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Not All Ad Networks Are Created Equal

April 9th, 2007 by Darius Monsef


If you’re an internet astronaut who someday hopes to have his or her site rocket to the stars, then at some point you’ll probably be considering your options when it comes to monetizing your site. For some that means taking any and all advertisers regardless of the “punch-the-monkey” types ads. For other with a bit more pride in their creations and who don’t want to see it whored out to any old advertiser there are really only a handful of quality advertising networks. Here is a list of those networks and how they break down.


Adtegrity
Adtegrity

* We promise to fill 100% of your advertising inventory with the best-rated banners and ads, and no default (self-promotional) banners.
* We also work with up-and-coming sites, believing in your ability to produce great content and future traffic.
* We primarily cover five vertical networks: entertainment, women’s interests, business, technology, and international.

Criteria for Consideration
Pageviews Per Month: 500,000
Unique Visitors Per Month: 75,000
Average CPM: No number listed ($.25-.75 is what we have heard)
Cut: No number listed (40% is what we’ve heard)

 

Blue Lithium
Blue Lithium

Advanced technology to bring you better rates
BlueLithium uses sophisticated behavioral and semantic targeting and then optimizes campaigns in real time to ensure optimal performance. These technologies, combined with BlueLithium’s approach of dividing sites into content channels, produce better results for advertisers while improving the relevancy of ads for site viewers. Data from BlueLithium and other next-generation ad networks shows that behavioral targeting alone can increase sales 10X for some advertisers over traditional run of network placement. Not surprisingly, advertisers are willing to pay more for this kind of performance.

Criteria for Consideration
Pageviews Per Month: -
Unique Visitors Per Month: -
Average CPM: No number listed
Cut: 35-60%

 

Burst Media
Burst Media

BurstDirect

Burst Direct helps publishers maximize their sell-through by providing massive reach to direct marketers. By joining the Burst Direct network, which is comprised of over 800 web publishers offering thousands of sites, you’ll be able to run a number of performance-driven campaigns across your site, and take advantage of the following benefits:

Criteria for Consideration
Pageviews Per Month: 20,000
Unique Visitors Per Month: -
Average CPM $.20 to 4.00
Cut: 35%
Contract Type: non-exclusive)

BurstNetwork
Criteria for Consideration
Pageviews Per Month: 5,000
Unique Visitors Per Month: -
Average CPM $
Cut:
Three years (exclusive) 40%
One year (exclusive) 45%
Month-to-month (non-exclusive) 50%

 

Casale Media
Casale

“Looking for an end-to-end solution that delivers maximum earnings and high quality advertising content? Casale Media® connects its publishers to a large selection of quality advertisers across all verticals, and provides the technology needed to track, analyze and optimize the value and utilization of online media inventory. All Casale Media® publishers are provided with a custom web-based account interface that empowers them to take complete control over every conceivable aspect of ad management. Best of all, every ad delivered to publishers’ sites is dynamically optimized to maximize advertising income and inventory allocation. That means happy advertisers, satisfied readers, and more revenue for publishers.”

Criteria for Consideration
Pageviews Per Month: –
Unique Visitors Per Month: 10,000
Average CPM $Not listed
Cut: 30%

 

Federated Media
Federated Media

“At FM, we believe great voices attract great audiences. We’re in the business of supporting those voices by connecting them to great marketers, as well as providing a suite of services that lets authors focus on what they do best: making compelling media. In doing so, we’re creating federations of respected voices that prosper on their own terms”

Criteria for Consideration
Pageviews Per Month: No number listed (250,000 – 500,000 is what it looks like)
Unique Visitors Per Month: 10,000
Average CPM $20 for large size ads (300×250 / 160×600)
Cut: 40%

 

Gorilla Nation
Gorilla Nation

Gorilla Nation™ is committed to developing comprehensive, strategic solutions that meet the needs of Web Publisher partners. We have created advertising and marketing strategies that include everything from increasing advertising revenue, to software and service solutions that satisfy all of our Publishers’ advertising, marketing and technology needs.

Criteria for Consideration
Pageviews Per Month: 5,000,000
Unique Visitors Per Month: 250,000
Average CPM $Not listed
Cut: ?

 

Tribal Fusion
Tribal Fusion

“SMART PUBLISHERS. The quality and reach of the sites we represent is the key to building successful relationships with our advertisers. We strive to maintain pure, relevant content in each of our channels, and accept only a small percentage of publishers who seek representation.”

