Top 10 CPM Ad Networks in 2017

For most of the online publishers, CPM Ads are the major source of making money. Unlike CPC ads, CPM ads are most preferred choice by publishers because in CPM ads, your every ad impressions counts. Before I begin discussing about the Best CPM ad networks, please be noted that I would not be including Google Adsense or any other PPC ad network. I would also not be listing any of those revenue share ad networks which often claim to be paying high CPM rates but they are basically a CPA network, so spare me RevenueHits. In this listing, I also would not include any new network which is less than 6 months old and hasn’t made sufficient ground in CPM advertising industry. All in all, I would be only listing the Top 10 CPM networks and no other CPC or Revenue Share networks. Please also be noted that as always this article is not affiliated to any ad network. There are no referral links and all the feedback is based on my own experience with the network.

CPM means cost per mile or simply put Cost per thousand ad impressions. CPM ads are always a preferred choice over CPC ads because in CPM ads, you don’t have to worry about the CTR. You get paid for how many times the ad has been displayed on your website. Unlike CPC ads where you must get clicks to get paid, CPM ads doesn’t bother much on that.

Unless you have a high CTR on your website, always go for CPM ad networks. Depending on your traffic volume always chose the best CPM ad network for your website. As the advertising industry is facing banner blindness, your chance of getting clicks on your CPC ads are almost negligible. I have seen many site earn better with CPM ads rather than Google Adsense too.

How much can you make using CPM ads?

It Depends! Earlier, a good CPM used to be anywhere between $3 to $7 per 1000 ad impressions. But because advertising industry is very competitive and every next two days a new ad network pops up, the CPM rates are drastically down. Not to discourage you, but a top cpm ad network would still pay you anywhere between $1 to $3 per 1000 ad impressions which even is a good rate.

A good CPM rate depends upon the geography of your traffic as well, i.e your traffic origin. Traffic from Tier 1 countries such as US, Canada and UK receive higher CPM rates than the Tier 2 or Tier 3 countries.

1. Exponential

Exponential is one of the largest CPM advertising networks known for their huge customer base and premium quality ads. CPM rates are really good and are highest as per the standards.  Talking about the ad quality, the network is brand safe and the innovative ad platform delivers a great ad experience to the right audience. Exponential ads drive a good user engagement and action. Ever since it was founded in 2001, Exponential has delivered trillions of ads impressions. The ad network is big and has locations in 22 countries worldwide.

To get approved from Exponential publisher program, you would require a minimum of 500,000 unique visitors per month.  If you have a website or blog with such a huge traffic, you would love to work with Exponential. Getting accepted is not as easy as it seems unless you are an online Brand.

2. Index Exchange

Index Exchange (Earlier Casale Media) not only offers you a high CPM rate but also allows your to choose your own CPM rates. They are the pioneer in online media technology. Index Exchange was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in New York city with 5 regional offices. The network is led by a team of 220 most experienced and innovative minds in the advertising industry.

The requirement to join is not as high as Exponential, as for Index Exchange you would need around 50,000 unique visitors per month to get accepted in their program. The powerful dashboard is really easy to use and has a lot of real time data.

3. CPX Interactive

CPX Interactive is one of the largest CPM ad networks. What started as a small team of ad tech staffs, CPXi is one of those major name in ad industry.  To get your website approved for their publisher program, you would need to have atleast 30,000 or more unique visits per month. But even then it may be tough if the site doesn’t meet their standards. Once you are accepted , you will have the option to also choose third party networks such as CPC, CPA and CPL ads. With more than 120 billion ad impressions per month, CPXi takes a lead in major CPM networks around. The CPM rates are flexible ranging from $0.2 to $3, but that depends based on various factors and traffic quality.

4. RhythmOne

RhythmOne is an online ad company founded in 2004 and headquartered in San Francisco. The network connects digital audiences with brands through premium content on desktop and mobile. They acquired Burst Media network in 2015. RhythmOne ad platform offers one of the largest supply in the industry. Their traffic requirement is pretty much less but their acceptance rate depends upon the quality of your content. To get accepted into the publisher platform, you would need to have at least 5000 monthly visitors or at least 25,000 page impressions per month. They support for Video Ads, Rich media ads, distributed content, sponsored ads.

