Google Adsense is a must have in any webmasters tool box, it is easy to integrate, backed by a trusted company, and is arguably one of the most popular ways to turn web traffic in cash. That being said, you likely are looking for an alternative because your account was either banned, or you are having issues getting your account approved. I am going to cover the best adsense alternatives as there are a few other networks that are comparable. I will cover the basics of affiliate marketing and promoting amazon products as these produce more revenue per visitor when done right. Finally, I am going to give you some tips to get back into Google’s good graces – because Adsense is the best choice, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.
Below are the top 5 alternatives to Google Adsense, each contains a brief overview, as well as the payment terms, ad types available, and publisher requirements. I encourage you to jump right in, select a network, and start generating revenue once again.
It is worthwhile for me to mention that if your account was banned for a legitimate reason, joining a new network is not going to help. Every network that has a payout that is worth pursuing will have a team of employees that ensure their publishers are complying with the terms of service, and will ban your account if you are found to be in breach of the terms.
That being the case, I encourage you to take a second look at your website and its content before investing your time in applying to a new network.
Alternatives to Adsense
Media.net
If you are looking for a plug and play replacement for Adsense, Media.net is going to be your first choice. Media.net is to Yahoo! and Bing, as Adsense is to Google. This platform is going to be as close as you’re going to get to Adsense in terms of sophistication, targeting, ad inventory, and payout rates. Media.net provides one on one support for its publishers, which should be a nice change of pace for anyone changing over from Adsense.
Media.net serves all verticals and has no traffic minimums, but your content must be primarily in English.
Types of ads offered: CPC Display.
Payout: Every 45 days, via check or wire. Minimum payment threshold is at $50
Publisher Requirements: Majority of traffic originates from US, Canada, or United Kingdom. Site must be primarily in English.
Infolinks
Infolinks is an ad platform that was created to beat banner blindness by offering in text, in fold, in tag, and in frame ads. You may have seen their signature style of ads on the web before – typically when you see a keyword with a double underline, that displays an ad when your cursor hovers over it – its an Infolinks in text ad. Infolinks claims to use the most valuable keywords on your page for this type of ad, which can reward creative marketers that carefully integrate more valuable keywords into their content.
There have been past targeting complaints by publishers using this platform , leading to a lesser amount of clicks and thus revenue.
Types of ads offered: proprietary, similar to text links. CPC and CPM.
Payout: 45 days from end of month, minimum payout of $50 for paypal and $100 for bank wires and transfers.
Publisher Requirements: Open to all levels, no minimum page view thresholds.
Chitika
For those familiar with Adsense, Chitika’s platform and dashboard will be very familiar to you. Chitika only serves contextual ads, and has a very similar ad styling suite to Adsense. Easy to implement and with a very low payment threshold, this ad network makes it easy to get started and start testing.
Chitika only serves ads on pages that are in English, unless prior consent is given from their team and has been criticized for low ad relevancy in the past.
Types of ads offered: CPC Display and In-Line text ads.
Payout: Net 30, minimum threshold is $10 for PayPal and $50 for checks.
Publisher Requirements: No traffic requirements, content must be primarily in English.
Adversal
Adversal excels in having a great account management team, serving ads for multiple languages, and some really strong banner images. They do have a minimum traffic level, and that is currently at 50k views per month. If you have that kind of traffic, the approval process goes very quickly and you can be up and running in a few days time. Adversal also offers the CPM model for standard ads and their pop under ads.
Types of ads offered: CPC, CPM, Display, Banner and Pop Under.
Payout: $20 minimum payment threshold, Net 35.
Publisher Requirements: 50k monthly views from the United States.
Qadabra
This network has an easy to use platform, offering popups, slider ads, and a really healthy cut of the generated revenue, 80%. They serve every vertical, but you have to manually select which ones will display on your site. They only offer CPM and the ads are global, and you can monetize traffic from anywhere, but the CPM rate is much lower. This network really caters to smaller webmasters looking to get their feet wet.
Types of ads offered: Popups, Slider ads, CPM.
Payout: Net 45, $1 minimum payment threshold.
