CPM Advertising for sites with plenty of traffic, and poor conversions

CPM Introduction

CPM Advertising refers to 'banner ads' shown on a website where the advertiser agrees to pay a specific amount per thousand impressions. This is different from the other kinds of monetization which I have mentioned in previous posts being CPA (cost per action for affiliate marketing, and CPC (cost per click like in Google Adsense). Many websites get plenty of traffic due to community features such as forums. Reoccurring traffic typically causes 'ad blindness' whereby visitors automatically don't see advertisements and therefore won't click on nor buy products that are promoted. In cases like this a CPM banner type ad can keep a trickly of funds coming to the owner of a site. It probably won't be as high as the other systems, but it would be consistent as long as the website continues to have fresh content.

Direct Negotiation

Many webmasters will directly negotiate advertising with advertisers after placing an 'advertise here' ad. When someone clicks on the announcement, he is taken to a page with contact information and possibly with pricing information. This method can be very time consuming and it can also generate higher income. A webmaster could even determine a monthly fee instead of a CPM fee.

Using Advertising Agencies

For webmasters who do not want to go through the entire process due to time or desire, there are advertising companies available to handle the process for you and send you a check and possibly PayPal once your site has earned enough. The problem some people find is that their website has a lot of traffic in their eyes, but not a lot in the eyes of the advertising company. If you find yourself in that situation, you might have to use another system until you reach the qualifying level. Each advertising company has its own requirement and CPM payment rates and payment methods, so it might not be a bad Idea to apply for and test several at a time to see which works the best for your website.

Here are some Advertising companies that specialize in CPM

* can pay publishers via PayPal (at the time this post was made) ** can pay publishers via PayPal, but does not absorb the PayPal fee

Advertising.com, Casale Media and ValueClick's FastClick place cookies! I don't recommend using those programs.

• Tribal Fusion (min. 2,000 unique visitors per day, min. payment $50 NET45)


• ValueClick Media* (min 3,000 Impressions/mo. min. payment $25 NET20)


• DoubleClick


• WidgetBucks* (CPM for Traffic from countries other than USA or Canada)


• RealTechNetwork* ( 12,500 unique impressions per month,min. payment $20 NET20)


• Adconion** (min. payment $50 NET30)


• Burst Media (min. 5000 impressions/mo. no user submitted content i.e. no chat or forums! min. payment $50, 45+)

Many people might be better off using Google Adsense along with one of these or another monetization strategy.