As a website owner or blogger in Nigeria or any other part of the world, to make money from your website you’ll want to monetize your website with display ads,
And by default or by instinct your first choice will always be Google Adsense, but sometimes as a beginner that Adsense dream might be too soon for your website which then means you’ll have to consider some Google Adsense Alternatives and that’s why I’m writing this article for you specially.
You see, when i started in 2021 i applied for Google Adsense multiple times but got rejected everytime, i thought google were just being wicked but looking back at it now — they weren’t, it was just too soon for me and my website.
It was in 2023 that i finally got approved, which is this same website where you’re reading this article on right now and trust me ever since then i memorised the pattern and it has worked for me on 3 other websites.
But in that two years gap between 2021 to 2023 i had to use alternative ways to make money which is what i want to share with you in this article, the money making journey before Google Adsense Approval.
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How to Choose your Google Adsense Alternatives
If you type “Google Adsense Alternatives” into your search bar on Google Search or Bing Search, you’ll see plenty Ad networks claiming to be Adsense’s alternative but that’s not really true because they don’t live up to the expectations of being an Adsense Alternative,
Some will give you low CPM and CPC, some will ban your account when you’re getting close to your withdrawal threshold, so you need to be careful and choose an Ad network that has established trust with the community some of which I’ll share in this article later on.
Things to Consider before Choosing an Alternative Ad Network
There are some things you need to consider before you choose any Ad network as your Google Adsense Alternative, Some of which are;
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1. Type of Ads or Ad Formats
This is very important because if we’re being honest, as of this moment, you won’t find any alternative Ad network that has the same quality of ads formats Google Adsense has,
Most of the alternatives you’ll see are Networks that use Pop-Under, Pop-Ups, Direct links and low quality banner ads to monetize your website,
And you need to be careful about using some of these ad formats because they can appear very disruptive and annoying to your website visitors if not configured properly and might chase your visitors away and also mess up your website’s overall user experience, not just that, your SEO will also take a hit because your Website’s user interface or experience is a major ranking factor on Google and Bing.
So you need to be careful, I’ll also give you some tips later in this article on how to make these ad formats more user-friendly so you don’t chase your hard earned website visitors away.
2. Payment Threshold & Methods
This is something you need to consider very well especially if you’re a Nigerian blogger or website owner, you don’t want to work hard to earn money and still struggle to receive your money,
Some Ad Network has payment Threshold of $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100, but as a beginner you might not be earning alot from the start if you don’t have a lot of traffic yet, so you need an Ad network that allows you to withdraw the little money you’ve made in order to keep you going,
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Also when it comes to payment methods, Nigeria is somehow limited when it comes to receiving payments from abroad through some platforms, Thank God PayPal is coming back to Nigeria soon, that will relieve some of the payment headaches we’ve been facing on some Ad Networks, even though we Nigerians are still angry at them for all the evil they’ve done to us since 2004.
So make sure the Ad network you’re using has a low threshold and can send your payments to a platform where you can easily get your money.
Best Google Adsense Alternatives for me
So these are the Ad networks I think will serve you well has Google Adsense Alternatives based on my personal experiences with them.
1. Affiliate Marketing
Don’t be shocked, i mean it. You see ehnn, even without being a Google Adsense Alternative, affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money on your website or blog,
Also you can create your Ad formats yourself or better still you’ll get high quality marketing tools from the affiliate platform you’re promoting which sometimes are on the same level with Adsense if not even better in terms of graphics,
The only thing is that Affiliates are always CPA based which means your refered user must perform an action in order for you to earn money from them — like buying something from the platform you’re promoting or registering for their services.
To get good paying Affiliates, you should look within your niche and look for platform that has affiliate programs, For Example, if you’re in sport niche in Nigeria, you’ll want to look at sport betting platforms. so that your contents blends with it and you can easily promote them.
2. Monetag
I’m sure you’ve come across this Ad network one way or the other and yes they’re legit and maybe the closest thing you’ll get to Adsense as a beginner,
Their ad formats are good, clean and user friendly, they also have good CPM and CPC, although this depends on the quality of your traffic and their location but they do well for Nigerian traffic too
I’ve been using them since 2021 when it was still called Propeller Ads and I’ve had positive experiences with them.
their payment withdrawal threshold is $5 which is perfect for beginners.
