6th, 2008 6:31 am

    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.

  • Sławomir Kozłowski

    March 10th, 2008 3:37 am

    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!

  • Doug

    March 11th, 2008 1:15 pm

    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.

  • John Carnegie

    March 17th, 2008 12:40 pm

    Thanks for a very informative post on alternative revenue streams! I will be sending your blog link to my readers.

  • Increase Web Site Traffic

    March 19th, 2008 2:36 pm

    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.

  • Tom

    March 20th, 2008 11:44 am

    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!

  • Will Reinhardt

    March 21st, 2008 12:39 am

    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.

  • Ryan

    April 16th, 2008 7:45 pm

    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?

  • Kilroy

    April 21st, 2008 12:36 pm

    Nice list, I’ve been looking for some alternatives.

  • Tim Wyman

    May 1st, 2008 7:05 am

    You missed AdBrite and Viralytics Media. They are more realistic in terms of acceptance than Ad.com and Tribal Fusion.

  • Josh Macon

    May 11th, 2008 5:02 am

    Yeah, Viralytics Media is good. Probably one of the better CPM pop-under networks out there.

  • shafiq

    May 27th, 2008 6:37 pm

    Hey thanks for sharing the excellent and comprehensive list of CMP alts to adsense. I am earning well from adsense and looking for new alternatives to male some more money. Few of them are really new to me.

  • Avi

    June 23rd, 2008 2:48 pm

    Morning Falls now shows this for requirements of pageviews/visitors:

    - 10,000 Monthly Unique Visitors or 200,000 Monthly Impressions

  • ajstyles12

    July 4th, 2008 12:46 pm

    that a good list of CPM ads but CPC is always better if your as are placed at right area of your website , here take a look at the adsense alternatives available based on CPC http://www.squidoo.com/topalternativeadsense

  • prasad

    July 17th, 2008 12:56 am

    wow these alternatives are very cool b’cas every one is forgetting about thier blogs or websites once banned by adsense.

    prasad
    http://englishmovielinks.blogspot.com/2008/07/cpm-networks-please-help-me-make-more.html

  • Web SEO

    September 14th, 2008 6:15 am

    I applied for AdsDaq but still they did’nt respond me now I am thinking to make another try with my other websites

  • Laptop Data ReCovery

    September 19th, 2008 3:30 pm

    Thanks for the great list.

  • free games

    September 23rd, 2008 12:23 pm

    what do you do when none of the ad networks accept you apart from rmxmedia ?

  • scott

    October 3rd, 2008 12:30 am

    Try http://www.axill.com which is paying every week! Very prompt and excellent support!!

  • Niyazi Unugur

    October 11th, 2008 7:24 am

    I think the best alternative for both adsense and adwords is AdToll . You will see dramatic increase in your earnings.

    other great news is today AdToll is acquired by US company.

  • Watch Movies

    October 20th, 2008 10:36 am

    Does anyone know of any good CPM for video linking sites, such as the one in my name???

  • Adam Cox

    October 26th, 2008 10:40 am

    Great list. I would like to learn more about how these sites target (if at all) their ads.

  • Saving Money

    November 18th, 2008 12:59 pm

    Hi Darren,

    I would really like to know of some CPM based advertising networks for Australian websites.

    I am struggling to find them for my finance blog.

    Regards,

    Alex.

  • barbaros

    December 13th, 2008 1:26 pm

    most of the foreign website owner cannot get CPM ads from above advertisement networks.Any one out there knows high paying CPM ads to Turkish websites ?

  • Picky Boot

    January 8th, 2009 3:03 pm

    CPM is one of the best online advertising program. Through this program one can make a good ROI. Great list of CPM networks, this blog would help the people who are in search of this kind of networks.I too came over a CPM network which offers a good service. The network which I came over was http://www.directcpv.com/.

  • hi5

    January 14th, 2009 5:04 pm

    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.

  • Dota-Utilities.com

    January 19th, 2009 2:55 am

    I applied for Tribal Fusion but never got reply from it, now I am applying for CPX Interactive… my traffic is enuff to apply!>>>
    http://www.dota-utilities.com

  • David

    February 7th, 2009 12:40 pm

    Thanks for the awesome list! I started using Morning Falls as my remnant inventory provider a few months ago and they have given me a 13% boost in revenue! Hell yes

  • Luke

    February 23rd, 2009 10:10 pm

    thanks for this list Darren it was pretty handy whilst i was looking which cpm advertiser to go with!

    also it pretty inspiring to see so many comments from people in the same boat as me

  • Photoshop Tutorial

    March 7th, 2009 2:23 pm

    Hey very good list of CPM advertising.Thanks for Sharing this.

  • Isaac Yassar

    April 9th, 2009 9:57 am

    2 Million page views per month? Wow that’s heavy dude. I’m sure there is not much websites apply to it. What do you think?

  • Isaac Yassar

    April 9th, 2009 9:57 am

    2 Million page views per month? Wow that’s heavy dude. I’m sure there are not many websites apply to it. What do you think?

  • Fizan

    April 23rd, 2009 5:04 pm

    I don’t think there’s any real alternative to adsense for publishers with low traffic (like myself !)

    I got banned from adsense and now I have one PR 3 site and two PR 2 sites which don’t get much traffic and don’t earn me a dime !

  • adsense2u

    April 24th, 2009 10:32 pm

    Very impossible if low traffic can get more money with cpm adsense


Comments will be closed off on this post 90 days after it is published. Apologies to those this impacts but it's a regrettable and temporary measure to combat a growing comment spam problem. See our most recent posts where you can comment here.

Close
E-mail It