Guide to Ad Networks for Food Bloggers

First Published: 29 August 2014

I’ve been really focussed on learning as much as I can about monetising my blog. I’ve been keeping my notes in a Word document that’s grown so big it could be a book (at the time of writing this, it’s a 257 page document!). I’ve collated so much information and I thought it would be helpful to set up a Blogger Resources section on RecipeTin Eats where I can share everything I’ve learned (plus, that way I know where to go to reference the information myself!).

So this page is a guide to Ad Networks for Food Blogs which I will keep updated. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all the ad networks out there that are suitable for Food Bloggers. These are the ones that I use, know are popular with other food bloggers, or ones that I have tried but decided not to sign up to, or tied and ditched.

Please note: this includes my own opinions and experience with these networks, research I have done, feedback from other bloggers as well as information from the ad networks themselves.

Recap – Terminology

Just a quick reminder of what the key acronyms I’m going to toss around mean:

• PPC – Pay Per Click. This means you get paid when people click on your ads, not when they are displayed / viewed.

• CPM – Cost Per Mille. “Mille” means 1,000 so you get paid a rate for every 1,000 displays / views of an ad.

• “Above the fold” – part or all of the ad can be seen without scrolling down the page.

Overview

This table summarises the key features of the Ad Networks covered in this post. Explanations of each column are under the table.

Tiers – this is how I classify the Ad Networks for the purpose of setting up Backfill Waterfalls so I can maximize the income I earn from ads. The Tier classification is based on CPM (rate per 1,000 impressions).

• Tier 1 – CPM $2.00+

• Tier 2 – CPM $0.50 to $1.50

• Tier 3 – CPM < $0.50

Exclusive vs Non Exclusive Ad Networks – Exclusive Ad Networks have rules that limit your ability to work with other Ad Networks and they pay for this privilege with higher CPMs. You can only sign up to one Exclusive Ad Network at a time.

You can sign up to as many Non Exclusive Ad Networks as you want. But you need to know the restrictions of your Exclusive Ad Network because they may will include a list of Ad Networks that you are both permitted to work with or display on the same page as the Exclusive Ad Network ads.

Acceptance – not just acceptance criteria of the Ad Networks but also how many blogs are signed up each month. Sometimes Ad Networks go through periods when they are not signing up new food blogs so may either increase their criteria (or not sign up new blogs at all), other times they go through patches when they are signing up a lot of new blogs. It comes down to demand and supply – what type of ads Ad Network clients are buying and whether the Ad Network has enough publishers (blogs) to display the ads on in the timeframe the clients require, the sector and target audience etc.

• Very Hard – Can takes months, even a year, for acceptance, and that’s only if the Ad Network the quality of your blog meets their standards.

• Hard – Ad Network has fairly high standards for acceptance, not just around quality of content and website appearance but also (sometimes) things such as frequency of posting (eg. Minimum twice a week) and type of content. Some have minimum traffic requirements of 30k+ per day which I think is a fairly high bar (that’s almost 1 million per month).

• Medium – Only accepts blogs that meet their standard requirement and usually has minimum traffic requirements but the requirements are much lower, for example, 10,000 views per month.

• Easy – Acceptance period is usually very fast (almost instantaneous in the case of Ad Sense) and not picky about blog requirements (including content, style etc). May have some basic requirements such as how long your blog has been in existence for (eg. 90 day requirement for Ad Sense).

Restrictions – the higher the CPM, the more exclusive the network, the more restrictions there are. Rules differ across Ad Networks and I’ve done my best to summarise what I know in the section below where I’ve set out more information about each Ad Network. All Ad Networks have some restrictions, whether it be where you must place the ad(s), what other Ad Network ads you can display at the same time (and where), or how many ads you can display. It is really important to understand the rules of your Ad Networks. If you breach their policies, you are technically in breach of your contract with the Ad Network and could be banned for life.

Fill Rates – the chart on the right indicates the fill rate % I consider to be low, medium and high.

Backfill – whether the Ad Network lets you upload Backfills so when their ads are not displaying your ad space can be used to display ads from other Ad Networks. If you don’t set up Backfills for your ads, you are missing out on income. You can find out more about how to maximise your ad revenue instantly with 4 easy steps in this post I did explaining How to Set Up a Backfill Waterfall.

Defaults means that the Ad Network provides backfills for you using their chosen Ad Network agency.

Ad Preferences / Blocking – most Ad Networks have advertisers from many industries and you may not wish to have particular types of ads shown on your website. For example, I block all Adult ads and I (try) to block ads that play sound automatically (because I think that will annoy my readers).

