Top 14 Best Paying CPC/PPC Ad Networks

PPC ad networks are pretty much proven models that can provide profits for webmasters who publish ads using them.

But which CPC/PPC ad network should you join? or which one is the top ppc ad network? So, here we have for you, the 13 Top PPC Ad Networks.

Before we start, we’d like to let you know that rating them can be a problem, but there are ways in which you can determine which one is best for your monetization needs.

One of the more obvious ways to see if a network is any good would be the traffic volume it generates and how many advertisers it has. More advertisers translates to more people competing for your ad space.

Just as important, you should find out about their ads’ conversion rate. Finally, there’s also the average click pricing to consider.

The basic question is: which of the PPC ad networks will make you the most money or which one is the best ad network? Irrespective of what network you use or plan to use, I recommend to A/B test ad placements, size to improve your click-through-rates and eCPM (Disclaimer: AdPushup is an Ad Revenue tool which does this testing to improve ad revenues from ad networks)

With the following ad networks, you’ll get the best possible odds of making money off ads. There’s no such thing as a sure thing, but you may as well arm yourself with the most promising ad network candidates:

1. Infolinks

Infolinks is the 3rd largest monetization network today, after Google AdSense and Amazon Associates. They generate high revenue for over 200,000 online publishers in 130 countries. Infolinks is one of the more popular supplementary income sources because their ad units are comparatively unobtrusive – they don’t have standard banner space. Instead, the ads appear minimized or in hyperlinks, and visitors need only to hover their mouse pointers over the links for the ads to appear.

Infolinks ads are native, free to use, work great with all other ad solutions and don’t interfere with the user’s experience. Approval time to Infolinks is quite short, and that’s because it’s based on your site’s content and not on the amount of traffic you generate. The installation is super easy with a code you simply add to the body of your website. You can even use a plugin that does the work for you if you use WordPress, Joomla, Blogger or Drupal.

You have lots of control over the ads as to location and number, and their support team is very friendly and quick to respond. Infolinks’ advertisers are selected based on their quality, that’s why they work with the best brands in the world like Facebook, Amazon, Taboola, Ebay, Ali Express, Pizza Hut, TripAdvisor and many more.

Bonus Network: AdRecover

AdRecover is an ad network which exclusively works on recovering your ad blocked inventory, which most publishers are currently not monetizing. Hence this opens a new avenue for publishers to increase their ad revenue by 10-35% by monetizing their ad blocked traffic, which most existing networks (including other networks in this list) cannot monetize since they are blocked by ad blockers.

Through AdRecover, you can measure as well as monetize your ad blocked traffic. Since Ad block users are a sensitive audience, AdRecover maintains a very fine balance between user experience and Monetization, by showing user-friendly ads (that is no rich media, popups, auto-play video, flash ads, etc) and controlling the ad coverage on every page. They also provide website visitors an option to provide feedback about the ads and control their ad experience.

Great solution for publishers who are not generating any revenue from ad blocked traffic at the moment. Click here to know more about AdRecover.

2. Media Net

This is the Yahoo-Bing ad network and this PPC ad network pretty much gives you an idea of just how dominant Google’s PPC ad network is. Internet giants like Yahoo and Microsoft actually had to combine their efforts and resources in order to offer a viable ad network alternative to AdSense.

Media Net gives you relevant ads, and you also have tools to track your performance in real time. You can control how the ads look so that they fit right in with your color palette, and you can filter advertisers and block ad topics. While the number of advertisers can actually compare to Google’s, the conditions for being approved may actually be more difficult for many international bloggers.

Aside from the usual conditions such as having high quality traffic and content, your site’s visitors should mostly come from the US, Canada, or the UK. You’re also required to use English as your site’s primary language.

3. Adbuff

Adbuff is one of the strongest performing PPC ad networks thanks to their innovative and highly competitive real-time bidding (RTB) platform. Adbuff puts the largest advertisers in the world against one another to bid for clicks on publisher sites. As a result, publishers enjoy the highest PPC rates available in the industry.

Adbuff is a premium PPC ad network that has strict approval guidelines for publishers and advertisers. They are currently accepting publishers who have English sites with a majority of the traffic coming from USA, Canada, Australia and the UK. Publisher sites require at least 2,000 unique visitors per day. Approval times can take between 5 – 7 days and every approved site will receive a $25 welcome bonus for signing up.

For premium publishers who are looking for a high rate PPC ad network, Adbuff is the first ad network you should look at.

4. Google AdSense

No list of this type would be complete without mentioning the Google Ad network (The Undisputed King of PPC Ad networks or easily the best ad network). For bloggers and other website owners, the place to go is Google AdSense.

