Running ads brings in a huge chunk of my income; it feels like a fair trade when I share a free pattern or tutorial! I love that ads are completely passive, earning me money on things I’ve already done, without any extra work. I switched in the middle of last year to Mediavine Publisher Network and have absolutely loved working with them; they don’t have an affiliate program, I’m just sharing in the hopes of spreading the love to fellow bloggers!
I set up Google Adsense from the very beginning, earning pennies each month for at least a year. Later on, I bumped into the concept of “waterfalling” ads, which you can see explained here under the first tip for full-time blogging, and added Amazon CPM ads, finally making more than pennies. Ad networks do all the work of “waterfalling” and running auctions for you, but I thought they were only for huge bloggers. When I heard about Mediavine a few months later, I signed up right away, receiving my first payment in June 2016. It was triple what I had been making; you can always see my quarterly income reports, all linked here! The next two months earned at even a higher level as my site got settled in at the network, and have consistently earned me 3-5 times as much as I would’ve been making with Adsense/Amazon CPM.
I love that Mediavine gives you a lot of control; there is no required set of ads so you can pick and choose to balance between user experience and revenue as you see fit. As of right now, I hover somewhere in the middle, skipping some of the more aggressive options, and haven’t heard any complaints (but it’s hard not to feel like you’re leaving money on the table!).
There is an easy to use interface where you can see your earnings and what ad spots are performing better than others. They have an awesome loyalty bonus just for staying with them, and some “site health” tips for increasing revenue by different site design tweaks.
They’ve always answered my questions quickly and in language I can understand and I have really loved working with them. I have convinced a few blogging friends to switch and heard nothing but “thank you”s so I thought I’d spread the word here too! Please note, their application says “MPN requires at least 25k sessions/ month and ideally 100k sessions/ month to get you approved with all of our ad partners. PLEASE NOTE WE’RE ASKING FOR SESSIONS, NOT PAGEVIEWS.” So, not for brand-new bloggers but a more attainable minimum than some of the other big ad networks.
You can find them online here, and see the ‘apply here’ button up at the top right! Let me know if you have any questions!
Should You Have Ads on Your Blog? - whileshenaps.com
Tuesday 12th of July 2022
[…] Once you’ve sold your audience to advertisers you become motivated to get as many views and clicks as possible. That motivation starts to determine the kind of posts you write. As Alicia rightly points out, round-up posts are an attractive genre because they tend to be big traffic drivers; on Pinterest an image promising 30 free pincushion patterns is going to get lots of repins and clickthroughs. These types of pins tend to build up steam over time so the more round-up posts you can generate the more ad income you’ll earn as the months and years go by. My friend, Stephanie, at SwoodsonSays, is doing a great job building a revenue-generating blog this way. (She talks about how her ads work here). […]
5 Reasons to join the Craft Industry Alliance - Swoodson Says
Saturday 29th of January 2022
[…] don’t write a ton about blogging but when I love something, I want to share it (like the ad network I use!). I joined the Craft Industry Alliance (CIA), started by Abby from While She Naps and Kristin from […]
2braxton
Wednesday 12th of January 2022
2campfire
Jenny
Thursday 28th of December 2017
Thank you for such a great post. We're so glad you're with us and ready for an even better 2018. Happy New Year!
elvira
Sunday 30th of April 2017
thank you for sharing this! I've been blogging for a long time, maybe it's time to do ads more seriously.
Stephanie - Swoodson Says
Sunday 14th of May 2017
It's easy money in my book :) Glad you enjoyed it!