Earn from your blog with ad placements
Display ads are the simplest way to turn traffic you already have into income. Here is where the ads go, what each network pays, and which ones will actually accept you at your current traffic level.
How blog ads pay
Three numbers come up constantly. Knowing which is which makes it much easier to compare one network against another.
Cost per mille
What an advertiser pays for every 1,000 times their ad is shown. You earn whether or not anyone clicks.
Cost per click
What you earn each time a reader actually clicks an ad. Rates vary enormously by topic and country.
Revenue per mille
Your real earnings per 1,000 pageviews, after everything. This is the only number worth comparing networks on.
Where to place your ads
Placement matters more than the number of ads. These five positions cover almost every blog layout, with the sizes that fill most reliably.
The five standard positions on a blog page. Numbers match the list below.
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1. Below the header
728 × 90Seen on every page, so it builds impressions quickly. Keep it to a single leaderboard so readers still meet your content above the fold.
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2. Sidebar
300 × 250 or 300 × 600The half page unit earns noticeably more than a single square because it stays in view while readers scroll. Best on desktop, where the sidebar is actually visible.
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3. Before the content
300 × 250High visibility, but the most intrusive spot on the page. Worth testing against removing it entirely, since it can push your article below the fold.
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4. Partway through the content
300 × 250 or 336 × 280Usually the strongest performer on a blog. Readers are already engaged, and an ad between paragraphs reads as a natural pause rather than an interruption.
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5. After the content
300 × 250 or 728 × 90Catches readers who finished the article and are deciding what to do next. Low friction, because nothing is competing with it for attention.
Ad networks worth knowing
Ordered roughly by how hard they are to join. Start with the open networks, then move up as your traffic grows.
Adsterra
Best for new blogsApproves quickly, pays out at low balances and accepts traffic from almost anywhere, which makes it the most practical first network for a blog that is still growing.
Banners, native ads, social bar, interstitials and popunders.
Visit Adsterra and sign upGoogle AdSense
Open to allThe default starting point for almost every blog. Contextual display ads that pay on both impressions and clicks, with a straightforward approval process.
Watch the policies closely. Suspensions are common and difficult to appeal.
Media.net
Open to allContextual ads drawn from the Yahoo and Bing advertiser pool. The most common network to run alongside AdSense rather than instead of it.
Earns best on English language traffic from the US, UK and Canada.
Ezoic
Open to allSits on top of other networks and automatically tests placements against each other, keeping whichever combination earns most. Useful if you would rather not tune placements by hand.
Keep an eye on page speed once it is running.
PropellerAds
Open to allHigher yielding formats with no traffic minimum. Effective, but the formats are intrusive enough that they can cost you returning readers if overused.
Push notifications, interstitials and popunders.
Monumetric
From ~10k pageviewsA managed service that sets up and maintains your placements for you. The first real step up from self-serve networks.
Charges a one-off setup fee at the entry tier.
Mediavine
From ~50k sessionsA premium managed network with a strong reputation for high RPMs and for taking page speed seriously. Exclusive, so you run their ads only.
Aimed at blogs with established, consistent traffic.
Raptive
From ~100k pageviewsFormerly AdThrive, and among the highest paying networks available to independent publishers. The tier most bloggers are working towards.
Requires the majority of traffic from the US, UK, Canada or Australia.
A note on Google Ads and Meta Ads
These two are often confused with the networks above, but they sit on the opposite side of the transaction. Google Ads and Meta Ads are advertiser products: you pay them to place your ads on other people's sites and feeds. To earn money from your own blog you want Google AdSense, which is the publisher side of the same system.
Meta has no equivalent for websites. Its Audience Network is limited to mobile apps, so a blog cannot run Meta ads for revenue. Meta is still worth using to promote your posts and grow the traffic that the networks above then pay you for.
Getting more from the same traffic
A few habits separate blogs that earn steadily from blogs that get their accounts closed.
Fewer ads, better placed
Past a certain density every extra unit lowers the value of the others and pushes readers away. Two or three well placed ads routinely beat six scattered ones.
Protect your page speed
Ad scripts are heavy. Measure your load time before and after adding a network, because slower pages mean fewer pageviews and lower earnings overall.
Never click your own ads
Not once, and not from your phone. Invalid click activity is the single most common reason publisher accounts are permanently banned.
Keep a second network ready
Approval can be withdrawn with little warning. Having a second account already approved means an interruption costs you days rather than months.
Common questions
How much traffic do I need before ads are worth it?
There is no minimum to start, but the earnings only become meaningful somewhere around 10,000 monthly pageviews. Below that, the same effort spent on writing and promotion is usually worth more than the ad revenue.
Can I run more than one ad network at the same time?
Usually yes. AdSense and Media.net are commonly run together, for example. Premium networks like Mediavine and Raptive are the exception, as they require exclusivity.
Will ads hurt my search rankings?
Ads themselves will not, but their side effects can. Slow loading scripts and layout that shifts as ads load both affect Core Web Vitals, which does feed into ranking. Keep the ad count modest and reserve the space each unit will occupy.
Do I need to tell readers the page contains ads?
Requirements vary by country, and networks have their own rules on top of that. A short disclosure line and a privacy policy covering ad cookies is the safe baseline, and most regions expect a cookie consent notice as well.
Why do my earnings swing so much month to month?
Advertiser budgets are seasonal. Rates typically peak in the last quarter of the year and drop sharply in January, so compare against the same month last year rather than against last month.
Start simple, then scale up
Place one ad in the content and one in the sidebar, run them for a month, and note your RPM. That single number tells you far more than any guide can, and it is the benchmark every change afterwards gets measured against. If you are starting from zero, Adsterra is the quickest network to get approved on.
Create your Adsterra accountDisclosure: the Adsterra links on this page are referral links. If you sign up through them I may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. I only recommend networks I would use myself.