OVERVIEW OF AD NETWORKS

BlogHer (Tier 1, Exclusive)

Probably the most popular Ad Network for Food Bloggers particularly in the US, the network that many new bloggers aspire to join when first starting out. Great support and promotion of bloggers.

• http://www.blogher.com

• CPM – $2.00+

• Fill rates –Medium Low to Medium (depends on seasonality)

• Backfill – at the time of writing BlogHer backfills with Pubmatic, another Ad Network (unless you’ve been with BlogHer for a long time in which case previous backfills you selected can still be used).

• Ad Blocking – yes, in your BlogHer Dashboard.

• Acceptance – Hard. BlogHer seems to go through periods when there is a waiting list and other times application review periods are very fast (mine was in a week). If your blog is new or in progress, I strongly recommend waiting before applying because if you apply and are turned down, you need to wait another 6 months before reapplying. Their criteria includes the following:

  • Blog content – type (must be targeted at women) and quality. No profanities, adult content etc.

  • Traffic – traffic of 10,000 per month is too low. So new bloggers need to built a decent audience before applying.

  • Blog must be in existence for 90 days.

• Restrictions – The base requirement is that BlogHer gets prime real estate on your blog so the ad must be placed above the fold and that you cannot display ads from other Ad Networks above the fold (but you can below the fold or on pages where you are not displaying BlogHer ads). But the online advertising industry is now moving to a new concept called viewability (a measure of how viewed an ad is by a visitor to your site) so you are now allowed to place an ad below the fold if it improves your view-ability %.

The other key restriction is that you cannot do sponsored posts for competing Ad Networks when you are displaying BlogHer Ads. Fair enough – if BlogHer clients pay for an ad to be displayed on your blog then they shouldn’t have to worry about their ad appearing beside a post you are paid to write promoting the product of another Ad Network’s client.

However, you can get around this because there are WordPress plugins that enables you to control which posts the BlogHer Ads display on.

• Service and Support – excellent. Extremely friendly and helpful, fast response time.

Glam Media (Mode) (Tier 1, Exclusive) 

I have only recently joined Glam Media but so far I’ve been very impressed with their professionalism, friendliness and helpfulness. Their exclusivity terms are slightly more stringent than other Tier 1 Ad Networks and there are bloggers who have been turned off this. The reason I chose Glam Media is because while they do have tighter exclusivity terms but they pay for this privilege.

I don’t do sponsored posts so I’m not losing out on that from other Ad Networks (also Glam Media offer a lot of sponsored posts) and this is one of the key concerns of bloggers (from what I have read). And because I have signed up to quite a number of Ad Networks, I have plenty of Ad Networks that I can still work with that are not on Glam Media’s black out list. ** I’ll update this post with how things are tracking with Glam Media in a couple of months **

• http://www.glammedia.com

• CPM – $2.00+

• Fill rates – Medium.

• Backfill – Yes. Arrange yourself in the dashboard.

• Ad Blocking – Yes.

• Acceptance – Hard. On par with BlogHer. I am told that the wait list is typically not as long as BlogHer. My application was approved in a week.

• Restrictions – Exclusive. Glam Media have a list of competitor Ad Networks that you are not allowed to work with (advertising and sponsorship, editorial is fine) which is updated from time to time. The list includes the other Tier 1 Ad Networks as well as some of the Tier 2 Networks plus other online networks and publications. It still leaves plenty of Ad Networks to use as a backfill. Glam Media requires their ads to be placed above the fold on prime real estate on your blog. They pay for this privilege which is why their CPM is high.

• Service and Support – I have only joined Glam Media recently and there is little “word on the street” about them. My experience to date has been great – friendly, professional and helpful. They are a “serious” Ad Network and conduct their business professionally. From the little I have read and heard from other bloggers, I have only heard positive things.

Martha’s Circle (Tier 1, Exclusive) 

I’ve applied for Martha’s Circle but do not expect to hear back from them for months, maybe even years! I understand that they are currently not accepting new food blogs and they are currently focusing on wedding blogs. (As at July/August 2014). Because I haven’t even heard back from them, I have quite limited knowledge about this Ad Network.

• http://www.marthastewart.com/949847/join-marthas-circle

• CPM – $2.00+, I’ve seen reports of up to $5 but it is very seasonal

• Fill rates –I have read that fill rates fluctuate from Medium Low to Medium (depends on seasonality)

• Backfill – yes

• Ad Blocking – yes

• Acceptance – very hard. Not just because of criteria but also because they are currently not accepting new food blogs.

