The Best CPM Ad Network for Bloggers and Small Publishers

In this personal commentary I will reveal the best CPM network for bloggers, explain how you can set your own CPM rate and make the most money blogging online.

How would you like to set your own CPM rate and determine the amount of money you will make on your blog posts? It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. The best CPM network for bloggers not only allows you to set your own CPM rate, but you can rotate affiliate banner ads when advertisers don’t fill your ad spot. That means that you will always be showing the highest producing ads on your blog to enhance your monetization efforts.


What is a CPM Rate?

To be clear, a CPM rate is the amount of money an advertiser will pay a publisher (that’s you, the blogger) for every one-thousand ad impressions that appear on your webpage. An impression is also known as a view. For example, if you have two ads displayed on a webpage and that page is viewed 50 times, you’ve secured 100 ad impressions. If your CPM rate is $1.00 CPM, you’ve made $0.10 on those 50 page views.

 2 ads per page x 50 page views = 100 ad impressions

100 ad impressions x $1.00 CPM = $0.10

What is the Best CPM network for Bloggers?

In my opinion, the best CPM network for bloggers is PulsePoint. I have been using PulsePoint, formerly known as Context Web, on my websites and blogs for years. As you can see on my blog Muscle Headquarters, the ads that are displayed on the top and sides and bottom of each page are hosted by PulsePoint. In the event that PulsePoint can’t fill my ad space with paid ads, my backup affiliate banner ads are posted. This insures that I never have blank spaces on my page and always have the opportunity to capture visitor clicks and generate revenue.

You’ll notice as you refresh the page here on my blog, the ads will change. That is either because another ad has been sold or my affiliate backup ads are placed instead.

Set Your Own CPM Rate!

One aspect of PulsePoint that is unique to advertising networks is that it allows you to set your own CPM rate. Whether you want to set your rate $0.50 CPM or $10.00 CPM, you make the call. A word of caution, however; generally, the higher you set your CPM rate, the lower your fill rate will be. That doesn’t mean that advertisers won’t pay $10 CPM, but far more would be willing to pay $2.00 CPM.

A bit of experimentation and calculations will initially be required to determine the best CPM for your blog. Some factors that will determine the best CPM rate include your blog’s primary topic, target audience, uniqueness of content, traffic quality and overall site design.

Traffic Requirements

One of the primary reasons PulsePoint is the best CPM network for bloggers is that the traffic requirement for publishers is low. Many CPM networks require over 30,000 unique page views per month to be even eligible to apply to their program. For small-time bloggers who want to make a few extra bucks, that isn’t a reality.

PulsePoint has no minimum traffic requirement and can be used with free hosted sites like blogger.com. This makes online income generation possible for recreational bloggers and freelance writers.

Incorporate Affiliate Banner Ads

If you participate in an affiliate ad program and would like to compliment revenues generated through your paid ads through PulsePoint, PulsePoint allows you to create backup affiliate ad groups that can be displayed on your website or blog when your desired CPM rate can’t be met.

Once you’ve established your PulsePoint account, your Manager page will allow you to create ad groups which can include your affiliate backup ads. You also have the option to enable the Performance Price feature, which allows you to tell PulsePoint what your expected CPM rate is for your affiliate ads is. PulsePoint will then attempt to beat that rate with paid ads through their network.

Free Money!

As if choosing your own CPM rate and allowing you to incorporate affiliate ads weren’t already good enough, PulsePoint pays the publisher 100% of the CPM ask price. That means that if your ads are filled at $2.00 CPM, you keep all $2.00!

PulsePoint is free to join and there are no fees or expenses for publishers who participate in the program.  As soon as an account is established and approved, revenue can be generated by publishing ads.

Because PulsePoint can be used with free blog hosting sites such as blogger.com, not a penny needs to be spent on website creation or hosting fees.

All of these benefits make PulsePoint perhaps the best alternative to Adsense for bloggers.

No Experience Required

PulsePoint is extremely user-friendly and an account can be set up in a matter of minutes. No specialized knowledge is required and novice bloggers will find site navigation and ad placement a breeze. That is why I joined PulsePoint and continue to use the program for site monetization.

How Much Money Can I Make With PulsePoint?

Of course everybody wants to know how much money they can make. There are a lot of factors that will determine how much money you can make with PulsePoint. However, it is possible to make an estimate based on a few assumptions. If your blog consistently generates unique page views from the U.S., you have original, quality content and your primary topic is valuable in the eyes of advertisers, it is possible to make $2.00 - $5.00 CPM an each ad.

That means that if you have three ads on each page with at 50% fill rate at $3.00 CPM per ad, your realized CPM could be $4.50 per page. That’s not bad.

Make Some Money

As an experienced blogger who has published content on the topics of online income and search engine optimization, I am confident that you can generate substantial income using PulsePoint.

The sooner you start, the sooner you can start making money on your terms. Remember, you set your own CPM rate and incorporate your affiliate ads for free on PulsePoint.

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