Make More Money: The Best Ad Platforms for New Bloggers

This post may contain affiliate links. See affiliate disclaimer here.

This post may contain affiliate links. See affiliate disclaimer here.

**If you need to set up your own blog, check out my guide to building a blog here!**

When I first started blogging, I had NO idea that you could earn money from writing it let a lone how to do it. I was the only one of my friends that had a blog & the blogs I read were huge so I assumed they only had sponsorships.

After seeing bloggers leave their full time jobs to blog, I knew I had to be missing something so I researched. And researched and researched. And found there are many ways to earn a solid & dignified income.

The first and the absolute easiest way is with display ads.

I’ve broken this into two parts:
DISPLAY ADS 101
HOW TO START EARNING

Feel free to skip to how to start earning if you are familiar with all of this already!

WHAT ARE DISPLAY ADS?
Display ads are the responsive units on the sidebar, top of page or in articles of blogs. You’ll see these on just about every blog or site you visit, and most of the time there are multiple on one page.

WHAT KIND OF ADS CAN I USE?
— Static Images (just an image, no video)
— Animated images (video, moving images)
— Text (typically link copy that is directly related to your blog post)
— In post links

WHAT SIZE ADS CAN I USE? WHERE DO I PLACE THEM?
Follow this link here to images of the most commonly sized ads and where to place them.

WHAT DO THESE ADS LOOK LIKE?
I’m sure you are familiar but just in case:

IMAGE BASED

TEXT BASED:

LINK BASED:

UNDERSTANDING HOW TO GET PAID
There are a lot of keywords that these platforms will use that you have never heard before – at least, I know I never heard them before. Here is a breakdown of the terms you should know when getting paid.

Important lingo:

Impressions – Number of times an ad is viewed.

CTR (Click Through Rate) – Number of ad clicks divided by the number of impressions.

CPC (Cost Per Click) – Amount you’re paid each time an ad is clicked.

CPM (Cost per 1,000 impressions) – Amount paid per 1,000 ad impressions

RPM (Revenue per thousand impressions) – Amount paid for all ads displayed on a page per 1,000 impressions (total earnings per page)

Minimum Pay Out – Amount you must earn in a time period before you are paid (this varies by platform)

THE BEST AD PLATFORM OPTIONS FOR NEW BLOGGERS
There are a TON of ad platforms out there and they all have their own merits. The platforms that I am recommending are based on a few things. Considering this post is aimed towards new bloggers, I know that your blogs might not have super high traffic or a ton of content already.  You can be rejected from ad platforms for not meeting a certain number of posts and you can also be rejected if your pageviews aren’t over a certain number (typically 100K pageviews a month is the minimum). If you guys prefer seeing all options, let me know below and I will update!

I’ve also listed these in order of lowest to highest pay thresholds because who doesn’t want to get paid quicker?

VIGLINK
Viglink creates in post affiliate links on what your post is about. Why this works so well is that instead of signing up for a million different affiliate programs, you signup with Viglink and they do all the work for you. This is a great platform and also pairs really well with other ad platforms like Media.Net or Adsense.

Minimum Pay Out: No minimum
Start making money by signing up here.

SNIPS
Social influencers – this is a MUST for you! Share content or instantly schedule posts across social channels, track audience engagement in real-time, and monetize your influence across all of their social networks.

Minimum Payout: No minimum via Paypal
Start making money by signing up here.

SOVRN
Specializing in display image ads, SOVRN serves up a great selection of ads while also having a very ow threshold. This ad platform would pair well with Viglinks & Media.net.

Minimum Pay Out: $25
Start making money by signing up here.

SHAREASALE
This is the best option for anyone with a small but loyal audience! This is an affiliate network (so you can have display ads + links) but I really like that you can handpick the ads you place specific to your niche or a brand you know will get a lot of clicks. With over 4K brands to choose from, there will definitely be something for everyone. I would use this one for the links & match it with one of the display ad platforms.

Minimum Payout: $50
Start making money by signing up here.

 

Media.net
This platform offers up textual ads that will fit perfectly into every blogpost. Their ads pull from your post content in order to serve up very clickable & relatable links.

Minimum Payout: $100
Start making money by signing up here.

ADSENSE
This is always everyone’s go-to platform. I like Adsense, but I would definitely look into supplementing it with ShareASale or Viglinks listed above to earn more.

Minimum Payout: $100
Start making money by signing up here.