Publisher Requirements: None
Affiliate Marketing and Amazon Associates
If you master affiliate marketing, your sites revenue can easily increase ten fold. Adsense is based on paying publishers for every click, while affiliate marketing is primarily based on paying publishers for every sale. Companies that pay per sale are able to offer much higher payouts by passing the risk on to the publisher. By positioning yourself to be paid on the sale of a product, you are taking more of a risk upfront, your new goal is sending the right people to sales pages, instead of focusing on sending more people. In the beginning this is more difficult. You will have to have a deep understanding of your sites audience, find products they need, and present that product to them in a way that will increase their likelihood of purchasing. It can be a lot of work upfront, but when you find the right product and market it correctly you stand to dwarf your past Adsense earnings.
Because this takes some time (depending on experience), I recommend you monetize your site in the meantime with one of the networks above.
Getting started in affiliate marketing can be broken down into a few steps.
1. Get to know your audience.
This is the absolutely most important piece of the puzzle, get this right and every other step will be easy. Take your time and do some in depth research. Remember that you are now taking on more responsibility for the sale of the product, and some pre-selling will be necessary. That being said, things are sold because of emotions, get to know your audience’s psyche, its not enough to know their age range, gender, and income, get in touch with what their generation is all about, the greater the emotional involvement in issues or problems they experience, the higher the conversions.
2. Choose the right product.
Now that you know your audience like the back of your hand, its time to find the perfect product. It shouldn’t be a stretch at this point to say that you can relate to them enough to be able to solve one of their problems, and relate to them on an emotional level. Once you have isolated the problem you want to solve – its on to finding the perfect product. Here are some resources to get you started –
clickbank.com – specializes in informational products
cj.com – specializes in name brand products and services
amazon associates – allows you to take a commission from the sale of amazon products (more on this later)
3. Appeal to Your Audience
In the realm of sales, we leave our logical debate skills behind – and appeal emotionally to our audience. First present the problem that your audience has, use language that reflects how your audience speaks about this problem and infuse their emotions about the problem into your appeal. This is all about reminding them of the issue at hand and how it affects them on an emotional level before giving them the opportunity to solve their problem on the next page. Once you appeal to your audience, give them what they want, and send them to the product page!
4. Test
No matter how well your offer is converting, how much money your site is now generating, you need to split test. As good as things could be at this point, you may only be tapping into the well. This is the step that most people neglect, and leads to a lot of people preferring to simply run ads. This is absolutely one of the best Adsense alternatives, and will continue to be in 2015 and well beyond.
How to Get into Adsense – If you were banned
If you were banned, there are a few things you need to do before proceeding. First, be honest with yourself – were you breaching the terms? If you were, you need to address that issue first and foremost, but also understand that the site that you were caught breaching the terms on is likely banned at this point, and you are better off pursuing an Adsense alternative above.
If you were banned from Adsense, your email account associated with the account received an email stating why. These emails are usually very vague, and you won’t get anything more from their team. If you are 100% sure you did not break the terms, you can file an appeal. Appeals very rarely overturn the decision, and are likely to fall on deaf ears. If you did not receive an email, it is likely that simply your site has been banned, but your account is not disabled.
Now its time to get back into Adsense.
Google tracks who each account belongs to by matching things like personal names, company names bank accounts, websites, and publisher ids. The only successful way people get second, third, and even fourth accounts is by setting up additional companies. These companies need to be legally separate from you or your past company, meaning LLC’s and Corporations do the trick here. You will also need a new bank account for this company.
It is critical that when you apply as this new entity, the site that you use on your application is not the same site that was banned, or the site that got your old account banned. If you really want to play it safe, ensure your new domain is registered privately, and can in no way be tied to you or the company name that the Adsense account was held in.
Before you apply…
Improving your Chances of Being Accepted into Adsense
As I have stated above, there are alternatives to Google Adsense, but no real substitutes. If you cannot get approved, try these tips to help you get your foot in the door. You should of done this by now, but go read the terms of service and the program policies. You need to 100% be sure that your website is currently up to date with all program policies, and your content is where it needs to be. Take a look over your content before re-applying, there are likely some improvements that can be made.
Next you want to take a look at your site from a non marketing point of view. Have a friend or family member look over your site, does everything look up to par? Are they feeling that the site looks spammy? The point of this exercise is to get a non technical pair of eyes to give you an opinion, they will likely perceive your site in a different light than you do, and this can clue you in to any reservations the Adsense team is having about your website.
Finally it is worth mentioning that removing any other ads, affiliate offers, and amazon products can help improve your chances here. You want to portray yourself as a simple website, looking to make a buck on your amazing content, that you produced out of the goodness of your heart.