TIPS TO USE
The best paying ad format on this ad network is the Pop-Under, Followed by the Direct Links, Vignette and In-Page are decent and very user friendly but are mostly CPC and CPA focused.
The Pop-Under might be annoying to users of some websites niche,
If your site doesn’t care about audience retention like a download site then you can use Pop-Under like that and earn decent money,
But if you have a blog where people read informations or news, i recommend using only the user friendly Ad formats which are Direct Link, Vignette and In-Page.
If you’re adamant that you want to use Pop-Under because it generates more revenue then you need to contact Monetag Support and tell them to help you “Edit the Pop-Under ad format and make it open in the background tab when your website visitors click on it, instead of redirecting the users away from your website” once they do this for you it will become user friendly and your users might not even know they are clicking on Ads until they want to go close their webpage.
3. Adsterra
Adsterra is in the same league as Monetag, they are quite similar and are good Adsense Alternatives and in my experience the Pop-Under modification on Adsterra is more seamlees and user friendly than monetag,
Adsterra was the first Ad network i got paid on so, i like them a lot and they’re really good, they also have good Ad formats like Display Banners, Native Banners, Social Bar, Pop-Under and Smart links.
All thier Ad networks are user friendly too and has good CPC, CPA and CPM depending on your niche,
One thing i should warn you about though is the Withdrawal or Payment Methods, the platform used to have Webmoney and other payment methods with a threshold of $5, but now it has only PAXUM for that threshold and I won’t recommend you use PAXUM to withdraw your money especially if you’re a beginner in Nigeria unless you want a big chunk of your money gone as charges.
TIPS TO USE
Just like i said for Monetag, if you want to use the Pop-Under, follow the same method to contact their Customer Support and have them work on it for you so that it will open in the user’s background tab without interruption.
For user friendliness on your blog i recommend using Smart links, Social Bar, Pop-Under (Customised one), Banners and Native Banners if you like them.
4. AdCash
This is another legit ad network that you can use as a Google Adsense alternative that is very good to use, it has similar Ads formats with the ones i’ve mentioned above.
One of the most interesting things i like about it is that it has an all in one Autotag that let’s you insert one single piece of code that contains the top performing ad formats (Pop-Under, Interstitial and In-Page Push). Ads and formats will be rotated automatically for maximum earnings.
Now with the Autotag you can choose how agressive you want to be with the ads on your website, you can choose to priotise better UI/UX for your users or choose to make more money which will push ads aggresively to your site visitors, and you can also choose to balance both and be in the middle.
Minimum Withdrawal or Payment threshold is $5 and they are good Payment platforms to recieve your money with.
5. PopAds
This Ad network is a platform that uses only Pop-Under Ad format, so unlike the other ones i’ve listed before it does not have other user friendly ad formats, but that’s not entirely a negative thing as this platform compliments that in other areas,
For Example, on this platform you can actually customise your Pop-Under ads format by yourself instead of contacting Customer Support to do it for you like it is on other platforms above.
Also, the platform has many Payments methods and withdrawal threshold is very low — $5, $10, $15, though the fee for some of the Payments might be a bit too much for my liking but overall its a good Ad network for beginners.
TIPS TO USE
So i mentioned ealier that this ad network allows you to customise how you want your ads to perform on your site, here are some of the things you can customise in the Code Generator;
- The number of times a popunder can appear for the same visitor in a specified time.
- The number of times a floating banner can appear for the same visitor in specified time
- The minimum CPM rate you accept for one popunder that displays on your website. e.g $1 or $2.
- You can set minimal number of seconds between opening popunders. I recommend 60 or 120 seconds.
- You can also choose to block audience from a particular country from seeing ads and other fews more settings
I recommend you play around with these settings and see what works for your website.
The End
If you want more options, you can also try out ForeMedia and HillTop Ads they are also good.
So these are the Google Adsense Alternatives i recommend for you to try out especially if you’re a Nigerian website owner or Blogger, if you use any of these ad networks it will give you the motivation to keep going and continue creating untill you’re confident that your site is ready for adsense.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comment section.
