Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) is one of the best method of making money online through your website or blog. CPM is also known as Cost Per Million Impressions. You get paid for every one thousand ad impressions. For example, if you have 20,000 page views every day and you show one ad unit on every page of your website, then you’ll roughly have 20,000 impressions for that ad. If the CPM rate you’re getting is $3; you’ll earn $60 every day.
Earning from CPM ads = (Number of Impressions / 1000) x CPM Rate
When we apply this CPM formula on the above given scenario, we get:
(20,000 / 1000) x 3 = $60 per day.
What say you? $60 per day is decent income —isn’t it?
I hope that makes the basics of CPM ads clear. But the next question is how to get CPM ads? In this article, I will tell you the top 10 CPM ad networks where from you can get CPM ads for your blog or website.
Before we look at the top CPM ad networks, let me first answer a questions that many of you might be thinking about. Google AdSense is the most popular and the best ad network out there with highest CPC rate. Google AdSense pays you when a visitor clicks on an advertisement. If your ad is getting displaying 20,000 times but your visitors are not clicking the ad, you’ll earn nothing. So, the model of Google AdSense is mainly Cost Per Click or CPC. Google AdSense supports a ads in various languages, including Hindi.
Unlike CPC method, in CPM you get paid just for displaying ads. CPM ad networks are also good alternatives of Google AdSense for monetizing your web content. Many bloggers fail to get approval from Google AdSense, and many lose their approval because of violating the AdSense terms of service. CPM networks are a blessing for these bloggers and webmasters.
When advertisers are looking for real sale or action to take place, they prefer to give you Cost Per Action or Cost Per Sale ad campaigns. The payout is highest in CPA and CPS campaigns but the likelihood of visitors taking some action is less. Lets understand is by taking an example.
Let’s assume you’re displaying an ad on your website. A visitor comes to a page in your website and the ad gets displayed. This display will count as one impression. If you get such one thousand impressions —you can get paid by CPM rate. If that visitor clicks on the ad —you’ll earn some amount under CPC model. After clicking, when the visitor goes to the website of advertiser and their she registers herself —this will be an action and you’ll earn under CPA model. After registration, if the visitors buy a product from the website of advertiser —that will be counted as a sale and you’ll earn your commission under CPS model.
Payment rate is least in CPM and highest in CPS method. But likelihood of becoming eligible for a payment is highest in CPM and least in CPS method.
Payment rate: CPS > CPA > CPC > CPM
Likelihood of achieving target: CPM > CPC > CPA > CPS
In order to get high income from CPC, CPA or CPS models, you would need to have high click-through rate (CTR)
If your blog is getting a large number of visitors, joining CPM ad campaigns would be a good idea to earn money online. For CPC ads, Google AdSense is indisputably the best ad network. But which are the good CPM ad networks? Let’s take a look on the tops CPM ad networks.
New York based CPX Interactive offers the following types of ad banners:
- Banner (468×60)
- Leaderboard (728×90)
- Skyscraper (120×600)
- Wide skyscraper (160×600)
- Pop-unders
- Pop-ups
- Interstitials
- Pre-pops.
You can place these ads wherever you have enough space in your website. CPX pay on the basis of NET 30 terms and the minimum payout is $50. This means that you will get paid 30 days after the end of month in which you achieve $50 mark.
What is NET 30 Terms?
Let’s say you begin to show CPM ads on your website on 01 March and you earn $10 on the first day. You will not get paid this $10 amount as the minimum payout is $50. Now let’s assume that you reach $50 mark on 05 March. Now you’re eligible for payment but you will get payment on 30 April (i.e. 30 days after the month end in which you achieve the minimum payout mark. Most of the CPM ad networks make payment in NET 30 terms mode.
CPX gives you the option of getting payment through PayPal, wire transfer or by cheque. PayPal is the easiest method of receiving payment.
San Fransisco based Technorati was founded in 2008 by Dave Sifry. It is one of the largest ad networks in the world. They claim about 300 million unique visitors every month. Technorati offers high quality CPM ads which are suitable for most of the niches.
Minimum payout in Technorati is $50 but they follow the NET 60 terms payment model. To get paid, you will have to wait for 60 days after the month in which you earn $50. Technorati can pay you by PayPal, cheque, wire transfer.