Criteria for Consideration
Pageviews Per Month: -
Unique Visitors Per Day: 2,000
Average CPM $3-8
Cut: 45%

 

Vantageous
Vantageous

“The Vantageous Advertising Network targets an audience of professionals in design, and related creative industries.”

Criteria for Consideration
Pageviews Per Month: ?
Unique Visitors Per Month: ?
Average CPM $20
Cut: 40%

 

Other Networks

Coudal’s The Deck
A different approach to advertising. Not currently soliciting new publishers.

 

The Anybody Networks

Yahoo Publisher’s Network
In beta, but taking applications.

Google Adsense
The Old Standard… just about anyone can use Adsense, but the income potential is pretty slim. (shadier characters seem to do quite well with Adsense though.)

AdBrite
An auction style ad network.

 

Link Advertising

Text-Link-Ads
Adbrite

 

Basic Criteria for All Networks

• Traffic cannot be generated by utilizing any of the following methods: listings on newsgroups, unsolicited bulk commercial e-mailings, instant messenger postings, chat room postings.
• Traffic cannot be generated by engaging in fraudulent methods including: robots, spiders, auto-spawning browsers, auto reloading, meta refreshes, or any other form of fraudulent or artificial traffic.
• Websites must be hosted under a root domain.
• Clean and professional design, with quality content
• No adult content including: adult photos, adult language, suggestive or provocative photos, sites with decidedly adult themes/subjects.
• No Affiliate or Referral Sites, Only sites with real original content.
• Original Content ONLY. Sites that have been ripped or copied from existing sites will not be accepted
• No non-English language sites

*Disclaimer* Information has been gathered to the best of my ability, some numbers may be slightly different and you should check with each network for specifics. If you have more accurate information or want to suggest another network, please let us know.

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27 Responses to “Not All Ad Networks Are Created Equal”

  1. Eric Says:

    Dugg

  2. Travis Says:

    Wow, great list Darius.

    Have you had the opportunity to test drive some of the networks you mentioned, other than FM?

  3. Kevin Says:

    Sold information. Thanks for putting this up.

  4. Aaron Says:

    I love lists.

  5. Darius Says:

    @ Travis.

    I’ve signed up for just about all of them. At less than $1 per CPM on most networks though it isn’t very appealing.

    Right now FM is my primary network and they actually fill my left over inventory with partnerships with a couple other major networks that deal with more of the $1-$4 CPM ads. Then as a last resort I fill space with Adsense.

    FM has been the only network so far that has given me a great level of personal attention.

  6. Aaron Says:

    Are these Cost per Impression, Action, Click?

  7. Darius Says:

    $ numbers are listed as CPM.

    Some of the networks have CPA and CPC pricing, but I think those solutions are more harmful than they are good…

    Expect a post in the coming days that addresses the Online Ad Industry.

  8. Dame Says:

    Thanks for the info. I was looking for advertisers,but really didn’t know where to look. Thanks…Also, which one do you think is the best?

  9. Darius Says:

    *Bias Disclaimer*

    I’ve been happy with FM and they have a great personal support network, but not every site qualifies for their criteria.

    I would suggest if you have enough traffic apply for them all and then find out which one works best for you.

  10. Aaron Says:

    I’m not sure what the “M” in CPM stands for. Is that cost per impression?

  11. Darius Says:

    M in the abbreviation is the Roman numeral for one thousand

  12. Aaron Says:

    Gotcha.

    CPM that doesn’t add up very fast unless you have tons of visitors.

    $2 x 10,000 page views is only $20.

    That’s page views not unique visitors correct?

  13. Travis Says:

    Yes, impressions of the ad, not unique impressions.

    I’m not sure what the average click through rate is on banner ads nowadays, but you really need a highly targetted message in an extremely creative presentation to make your money back on small media buys.

    The cost to produce such a creative and interactive ad could set you back quite a bit.

  14. Aaron Says:

    testing to see if the commentor link changes.

  15. Darius Says:

    commenting to tell you it did.

  16. Wes Bos Says:

    Great Post, I plan on trying some of these services out once I hit $100 on my google adsense.

  17. Noel Hurtley Says:

    Great list!

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  21. rj Says:

    I haven’t heard of Gorilla Nation until now. The y look solid. We’ve been doing it all in-house so its def worth a look.

    indie click – http://www.indieclick.com/ – might be a good fit for some sub-culture focused sites.

    Thanks for this piece…

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  24. ajay Says:

    I’m linking Your Post.

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  26. Patrick Says:

    Can you get a CPM of $10.00 for extremely targeted advertising.

  27. Franco Says:

    What are the ad networks available for small time publishers especially bloggers.I need a comprehensive list.

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