5. Advertising

One of the trusted and popular ad network that pays high CPM rates is Advertising.com. The ad network is owned by AOL.  The ad network controls everything about the ads that are being displayed on your website and displays the most relevant ads.

The traffic requirements are pretty high but that’s because they are brand safe network and they work on a large scale to deliver quality ads to the best audience. If your blog has got good volume of traffic, definitely go for Advertising.com and make some Money.

6. Meridian Sovrn

If you already know Federated Media and Lijit, then Sovrn is just that network. The ad network was founded in 2014. Sovrn has a great track record and Quantcast has named it 4th largest ad network in the industry today.

The ad network serves ads to more than 20,000 publishers worldwide. The ad platform is one of a kind and the the analytical tools lets you know how engaging your ads are on your content. If you have a good content website, then Sovrn will be right option for you. As a publisher you can set your desired eCPM rate for ads on your website.Sovrn is also a good network for smaller publishers as their requirements are pretty low and the minimum payout is only $25.

7. Conversant Network

Conversant Network (Earlier Value Click Media) is one of those ad networks that started during internet boom. The ad network was started in 1998 and since then they have gone a long way in the ad tech industry.  You might have heard of Commission Junction, largest affiliate network; well they are the same company.

There are very less traffic requirements to get accepted into the network but for your website to get approved, you would definitely need good quality content. Generally they approve website with minimum traffic of only 3000 visitors per month. The network works on all the verticals. Payment are made on Net 60 basis which is quite a lengthy term.

8. Adtegrity

Adtegrity was launched in 1999 and since then the ad giant has served trillions of ad impressions on Mobile advertising, Display advertising, video advertising as well as social advertising. The ad network has one of those strong ground in the advertising industry and accepts only quality sites with huge amount of traffic.  Adtegrity is a public company with employees anywhere between 100 to 200.

If you have a blog with around 5,00,000 page views per month then you can easily get approval on Adtegrity. The traffic requirements are really high with Adtegrity. The minimum cashout is $50 with PayPal or check.

9. AdCash

AdCash is one of those ad network that tests your traffic very ingeniously and blend the ads with CPM, CPA and other ad types. With the twist of CPA+ CPM + CPC + CPA + CPV ads, you get high eCPM rates based on your traffic. The minimum payout is €100 via PayPal, Payoneer, Wire Transfer and Skrill.  I have personally worked with AdCash for many of my website and was generating quite a large income. As far as I know there are no minimum traffic requirements because every site of mine was accepted by them. This makes me to tell you that they do not accept incomplete website, free hosted websites, illegal content or infringing sites.  AdCash is no doubt one of the fastest growing ad networks that have more than 100,000 websites under the control.

10. Pulse point

ContextWeb or Datran Media; if you know these two names, then you would have known PulsePoint. Pulsepoint is a new platform by ContextWeb and is headquartered in US. Pulsepoint serve more than 3 billion ad impressions per day. For publishers, there are no specific traffic requirements. They accept sites easily provided you have good quality content and quality traffic. There is a big difference in CPM rates if you have traffic from US. The CPM rate are high for US traffic and low for other countries. The one problem about Pulsepoint is the fill rate. You don’t get 100% of fill rate; the fill rate is very low for websites with low traffic volume. But you can always use backup ads if you don’t have Pulsepoint ads for your website.

PulsePoint interface is very intuitive and easy to use.  The ads load very fast on your website.  The payment cycle is Net 45 with minimum payout of $50.

Conclusion:

This brings us to the conclusion of the Top 10 Best CPM Ad Networks for 2017. All these ad networks are huge in size with respect to ad impressions volume, customer base. If you have in mind any other CPM ad networks as large as above networks, then write them in the comments below and I will update the list if it meets the criteria.

Note: This article was not sponsored by any ad network unlike other bloggers who make the top list based on sponsorship. So, if you liked the list, make sure to share with others in your circle.