Should you use Display Ads on your niche site?

bybryonbrewer

10.5K followers

6 years ago

Hey everyone, today I wanted to do a post on Display Ads.

I don't use Display Ads on all my sites, but some of them I do, and for beginners, I think there are a lot of you out there wondering if you should use these ads at all.

Short answer: Yes, go for it! I recommend Google AdSense in early days of your site, and then Mediavine.com once you hit 25,000 unique sessions per month.

This is a great way to make money from your informational content; also, since most display ad networks will pay per 1000 page views, you also end up making money from the traffic that doesn’t actually convert into a buyer on Amazon.

But won’t people be turned off if they see ads on your site?

Maybe, but if your site is worthwhile they’re not going to add your site to their list of blocked sites just because you have ads on it.

This isn’t something to be worried about. No, don’t insert ads in every possible location and no, don’t allow spammy looking ads/porn/gambling, etc, but the idea that your site will turn away most traffic because you’re now monetizing via ads isn’t something I’d say is a legitimate concern.

Ads these days are getting much more refined, and geared to match the content they’re displayed in (not just matching topic, but also page style in some cases).

People who feel strongly about ads and can’t stand them can install adblockers. Chances are, if they haven’t installed an adblocker and they come across ads on your site, they’re not worried about it unless they are porn/gambling or any other topic that in general is exploitive.

Why should you consider putting display ads on your site?

Even though display ads have a lower conversion, unlike amazon or any other affiliates, they do not require anyone to buy in order for the traffic to be monetized. To put it simply, there are some advantages of using display ads compared to an affiliate and vice versa; pairing them is a great strategy.

How could you earn money with display ads?

Most networks pay per 1000 views, and per click. That means that if you get 1000 pageviews, you will get paid even if no one actually clicks an ad and buys something. If they actually do click the ad, you get paid a certain amount per click (decided by the network, and often varies per ad) whether the person actually buys the product advertised or not.

My site is low traffic; should I use display ads?

Display ads will obviously bring in more income for those with high traffic, but everyone has to start somewhere. $5 a day is still $5 a day. Ideally as your site grows this will only increase, and a high traffic site (100,000 visits per month) can make $1000+ with display ads.

What is an ideal ad layout?

This varies, but in general for niche sites you want in-content ads, maybe one on the sidebar and in the footer/bottom of your article. Do some testing to find out what works best for your audience.

Media.net will give you some advice, but they have too much customization in my opinion; after seeing Mediavine’s performance I see no need for so many options, it should be a simple install of a plugin, a few minor tweaks during the first 1-2 weeks and then autopilot.

Adsense does a good job of making sure you don’t overdo it, and Mediavine does an amazing job of placing the ads for you, with one simple plugin install and some tweaks.

Which display ads should you show then?

There are several great options these days, and I’ll cover them below:

AdSense

Google AdSense is the most popular display ad network and is owned by Google. It is considered to be the oldest and longest display advertising network available in the web. It uses a CPC (cost-per-click) or PPC (pay-per-click) system to allow website or blog owners to convert their traffic into profit.

Requirements:

• The website must have a verified name and email for legitimacy in order to get approved.

• There are no precise numbers of quality posts or word lengths for Google AdSense standards. Some people get approved with only few quality posts and some get rejected. Just to be safe, before applying or setting up Google AdSense, at least work with 20 posts with sufficient amount of word lengths and no copyright issues.

• There must be no annoying widgets in any corner of the landing page or throughout every post of the website or blogs.

• Contents such as pornography, adult content, pirated content, drug related content, any hacking or cracking tips and other illegal content will get 100% rejected.

Features:

• The display ad network is fairly easy to use, especially for starters or beginners. There’s no need to search for specific ads - copy and pasting the code is all you need to do.

• One Google AdSense account is all you need to set up different or multiple websites.

• AdSense display ads allow you to edit the display, image, colors, text, size, etc.

AdThrive

This network has a higher conversion rate compared to AdSense but they require a large number of visitors in order to get accepted. The network has two advertising services: Edge and Premium service.

Since AdThrive edge requires at least 100,000 visitors and Premium requires over 750,000 visitors, people usually start using AdSense and later on convert to AdThrive when they have gained sufficient amount of traffic.

