Are you a new blogger trying to find a way to monetize your blog? Especially without selling or promoting anything, then making money with display ads is the best option for you. Now, you may think, I don’t have enough traffic to get accepted into any ad network. How can I make money with ads? The answer is, you don’t know about such ad networks that accepts blogs with minimum to no traffic at all.
In this article, we’ll see 5 different ad networks best for new bloggers. These ad networks either don’t have any traffic requirements at all or have minimum traffic requirements to join them. But first, let’s see what an ad network is and how it works.
Please Note: This post contains affiliate links to products I use, trust, and recommend. If you choose to purchase a product using these links, I may receive a small commission for referring you – at no extra cost to you. These funds help me keep this blog up and running.
What is an Ad Network?
Ad network is a platform that takes ads from advertisers and shows them to people through blogs and videos. To show ads through blogs and videos, ad networks work with bloggers and content creators. So, the ad network acts as a bridge between advertisers and publishers. They help advertisers to advertise their products and publishers to monetize their content by showing ads.
As a blogger, ad networks pay you to display ads on your site. Most ad networks pay on the basis of RPM (Revenue Per Mille or Revenue Per Thousand Views). The RPM varies due to multiple factors. The main two factors are the niche of your blog and the location of your audience. Niches like finance, business, and anything else related to money pay more compared to other niches. And you can make more money if your audience is from English-speaking countries like the US, UK, Canada, and Australia because people from these countries have high spending power and businesses spend more money to advertise their product.
How much Money Can You Make with Ads?
There is no limit on how much money you can make with ads. It depends on the amount of traffic you get and your RPM. For example, if you get 10,000 monthly visitors to your blog and your RPM is $10, then you’ll make $100 per month.
In niches that get millions of views every month, like entertainment and news, the RPM is comparatively low than other niches. You can expect to make $100-$1000 per million views. But in niches related to money like investing and finance, the RPM rates can be sky high, sometimes up to $100 or more. So, you need only a thousand to ten thousand views to make the same amount of money with a finance blog that a news or entertainment blog makes for a million views.
Factors to Consider While Choosing an Ad Network
- Traffic Requirement
- Payout Schedule & Methods
- Trustworthiness of the Ad Network
- Quality of Ads Served – find out the quality and type of ads served by the network. You can’t show spammy ads on your site.
- Impact on Speed of Your Site – the ads should not affect the loading speed of your site.
- Customer Support – the ad network should have a good customer support team.
- Onboarding Process & Fees – they should have a simple onboarding process and should not charge unwanted fees.
1. GOOGLE ADSENSE
Google AdSense is the most popular and widely used ad network in the entire world. Over 2 million creators monetize their blogs using Google AdSense. It is highly trustworthy, as it is a product of Google itself. Last year, AdSense paid nearly $10 billion to its creators.
There is no specific requirement to join it, but I have seen and heard from other creators that you must have legal pages like a Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, About us, etc. to get accepted. Even though there is no traffic requirement to join, a steady flow of traffic can help a lot to get accepted.
You can monetize blogs in nearly every niche and language out there using Google AdSense. Only blogs it doesn’t approve are the ones promoting gambling and adult content. According to most creators using Google AdSense to monetize, it doesn’t affect the speed of your site.
Google AdSense pays somewhere between $0.1 – $3 or more per 1000 views. You can get paid every month once you reach the minimum payout threshold of $100 through bank transfer or check.
Check out 14 Best Sites to Promote Your Blog Posts for Free to Generate Traffic
2. EZOIC
Ezoic is one of the most used ad networks in recent times because of its no requirements to join and high earning potential. It pays 2-3X more than Google AdSense.
You don’t need any traffic to join this ad network. All you need is original and high-quality content. After you apply to join the network, they will reply you within 2 weeks to notify about your application. If you get accepted, you can start showing ads immediately. (Don’t worry! Most blogs get accepted!)
You can monetize blogs in any niche with Ezoic ads, until and unless it has original and high-quality content. There is no exact data on how many blogs use Ezoic to monetize their content, but according to a rough estimate, more than 50,000 blogs use it to show ads and make money.
Ezoic offers a premium publisher program as well, where you need to pay a monthly fee to get higher-paying ads on your blog. Basically, you pay them to get paid more.
Ezoic pays somewhere between $0.5 – $6 or more per 1000 views. You can get paid every month once you reach the minimum payout threshold of $20 through PayPal or bank transfer.
The only drawback about Ezoic is that it slows down your blog. The ads are present everywhere on the blog, which makes it look scammy. Other than that, you’re good to go!
3. ADSTERRA
Adsterra is the best ad network for new bloggers. There is no requirement at all to join it. Websites with no content and .blogspot.com domain gets approved as well. So, if you have a free blog on Blogspot, then also you can monetize it using Adsterra ads.
Over 35,000 blogs use it to monetize their content. You can monetize any kind of blog using it, even adult sites. So, this makes Adsterra a worthy network to join. Even my first ad network was Adsterra. I didn’t make much money with it, but joining it and setting up ads was really, really easy.
Another great thing about Adsterra is its minimum payout threshold and payout schedule. You can get paid once you reach $5 through PayPal, bank transfer, Bitcoin, Paxum, or WebMoney. They pay twice every month.
With Adsterra, you can expect to earn somewhere between $0.1 – $5 or more per 1000 views.
The main drawback about Adsterra is the ads it serves. I was going through a forum and found out most creators saying, Adsterra was serving scammy ads related to gambling and adult content on their blog, even though they had blocked such ads from being shown on their site. So, make sure to do your research if you plan to join it to display ads on your blog.
4. INFOLINKS
Infolinks is one of the oldest and most reliable ad networks out there. Over 350,000 bloggers use it to monetize their content. It pays 70% of the revenue generated to its creators, which is higher compared to other platforms like Google AdSense, which pays 68%.
There is no traffic requirement to join it. All you need is original and high-quality content. They will get back to you within 48 hours after you apply to join their network.
Infolinks is known for its contextual targeting, which matches ads to the content in the blog post. This makes the ads highly relevant to your content.
Infolinks accepts blogs in nearly every niche out there. But they mainly prefer blogs having original and engaging content. Talking about performance, it does slow down your site a little bit, but not much to be concerned about.
On average, they pay $1 – $3 or more per 1000 views. You can get paid every month once you reach the minimum payout threshold of $50 through bank transfer, PayPal, Payoneer, ACH, or eCheck.
5. MEDIAVINE JOURNEY
Mediavine Journey is an ad network launched by the premium ad network Mediavine in March 2024. The main goal of Journey was to help bloggers with less traffic monetize their content with premium ads.
You need 10,000 sessions in the last 30 days to join it. You also need to install a plugin called Groww and run it for at least 1 month in order to get accepted into the network. Through the Groww plugin, they track the amount of traffic you get.
Since its launch in March, thousands of bloggers have used it to monetize their content. The main advantage of Medaivine Journey is that it pays 3-5X more than other networks for the same amount of traffic.
Journey pays somewhere between $3 – $22 per 1000 views. You can get paid every month once you reach the minimum payout threshold of $25 through bank transfer, PayPal, or ACH.
It has the best customer support team and does not slow down the speed of your site.
Wrapping it up
These were the 5 best ad networks for new bloggers to start making money with a brand new blog. If you have no traffic at all, go for either Google AdSense, Ezoic, or Infolinks. But if you have enough traffic to join Mediavine Journey, go for it. There’s no turning back.