I love Google adsense for a lot of reasons; it is easy to setup, reliable, can work on both desktop and mobile sites, it pays on time and it pays better than other networks.
Why would you need an alternative to Adsense?
There are cases though that you need an alternative solution that can work together with Adsense or as a standalone system.
In the majority of cases, you may consider something else when:
You are banned from Adsense – It is possible to lose your Google Adsense account especially if you are not aware how adsense works.
There are strict rules and if you fail to follow them for any reason, you are out of the system once and for all.
You hate Google – Some people wrongly believe that everything Google is evil and they don’t want to use Google products even if a product will make them money.
You want to show more ads – If you have a big scrolling page you may need to show a couple of more ads from another network.
You want to diversify your earnings – This is not a bad approach. Keeping all your eggs in one basket is not a good business decision.
Although adsense pays well, you may want to have an alternative solution ready just in case something goes wrong with your Adsense Account.
Best Adsense Alternatives
If you try and search Google for “best adsense alternatives” you will get a list of advertising networks that offer all sorts of ads from CPC (cost per click) to CPM (cost per thousands impressions), popup, fly-out banners and many more.
The problem with most of these Ad networks is that you don’t know how they work, you don’t know what kind of ads they will display on your website and most important of all you are not sure if the money you will receive is at least comparable to adsense.
A few years back I decided to look for an ad network that is similar to adsense (to use it as a backup just in case) and after trying a few, I found that one network has most of the functions Adsense has and it is also supported by Google’s main competitors, Yahoo and Bing.
Media.net – The best alternative to Google Adsense
Media.net (which I am not affliated in any way with them) is the network that manages Yahoo! and Bing Contextual ads. The company has more than 500 employees and is growing steadily over the years not only because of their relationship with Yahoo! and Bing but also because they have partnerships with really large websites and advertisers.
To gain access to the system you have to pass through an approval process since one of the nicests things about media.net is that they only accept English language websites with high quality content and a decent amount for US, Canada or UK traffic.
Once you get in you will notice that in terms of features, it is similar to Adsense. In particular:
- It has a flexible pricing model. People that like CPC can choose to be paid when someone clicks on their ads while others may choose to get paid per CPM.
- Different types of ads that can be customized for size, type and colour.
- Easy implementation.
- Support for both desktop and mobile ads.
- Highly contextual ads. This means that the ads to be shown on your website are going to be relevant to the website content.
- Can work with Google Adsense – You can run media.net ads and adsense ads in the same website.
- Easy to use dashboard.
- Nice reporting.
In terms of payment which is the most important:
- You will get paid by month.
- You can get paid directly by PayPal.
Media.net VS Adsense – RPM (Revenue per thousands impressions)
When it comes to calculating earnings from Ads, it is common to use the RPM as a comparative metric. What I have done to test how does media.net compares to Adsense, was to place adsense and media.net on the same website and compare the results.
Although Adsense ads where placed in a more prominent position than media.net ads, their performance was not bad.
The screenshots below show for the same period how much revenue adsense and media.net generated from the same website. If you notice, adsense had more requests and revenue but this is normal since as I mentioned above adsense ads were placed in better positions.
Nevertheless this test proves that both Adsense and media.net ads can work together without any problems and that media.net is not a bad alternative to Google Adsense.
Other alternatives to Adsense besides Media.net
Besides media.net other networks that have a good reputation as adsense alternatives (or that can work together with Adsense) are chitika.com, adversal and infolinks. I did use some of them but in my opinion the closest to Adsense is media.net
What is your experience with other networks besides Adsense, are they are good alternatives worth trying?
If is not Adsense, it can’t be like Adsense :p
Hi Don
That’s true but it’s also good to know some alternatives to Adsense in case you need it for any reason. Adsense is great that’s why it became what it is.
Thanks
sir can u tell me which is the best in cpm and cpc.
and what is the difference both
Hi Ajay
CPC – Cost Per Click. When you have ads running on your website that are CPC ads this means that you get paid every time someone clicks on your ads.
CPM – Cost per thousand impressions – You get paid when your ads receive 1000 views. For comparison purposes most ad networks (including adsense) convert the CPC to CPM so that you know how much you earn from clicks every 1000 impressions.
Hope this helps
Alex
Nice post about Adsense alternatives I have applied to Media.net but Media.net is not accepting applications having less than 100000 page views per month, can you please tell how to generate such traffic every month, or you have any other idea how to get approved please.
Hi Joshi
There is no simple answer to your question. We all want to get more traffic to our websites that’s why we work on SEO, social media, content marketing, email marketing etc. I suggest you take a look at other articles on this blog on how to start building traffic and higher rankings.
Thanks
will the Media.net accept the indian traffic and what is their average ecpm for asian traffic.
Hi
I cannot answer your question, please talk with them directly.
Thanks
Alex
Infolinks is a great alternative of Google Adsense. I’ve been using Infolinks for more than 4 months and it has generated me a very good earnings when my adsense account got banned. Thanks for sharing
Hi Alex, Media.net is the best adsense alternative but what about infolinks? Can I use it? What are the difference between media.net and Infolinks? As many bloggers have also mentioned infolinks as the best alternative.
I see most of people saying infolinks is best AdSense alternative. i don’t think that. I tried infolinks recently. Infolinks give Lowest amount of ecpm. I recommend you people try Propellerads ads.
Thank you very much for your in-depth analysis of google Adsense. I will apply for Google Adsense after few days when I will follow your invaluable suggestions.