• Restrictions – unknown.

• Service and Support – unknown.

Platefull (Tier 1, Exclusive)

I have applied but not yet heard back from Platefull and I don’t expect to hear back for months because I understand they rarely ad new blogs. I haven’t been able to find out very much about Platefull but from what I have read, the CPM is consistently $2.50+ and the fill rate fluctuates a lot from Low to Medium High. I’ve heard of some bloggers having great success with them, but it seems to me that it needs quite close monitoring.

One of the things I find so appealing about Platefull is that it is not exclusive which means you can work with other ad networks. This is the only Ad Network I have aware of that pays CPM’s of $2.50+ but is not exclusive.

• http://platefull.com

• CPM – $2.50+

• Fill rates – fluctuates from low to medium high (depends on seasonality)

• Backfill – Yes

• Ad Blocking – Yes

• Acceptance – Very Hard. New blogs are rarely added.

• Restrictions – Unknown.

• Service and Support – Unknown.

Conversant (Tier 2)

From my research, it seems that Conversant is a decent Tier 2 Ad Network. You get live reporting, they actually respond to emails on a timely basis and they’re professional in their approach. Fill rates fluctuate but on average they are OK. At the time of writing I am waiting to hear back about my application so I have limited information I can share about them. 

• http://www.conversantmedia.com

• CPM – $0.50 to $1.50

• Fill rates – Medium

• Backfill – Yes

• Ad Blocking – Yes

• Acceptance – Minimum traffic requirement. Not exactly sure of the number but a blog with traffic of 10,000 per month won’t be accepted.

• Restrictions – Unknown.

• Requirements – Ads must be above the fold.

• Service and Support – Good.

Cox Digital Solutions  (Tier 2) 

I’m a fan of Cox. They’re dependable, the CPM is reasonable and service is great. The only gripe I have is that their member’s area on their site is ridiculously slow so editing and checking in on how ads are doing is frustrating.

• http://www.coxdigitalsolutions.com

• CPM – $0.50 to $1.50, depending on ad size. It fluctuates a lot.

• Fill rates – Medium High (steadily > 50% – 60%).

• Backfill – Yes

• Ad Blocking – Yes

• Acceptance – From what I understand from correspondence with  Cox, they do have a minimum traffic requirement but they exercise some discretion based on content quality, frequency of posting and other variables. My application was approved within a week.

• Restrictions – No aware of any specific restrictions.

• Service and Support – Great. Once you sign up you’ll get a rep and my rep is really friendly, helpful and responds to emails quickly. The whole process ran smoothly.

PriceGrabber (Tier 2)

I really like PriceGrabber. With a stead $1.50 CPM, they’ve been a great backfill for my Tier 1 ads. It takes a while to get going so be patient, it took about a week before I started seeing steady impressions.

• http://www.pricegrabber.com

• CPM – $1.50 (steady)

• Fill rates – Low to Medium (very seasonal)

• Backfill – Yes

• Ad Blocking – Yes

• Acceptance – Fairly easy and very fast. Application was approved in a few days.

• Restrictions – None that I am aware of.

• Service and Support – Pretty good. Response time isn’t the fastest and one of the reasons contributing to this is probably because the members area doesn’t have as much “serve yourself” functions as others do so I’m sure reps get inundated with a lot more emails from publishers than most. For example, you have to email your rep to set up backfills.

Say Media (Tier 2)

You need traffic of 1 million per month to be accepted by SAY Media – at least, that is the reason I was given for my application being turned down in August 2014. So I haven’t spent much time looking into this Ad Network but from what I have been able to find on forums, fill rates and CPM fluctuate a lot from blog to blog and depends on ad unit size and type. It’s hard to pin down the exact reason why, and I haven’t been able to find an answer or theories anywhere.

• http://www.saymedia.com

• CPM – $0.50 to $2.00

• Fill rates – Fluctuates from Low to Medium.

• Backfill – Yes.

• Ad Blocking – Yes.

• Acceptance – Traffic of 1 million per month.

• Restrictions – Unknown.

• Service and Support – Unknown.

Yellow Hammer Media (Tier 2)

I’ve only just applied to Yellow Hammer Media so I don’t have any personal experience to share, just what I’ve read on forums. To be frank, I signed up because I read that another blog is earning CPM of $0.90 and fill rates are close to 100%. I also read that the CPM is (adversely) impacted if it is used as a pass back instead of as a primary (Tier 1) ad.