Technorati is a trusted CPM ad network and most people have reported a good experience with them.
One of the drawbacks on Technorati is that they need you to be exclusive; which means that you can not show CPM ads from other networks. However, the good thing is that you can mix Google AdSense and Technorati ads on the same page. So, you get the best of both the worlds! Technorati pays good enough CPM rates and AdSense is the best in CPC rates.
Getting into Tribal Fusion ad program is pretty tough. First of all, they need you to have at least 5,000 unique visitors per day. So, your website or blog needs to be high traffic if you want to show Tribal Fusion ads.
Tribal Fusion is among the best CPM ad networks. It is also the toughest one to get into. If you get through and you Tribal Fusion account gets approved, your reward will be pretty high CPM rate. They give you quality ads and high CPM rates. Minimum payout is $50.
If you get a Tribal Fusion account, you may earn even more than what you can earn from Google AdSense. This is because Tribal Fusion deals with very high quality advertisers in the fields like automobiles, consumer electronics, movies, travel, health, sports, mobile devices and information technology etc.
You can even use Tribal Fusion ads as the backup ads in Google AdSense.
Advertising.com is an AOL company. The company claims that it monetizes about 1.5 billion impressions every day. They have both CPM and RevShare (Revenue Share) models of payment to the publishers. Minimum payout amount at Advertising.com is $25 and you can opt to get payment through PayPal, wire transfer or cheque. They follow NET 30 payment frequency. Requirements of Advertising.com is moderate. If you have 500,000 impressions (page views), you have a chance to get into this network.
Conversant Media, formerly known as ValueClick Media, provides CPM ads from premium advertisers. They claim to have clients, including:
- 3 of the top 4 cellular carriers
- 7 of the top 10 auto manufacturers
- 8 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies
- 70 of the top 100 retailers
- 96 of the top travel companies
- 245 of the Internet Retailer 500
Minimum payout given by Conversant Media is $25 and they send you the payment by PayPal or cheques. Getting into Conversant Media is relatively easy and even the blogs and websites with moderate traffic can hope to be approved.
Burst Media needs at least 25,000 page views per month and 5,000 unique visitors per month. If you have that kind of traffic on your website, you can apply for Burst Media CPM solution. Payout threshold is $50 and Burst Media also uses the common methods of payment like PayPal and Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT).
Adtegrity CPM Advertising works on NET 60 terms and they will pay you only after you’ve reached $20 limit of earning. Like most of the CPM ad networks, Adtegrity also says that the CPM rates will depend on several factors, like amount of traffic on your website, quality of traffic, availability of ads etc. Adtegrity does not allow you to choose ads that you want to display on your website. They automatically show the best possible ads. This is good for you because you would not need to worry about changing ad code. On the flip side, you may sometime lose out on high value advertisements.
CloveNetwork offers you CPM ads in addition to the CPC, CPI, CPA, CPL ads as well. They claim to have a transparent pricing model. CloveNetwork says that they will tell you how much money they are making and how much share you’re getting for running their ads. They manually do ad optimization; that is to say that they have a team of people who select ads for your website. CloveNetwork tries to show the ads that will work the best on your website.
Axill works on NET 30 payment model and pays you through Skrill or Wire Transfer (those of you don’t know Skrill is a PayPal like e-commerce company that facilitates money transfer). Like most of the top CPM ad networks, Axill also has ad optimization and reporting system in place so that you know how exactly you’re doing in CPM ad business.
Vibrant Media offers In-Text advertisements. Their scripts will go through the text on your web page and link the appropriate words and phrases to the advertiser’s page. The linked words / phrases are those that the advertisers buy. In addition, they have image overlay ads as well. If your web page has one or more images bigger than 200 x 175 pixels, Vibrant Media can show ad overlay on top of these images.
I would highly recommend that you try Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) advertisements on your website. These CPM ad networks can act as good AdSense alternatives. Beyond doubt, Google AdSense is still the best earning option but if you have good amount of traffic on your website, you must not let your page views go waste. Cost Per Click (CPC) ads are good but most bloggers receive only up to 5% of click-through rate (CTR). This means 95% of your page views go waste. It will make sense if you could convert every page view (or impression) into earning from your blog.
