The Best Monetization Tools For Your Blog
1. Outbrain
Featuring top-tier sites like CNN and Rolling Stone, Outbrain is one of the leading content networks. Outbrain allows you to both promote your own articles and build revenue by showing Outbrain network articles on your site.
Pros
Large Publisher and Advertiser network results in better payouts.
Webmasters have reported a quick and helpful support team.
Cons
You have no control over the thumbnail size.
Some have reported the initial “key claiming” process as buggy.
2. Taboola
Taboola is an upcoming content network, offering a service very similar to the two above. It is relatively new, but some large publishers have recently shifted from other networks to Taboola. Currently, it is serving more than 3 billion content recommendations daily.
Pros:
Claims a very sophisticated discovery and recommendation engine, which gets much higher CTRs than other competitors, since the content is more relevant. A lot of customers, who A/B tested between different networks, confirmed this.
A detailed analytics dashboard provides insights about the content performance.
Con:
Less control over what you want to show on your website.
3.ADTECH
Although ADTECH 3 tends to be geared more for larger sites, its features like live testing, user tracking and other add-ons will make it easy to increase monetization (if you have the right site).
Pros
Simple and flexible tagging system that makes it easy to have the right ads appear.
Good presence in European markets.
Able to integrate with any preferred ad network, making it versatile.
Con:
Might be a little too advanced for new users. If you don’t keep track of your tags, you could find your interface getting really cluttered.
4.Oasis
An open-source option, Oasis requires a little more savvy on the part of the site owner to run. It features many premium tools and settings, making it ideal for power users.
Pros:
Allows you to run your own server with minimal processing power.
Free, so you don’t need to pay any monthly fee to use it.
Con:
Requires customization (and a web developer) to get it properly running with your system.
5.AdZerk
AdZerk is an ad serving platform, which features a very simple and easy to use user interface. It is currently being used by websites like Reddit & StackOverflow. Oh and it is free for up to 100 million impressions.
Pros:
Very easy to configure and use, making it ideal for new website owners.
No long-term commitments, and great support staff. One of the fastest ad servers on the market.
Con:
Ads tend to appear on sites aimed at a specific demographic that may not match your site.
6.Optimizely
Designed to make A/B testing simple and easy, Optimizely is use by both large sites and small ones in determining what works best as far as monetization is concerned. Featuring easy-to-use testing setup, you can track engagements, opt-ins, signups, conversions and more.
Pros:
A very simple and easy to understand UI.
You can decide how to split traffic between variations.
7.AdPushup
(Disclaimer: I’m a co-founder) Different from the two options above, AdPushup is the first A/B testing tool for Publishers; with it, you can easily create A/B testing experiments for ads like AdSense. You can see how different ad locations, sizes and ad themes perform on your website put the testing on auto-pilot mode. Your visitors behavior on the site will be constantly measured and changes will be made to the ad placement automatically to get the best RPM (revenue per thousand impressions).
Pros:
Gives you lots of options to customize how your ads will appear
A/B testing lets you find the most profitable ad placement (and type) on your site.
Con:
Still in beta mode at the time of writing.
8.Crazy Egg
One of the most popular heatmap tools, Crazy Egg has a wide variety of options and tools for you to fully understand how users interact with your site. It can show you where your visitors have clicked in a single overlay, letting you analyze a lot of data at once.
Pros:
Comprehensive information about your visitors. Gives you data on every interaction but has great summaries to make it easy to know which parts of your site are working and which aren’t.
Also offers Confetti and scroll maps.
Cons:
Sometimes it is hard to know what actions to take with the data.