So I don’t have much information to share about this Ad Network. I’ll report back if my application is accepted. 🙂

• http://www.yhmg.com

• CPM – $0.90

• Fill rates – Very High

• Backfill – Unknown

• Ad Blocking – Unknown

• Acceptance – Unknown

• Restrictions – Unknown

• Service and Support – Unknown

Gourmet Ads (Tier 2/3)

I am a huge fan of Gourmet Ads. I basically treat them as my Ad Sense alternative because fill rates are practically 100%. The CPM is not great, less than $0.70 on average, but I am told that I can expect this to increase the longer I am with them, or if my blog is specifically selected by clients. Plus the other bonus is that they are super friendly and helpful. Gourmet Ads is one of the first Ad Networks I signed up to and I still had my training wheels on, and they couldn’t have been nicer, happy to handhold me through the process of set up.

• http://www.gourmetads.com

• CPM – <$0.70

• Fill rates – Almost 100%

• Backfill – Yes

• Ad Blocking – Yes

• Acceptance – Gourmet Ad is focused on the food industry so your blog needs to be a cooking, recipe or food site. Other requirements include:

  • Have strong US, UK, Canadian, Australian or New Zealand audiences.

  • Must have at least 5k Users each month

  • Be serving at least 50k Page Views per month

  • Be written in English or French (Canadian)

  • Must have a Privacy Policy on your website

• Restrictions – none I am aware of, but not the requirements below.

• Requirements – able to display at least 1 ad above the fold, and not allowed to have any stacked ads (ads next to each other without something in between – even social media icons is ok) on any page.

• Service and Support – Excellent. Fast response, incredibly helpful and friendly.

Ad Sense (Tier 3)

The first thing I need to qualify is that I have Ad Sense classified as Tier 3 because of my personal experience with them and because generally, from the research I have done, most food bloggers do not do that well with Ad Sense because readers aren’t very clicky and Ad Sense pays on a Cost Per Click (CPC) basis (as opposed to CPM which pays a rate for every 1,000 views of your website).

So I guess in short, I want to stress that Ad Sense isn’t great for me, but maybe it will work well for you if you have a clicky audience. The potential is huge. I personally have had the odd CPC at Tier 1 rates (i.e. $2.00+). But mostly the CPC is much lower plus not many people click on the ads.

I can’t go into specifics about the exact CPC’s I myself have earned on AdSense because AdSense requires it to be kept confidential.

With CPC ads, remember to place them somewhere where people are likely to see and click on them. Putting them in the footer is no good on most websites – unless yours has a particularly interesting footer and your readers are likely to scroll all the way down to the bottom.

Word of warning: Do not ever click on your own ads. Or get your friends, mother, brother or sister to click on them. “They” will hunt you down and you will forever be banned from Google Ad Sense, and probably other Google related services.

• CPM – <$1.00

• Fill rates – ~100%

• Backfill – Yes

• Ad Blocking – Yes

• Acceptance – Easy

• Restrictions – Up to 3 ads per page

• Service and Support – Help yourself. No personal contact.

Advertising.com (Tier 3)

This Ad Network is on my list because I know they are a decent size player but for whatever reason, they didn’t work out for me. I tried them both as a first call ad as well as a backfill, and for both the fill rates for absolutely dismal. But I left them there for a few weeks because I like to give people (and Ad Networks) the benefit of the doubt because sometimes patience is rewarded – like PriceGrabber which started off slow but is now one of my favourite mid tier Ad Networks.

However, in this case, it didn’t work out and to top it off, unless there are >10k impressions consistently every day for each ad then you won’t be paid for any impressions. So if your blog is starting out OR if you plan to use them as a backfill, then based on my personal experience, don’t bother.

Note: Sometimes, Ad Networks will work for one blog but not another. It might be audience demographics, keywords in your blog, your blog focus, the time of day you get the most traffic. So maybe Advertising.com will lucrative for you. They just didn’t work for me at all. Overall the experience was pretty frustrating.

• CPM – Zero if <10K consistent impressions per day.

• Fill rates – Very low

• Backfill – Yes

• Ad Blocking – Yes

• Acceptance – requires minimum 500K traffic per month.

• Restrictions – None I am aware of.

• Service and Support – Slow responses and cryptic answers so it took 3 emails to figure out that <10K impressions meant that you don’t get paid for any impressions.

Hope this was helpful to you! If you want to learn more, you might be interest in this post I did on How To Maximise Ad Revenue With a Backfill Waterfall.