Should I Use CPM Ad Networks as Google Adsense Alternative

What is Google Adsense for Publishers ?

Google Adsense is an ad network that allows Website/Blog owners to serve ads on their websites. The earning from the ads depends on various factors, like keywords of your sites, clicks, traffic source/country, users engagement with contents (for better RPM) etc..

Google Accepts even the new blogs as long as you write informative contents, but you need to be very careful with Adsense, else your Adsense account may get blocked. If you haven’t join Adsense so far, you can join now for free.

What does Adsense Pay for, do they pay for CPM ?

There are many people who think that Adsense pays for clicks only, but this is not exactly how Adsense Works. Adsense Pays for RPM (Revenue Per Mile/Thousand), CPC and even CPE.

What is CPC ?

We already know that CPC Stands for Cost Per Click. Adsense or any other CPC Ad Network pays for each click. As far as CPC ad Network is concerned, nothing can beat Adsense. You can even earn $100 for a single click depending on the Keyword that brings traffic to your website from Search Engine.

What is CPE ?

CPE stands for Cost Per Engagement. You must have seen many ads on the websites that changes their shape. When you hover mouse on such ads, it will appear in large shape, or a video will start playing. This is how the engagement is recognized. If the visitors don’t engage in ad to make it larger, you don’t get paid.

What is RPM (Revenue Per Mile/Thousand Impression) ?

RPM Stands for Revenue Per Mile (Revenue Per Thousand Impression). Along with CPC based ads, Adsense also serve ads that don’t require any click to generate revenue. Adsense’s RPM is based on each ad impression and active viewable ad impression (knows as Active View CPM). For clarification on RPM, check CPM vs RPM section.

Active View CPM ads are those that must be on the screen for at least one second to generate revenue. If the ad is on the footer, and visitors don’t scroll, you don’t get paid. In case of CPM ads, you are paid each time visitors come to your blog/website.

Whether it’s CPM or Active View CPM, you are paid on 1000 impression basis. If the CPM rate is $2, and the ad has received 5000 impressions, you will earn $10.

CPM vs RPM

I will give an example of two publisher for better clarifications;

Publisher A Serve 3 banners of Adsense Ads on a Web Page. 5000 Visitors visited his page, and he found Adsense RPM as $8. So his total earning was $40

Publisher B also serve 3 Ads on a page from a CPM based Ad network. His page also received 5000 hits. His account is showing CPM rate as $2, but his earning is $30.

RPM : Google counts all the ads on a page as one impression. So 5000 visitors on a page with 3 ads made 5000 impression according to Adsense, and Google shows it as RPM (Revenue Per Thousand Impression)

CPM : CPM counts separate impression for each banner. So the Publisher B with 3 Ads on a page earned $30 even the CPM rate was $2 only. This is because CPM Ad Network counted each visit as 3 impression (because there were three ad banners on the page), so 5000 visitors made 15,000 Ad impression, and he got paid $2 for per thousand impression, and that made him earn $30.

Google Adsense vs CPM Ad Networks

Why Google Adsense ?

1. If you write Keyword rich articles, and you have managed to rank keywords with good CPC rate, No Ad Network can pay more than Adsense. Check your Blog’s keywords and CPC rate
2. To fill most of your Ad Inventory, because most of the Ad Networks can’t fill as much ad inventory as Adsense can do
3. Timely Payment, and no chance to get cheated
4. Best for the websites with less visitors and more engagement
5. To Serve Most relevant ads (No Spam)
6. If you have most of the traffic coming from Search Engine, you must use Google Adsense
7. Earn from custom search engine
8. Earn from link ads (CPM based ad networks usually don’t provide link ads)

Related; Tips to make more money with Google Adsense

Why CPM Ad Networks ?

1. The best option for those who have most of the traffic on their website coming directly or from social media
2. If you have already tried Adsense, and CTR/CPC rate is quite low, You must try CPM Ad Network
3. If you are running a news site or Forum, CPM based ad networks are the best option, because such sites generate less clicks on ads
4. If you already have an Adsense account, and got enough space to serve more ads, you can serve a couple of CPM ads along with Adsense to test which one is performing batter, and then act accordingly
5. Get Fixed CPM Rate or set your own CPM Rate with some of the Ad Networks

Related; Best CPM Ad Networks

Conclusion

Google Adsense and CPM Ad Networks both have their own importance depending on the traffic quality. However, the best way to identify the difference is to test both. Adsense doesn’t allow to serve more than 3 ad banners, and many of the bloggers may have enough space to serve more ads. So you can try CPM Ad Networks along with Adsense. It will help you to find out which one is performing better, and then you can act accordingly. If CPM ads work better on your site, you can decrease the number of Adsense banners you serve, and increase CPM Based Ad banners. You can’t find better result until you experiment. CPC based Ad Banners, like Adsense can make much difference depending on Ad Place. If Adsense is not generating enough clicks, try placing ad on some other place on your website.