One of the main benefits of AdSense is that Google works with millions of advertisers (it’s Google’s main source of income) and this makes it more likely that they can deliver ads that are both relevant and high quality which in turns leads to a higher CTR and more money for you.

As the website owner, you can control just what types of ads appear on pages of your site. You’ll have access to reports and metrics which can show just how effective your website is working for you. It’s very easy to use, and there are no signup fee involved. If, you already use Adsense, read some testing and optimization tips to increase your Adsense earnings. You’ll get to display ads that are associated with the interests of your visitors, and you get paid depending on the number of visitors who click on the ads on your site. You can also put in a custom search bars on your site, and earn money from the ads that appear on the search results page. You just need to have sufficient ad space and decide where the ads should go. Advertisers then participate in a real time auction to appear in your ad spaces and the highest paying ads then appear on your reserved ad spaces. This video shows you how the auction works.

A lot of people make money from Adsense, so what’s the catch? If Google AdSense is so good, why doesn’t everyone use it? The simple reason why- not everyone uses Adsense is that not everyone is approved to join the network. You have to be approved, and that means you have to comply with all the conditions Google has laid out. For example, if the primary language you use in your ad is not among their list of supported languages, then you’re out of luck.

Many former AdSense members have also been suspended because they’ve been accused of click fraud. Of course, being accused is not the same as being guilty, but Google is both your accuser and judge. If they say they’re suspending your account, there’s not much you can do. You can appeal, but since you’re also appealing to Google… well, you get the idea. So make sure your never completely dependent on it. So despite the Google monolith, there’s space for ad network alternatives out there.

5. Revcontent

Revcontent is one of the biggest content recommendation platforms on the internet. Even though Revcontent was founded several years after its competitors Outbrain and Taboola, it has managed to play catch up exceedingly well and currently serves 100 billion content recommendations a month across the globe with a growth rate of 900% last year.

Revcontent rejects almost 98% of websites that apply – focusing therefore on the quality of its publisher network rather than the quantity. This strategy has helped Revcontent generate higher revenues, better engagement rates, and loyal audiences for their partners.

As part of continuous product improvement efforts, they’ve just launched Revcontent v2, which features an intuitive user interface that enables transparent reporting and easier customization of widgets.

6. Bidvertiser

While not quite as well-known as the first two, Bidvertiser does have some benefits especially if you’ve been banned from AdSense for some reason. If you have a website and you want to join, there are the usual conditions such as not allowing adult sites as well as those sites that sell illegal drugs and those with too much profanity and hate speech. You can’t join if your website is under construction, or if your site already has too much advertising to begin with.

However, many have commented that the approval process is quick and easy because there seems to be no requirement regarding traffic volume and language used. There’s an easy installation with an HTML code to be added to your webpages, and you can easily change the appearance of the ads. The payout may not be as high per click, but you earn money not just on clicks but on conversions as well. Conversions are when the clicking visitor goes to the advertiser’s website and actually makes a purchase.

There are still problems, though. If you are focused on a small niche, then the ads that appear may not be all that relevant to your site. And the reporting is not quite as detailed as they ought to be; you don’t get a lot of info regarding impressions or click through rates.

7. Chitika

While the AdSense-deprived website owners may be flocking to alternatives, the thing about Chitika is that you can use it alongside other ad networks. It is also considered one of the best ad networks for adsense banned sites. Approval can take a while (it may take up to a week), but then you only need to have one of your websites approved. After you obtain the approval for that one website, you can then use Chitika for any of your other websites. You can also resize mobile ads to make it easier for you to generate income from mobile traffic.

The pay per click rates will of course depend on the keywords and niche, and the PPC rates may be considered lower than other ad networks in general. But, there’s a low pay out limit before you get your money. You’ll need to generate $50 if you want your money by check but if taking payment through PayPal the limit is only $10. The main difference between Chitika and the other ad networks is that the ads aren’t contextual at all. Instead, the ads depend on the keywords that the visitor typed in the search engine to get to your site. This can result in somewhat more relevant ads too.

8. Clicksor

This is another haven of AdSense exiles, and the thing about Clicksor ads is that it doesn’t look quite like the ads in AdSense (which many ad networks seem to emulate). There are numerous sizes available to make your ads look different, and there are unique types of ads as well.

It’s also very easy to install, and like Infolinks there’s a plugin if you use WordPress, joomla, Blogger, or Drupal. The approval process is quite quick, and you can have ads from other networks on the same page as long as you only have 3 ad units from Clicksor at the most.