Requirements:

• AdThrive specialists and personnel will thoroughly review your blog or website. They will check the credibility of your website, especially the uniqueness of your content. They will do a thorough reading the same as the requirements of AdSense such as illegal contents, privacy contents, contact contents, about page and all other requirements.

• Account registered in both AdThrive and the website or blog must be the same, legit and without fraud. They have strict compliance with legality wherein each party must comply with the terms and agreements as well as privacy policy.

Features:

• You can choose your own preferred ad layout, and AdThrive will give data for how to optimize for the highest earnings

• AdThrive team will implement the design and layout of the Ads for you.

• The network uses DFP (double-click for publishers) where it analyzes your website to where it will perform best and ensure the ads are family-friendly.

Mediavine.com

Like AdThrive, Mediavine work as an ad management platform; they are the ones that take care of your website’s ad display. Rather than just issuing a code that needs to be manually encoded by the owner through their website like with AdSense, they thoroughly look through your website and analyze when, where and what type of ads should it display.

Mediavine is more like a traffic expert community rather than simply an ad network. You can exchange thoughts with the people in charge of Mediavine and have your thoughts and suggestions heard. It has high ratings when it comes to responding to customers or subscribers.

For this and other reasons, it is my personal favorite.

Requirements:

• 25,000 uniques sessions per month minimum; this needs to be proven with Google Analytics data (if you haven’t added your site to GA, do it now ;) )

• Content of your blog or website must be unique, the same with all other ad networks or platforms. Every ad networks holds a strict compliance when it comes to rules, regulations, policy and legality. Copyright infringement is highly implemented.

• The website must not have any pornography, drugs, adult content, gore content, etc. It can discuss consequences of illegal drugs but never promote it.

• Most of the other requirements set by Mediavine are the same as AdSense.

Features:

• Mediavine ad displays are known to load fast. They use lazy-loading where the ads load relative to which part of the screen is being viewed. To put it out more clearly, if you’re on the upper part of the page, only the header ads will load. The middle and bottom ads will load later if the visitor will scroll down through it.

• You can ask questions and report any problems through their contact email or support. They have high response rate where your concerns will be answered in a short amount of time.

• Unlike AdSense, Mediavine team will be the one taking charge of managing your ads display and will analyze which part and what type of ads to be displayed.

• Mediavine issues a yearly bonus equal to 1% of earnings for the year (this is in addition to the monthly payout).

Media.net

Media.net is also one of the popular ad display networks. This ad network is owned and powered by Bing and Yahoo! You’d definitely know if a blog or website’s page is using this kind of ad network/platform. It uses distinctive design of colored key-blocks as its ads. This way, Media.net can ensure website/blog friendly ads that uses a mixture of colors that will blend in with the overall layout of your page.

Requirements:

• Media.net only caters to blogs or websites written in English.

• Originality or uniqueness of your site’s content.

• The site should have privacy policy page, about page and contact us page.

• Media.net is also strict when it comes to blank pages, illegal optimizations such as using deceptive and manipulative way of ranking different keywords on search engines.

• Your application to Media.net will also get rejected if your site contains hidden text, links and illegal software.

• Basically, you also need to follow ethical blogging and website requirements just like the other networks (something that shouldn’t be a stretch for any of us anyway!)

Features:

• After account application and approval, there would be a specific customer representative given to you that you can chat, email or contact in case you have inquiries or reports you want to make. This provides a 1-1 support for their subscribers and guarantees high response rate. While this sounds wonderful, I have to say that Mediavine.com was way more user friendly, plus the FB group for Mediavine.com alone is a huge bonus.

• (as you can imagine, the 2 networks do get confused with each other a bit...but Mediavine.com gets my vote way more so than media.net)

• The ad blocks used by Media.net are designed to match your site’s content is an ads or a part of the website itself, therefore guarantees a higher CTR compared to other designs or layouts used by different ads network or platforms.

• Media.net provides powerful and user-friendly dashboard. It contains almost everything you need from ratings, conversions, traffics generated, earnings, graphs, reports, etc.

• The ad blocks used by Media.net sometimes require visitors 2 or double clicks in order for it to be counted as clicks and get converted to profit or revenue. Some ads however only require single clicks.

Let me know your questions below!