Here, I would also like to say a word of caution. Do not think that CPM ads can make you rich overnight. Most of the CPM ad networks pay very small amount for every thousand impressions. Those who pay high CPM rates, they demand high traffic also. So, if you have good amount of traffic (lets say at least 500,000 pageviews per month) then you can make pretty decent income from your website using CPM ads. For less popular blogs and websites, you may have to be satisfied with smaller amounts. But then something is better than nothing!
As an advice, I would also say that you should try to strike a balance. Showing several CPM advertisements (especially along with Google AdSense ads) may slow down your website. Slow websites are not liked by visitors. Search engines also don’t like slow websites. So, if you’re using ads on your website, I would suggest that you do a cost benefit analysis of it. You should not lose more speed than it is worth in terms of making money. If it is not worth it, you should remove some ads from your blog or website. Also, try different CPM ad networks and see which one gives you the best performance in terms of speed and earnings.
I hope this information on top CPM ad networks was useful for you. Should you have any questions in this regard, please feel free to comment and ask. I will try my best to assist you. Thank you for using TechWelkin!
Nice article. I just got disabled by adsense and was looking for it alternate and find your article.
Hello
CPM ads networks are best for those who don’t get enough clicks on ads that are placed on their blogs. You have shared a great list of CPM ad networks to make money from impressions.
I will surely share this article with my friends and blogging mates to help them make money from CPM ad networks.
Thanks for sharing and helping.
Firstly it’s a great article. Thanks for such useful information. I just recently started off with a website with my friends. I needed some help to optimize my revenue. As we’ve just started off, I know that the income is going to be really low. But all I wanted to know what are the good practices or ways to optimize the CPM ads on my website. I wanted to know things like:
1) What category of website earns the most out of a CPM ad agency?
2) How many ads per page gives the best outcome? Is it best to have 1 ad per page from 1 ad agency or many ads per page from the same ad agency? Or is it better to have 1 ad from 1 ad agency and work with many ad agencies like that?
3)What size of banner makes the most money? Also, what are the best possible placements of ads on a page? 4)Usually which country’s traffic fetches maximum earnings?
I’ll be extremely grateful to receive a reply to this. This will help me a lot.
Hi Paul, your questions have no specific answers. It all depends on a large number of factors. If you have just started your website, I would suggest that you focus mainly on building good quality content. Also, I would suggest that you use Google AdSense as your main ad network. Later when your website is established, then you should look beyond and do experiments with CPM networks. These companies give different results in case of different websites depending upon the website’s niche, country, ad placement strategy etc.
Who can give me information about Mango ADV network?
I am happy to be of help, Mukarram! I hope you get more help from my articles. Stay in touch with TechWelkin.
Hi
What about “CPM RATE” of each website?
That is the most important factor.
thankyou
Hi Raha, no CPM network will guarantee specific any CPM rate. Also, CPM rate gets better with time and increasing traffic.
Which is the best CPM ad Network for Hindi blogs, please.
Kanishk, I have never used CPM ads on my Hindi websites, but I have seen a lot of people use Infolinks. You may try them.
Hey Lalit, quite an informative article. Could also specify what kind od CPM rates does the 4-5 CPM ad-networks provide. I do understand it would differ from site to site but is there any ballpark figure??
Mayank, the CPM rate you get depends on a number of factors, like traffic, quality of traffic, number clicks, niche etc. So, it can not really be predicted. Also, initially CPM rates tend to be low. If you stick with a network for longer time, you may get better CPM rates.
Hello Lalitbhai
I would wonder after reading your post it gives lots of knowledge about adsense atlernative but lalitbhai my which ads blocks give more money to us.
ads block selection are required for website or Not?
Well, I personally do not like intrusive ad units (like popups and pop-under) but it is said that they pay better than the standard ad units. However, I would suggest that you go by what you like and not by what pays better.
Nice Post. But most of the advertisement networks supports english only
That is, unfortunately, a truth.
Dear lalit, we would love to read a post about your blog earnings and advertising strategy.
Very Nice and informative article.