9. Vibrant Media

This is one of the more well-known PPC ad networks right now, and their premium brand advertisers can be seen in a lot of popular high traffic sites. Their PPC rates are among the highest in the industry, but the catch is that they just don’t let any website join in the fun. They have to consider your site to be a premium site, and one of the conditions seems to be that you ought to get at least half a million page views each month. The usual publisher guidelines are also in play, so this means you can’t have anything to do with adult, gambling, drugs, profanity, hate speech, violence (you can’t even sell stun guns), or just about anything illegal.

The types of ads Vibrant Media has are quite innovative, with 11 intext ad formats available to use. This includes expanding video boxes, multi-button videos and expandable flash. There’s also in-image advertising, which a lot of visitors find professional and unobtrusive.

The ads are so effective that the click through rates can be 5 times higher than the ads generated by AdSense. They also look great on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones. So if you are already successful in luring lots of visitors to your site, you can leverage that popularity by joining Vibrant Media and partnering with other premium advertisers.

 10. Blogads

With a name like that, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the ad network focuses its efforts on helping blogs maximize their profits through PPC ads. If your blog discusses just about anything under the sun then advertisers may wait until you have at least half a million impressions per month before they start to advertise on your site. But if you focus on a very narrow niche (you’re all about werewolves or Chilean football players) then even 30k impressions per month may suffice. As a publisher, you control your own ad offerings and prices, so the income you generate is all up to you.

11. Kontera (rebranded as Amobee)

Getting into Kontera seems easy and quick enough, and as long as you don’t have any adult content you should have no problems. The installation is easy and they also have a plugin for WordPress, joomla, Blogger, or Drupal. The ads look impressive enough that you won’t be embarrassed by them, and they have a large ad inventory. The rates are decent too, and you even get $50 bonus if your site gets at least 25 thousand page views in the first month with Kontera. They specialize in “in-text” advertising, and they are focused more on the user’s search terms.

12. CPX Interactive

You can sign up easily with this PPC ad network, but approval may take a bit of time. That’s because CPX Interactive checks to see if you have at least 30 thousand impressions per month, and that your privacy policy complies with the CPX conditions regarding use of data. But then again they allow you to choose another ad network to work with alongside CPX.

There are lots of choices regarding the types and sizes of ads, and the account management system, dashboard and reporting tools are quite comprehensive. But you’re on your own when it comes to analyzing the data, which for non-techies can be quite frustrating. The minimum payout is $100, and it’s either by check or through PayPal.

13. Clickbooth

Clickbooth’s CPC Network leverages years of performance based marketing knowledge to yield the highest eCPM’s in the industry from compliant, high performing campaigns. By cutting a layer out of the equation, Clickbooth is able to outperform the competition by 30-40%. With revenue share and CPM models available, CBCPC has quickly become the “go to” ad-serving solution for all the top Comscore and Alexa properties. Currently, CBCPC serves over 6.5 Billion impressions a month on some of the most premium, sought after sites in the US and abroad including NBC, FOX and more.

When asked about why Publishers should choose ClickBooth, this is what Chris Butlin, Director of CBCPC Publishing had to say “Publishers should choose CBCPC because our industry experts are dedicated to creating long term monetization solutions for your site. We provide our clients access to the largest network of premium advertisers automatically delivered to their site through advanced algorithms. These algorithms factor in consumer feedback mechanisms to determine the most compatible ads for the site’s psychographics and demographics”.

14. Sulvo

Sulvo is actually not an ad network but a fundamentally different startup that is focused on getting the highest quality online ad buyers to premium publishers and having them as close to each other as possible. Among the offerings there is a 100% Revenue Share plan which only has a flat-rate cost so publishers can actually limit Sulvo’s earnings while raising their own profits.

There is the possibility to waive the flat-rate cost in case if the publisher elects for a revenue share plan in which Sulvo will only take 10%. There are also a complete set of inventory controls which covers everything that premium publishers might need such as numerous ad sizes and ad color variations, different ad types (display, video and mobile), manual or automated pricing controls and buyer blocking for any category, advertiser or specific ad creative.

Payments are sent out on a net 60 basis and the payout methods include: Wire Transfer, Paper Check, Direct Deposit, Paypal and even Bitcoins however that is in closed beta as of right now.

Conclusion

So that’s it. That’s 14 CPC ad networks (can also be considered the top ad networks) to choose from, and this list ought to give you an additional zing in your income column.

In case that’s not enough, here are 24 more ad networks, you can look at.

You can also take your earnings to the next level and optimize any ad network on your website using our ad revenue optimization tool.

With a dozen options, there’s at least one that will make you some serious money! Do post your comments about your experience with the networks after trying them.