Website Monetization Tips: Understanding CPA CPM and CPC Ads

If you have been working online for some time, you might have already noticed that there are numerous monetization solutions for your blogs, forums, or websites. However, the main question is can you actually make money by running ads on your blog, forums, and websites? In other words, can you actually earn from available monetization solutions?

Let me give you some examples, if you have a website, blog, or a forum with a substantial amount of quality content and some traffic, you can use Adsense, Infolinks, Media.Net, Amazon (or numerous other ad networks) and make money from these ad networks. In order to earn from these ads, you need legitimate clicks on the ads, or a lot of ad impressions or product sales (in the case of an affiliate ad network like Amazon).

Can you actually earn by running ads on your website?

As mentioned above, you need to get clicks on your ads, impression ads, or product sales to make money. But the question is now easy is it to get clicks, impressions, and product sales?

There are different kinds of ads and different kinds of ads will earn you money in different ways. Generally speaking, there are three types of Ads, Cost Per Action (CPA), Cost Per Impression (CPM), and Cost Per Click (CPC).

Making Money from Website: CPA Ads Vs. CPM Ads

CPA Ads are popular monetization options for bloggers and website owners. If CPA ads worked for you, you might earn a lot of money from one ad conversion. CPA means Cost Per Action. The word Action refers to the activities like sign up, purchase, etc. In other words, CPA ads are the ads where the publishers will earn when the visitors click on the ad and perform an action. One of the common types of CPA ads is affiliate ads. If the visitor clicks on the ads and buys the products advertised by the ad, the publisher will earn a lot of money.

CPM ads are also a popular monetization solution for bloggers. Sometimes CPM ads are considered the best option for making from your blog and website because you do not need engagement on your ad to earn, as long as people come to your site and the ad is displayed on your web page, you will earn from CPM ads.   The visitors do not have to click on the ads or buy the product advertised by the ad for the publisher to earn. Each visit will earn you something. The CPM ad networks pay a certain amount for 1000 ad impressions.

Comparatively, CPM rates will be very low. If you can get $5 for 1000 impressions, you can count yourself lucky. However, CPA ads are high-paying, you can easily earn 5-10 percent of the price of the product advertised.

Making Money on Your Blog: CPC Ads Vs CPM Ads

For a lot of bloggers, Adsense is the ideal choice for monetization. Adsense is basically a CPC ad network. In other words, you will earn for clicks. You can also earn impressions but Adsense is mainly a Pay Per Click advertising network for publishers.

CPM ads are also a popular monetization solution for bloggers and website owners. CPM ads pay for impressions. Your visitors do not have to engage in your ads for you to earn. You don’t require clicks or any other engagements to earn.

Looks like CPM is a better choice, but wait until you read this.

In order to earn from CPM, you need traffic from tier one countries. They offer a higher CPM rate for the traffic from US and Canada. For the traffic from tier three countries, the CPM rate is very low. Since CPC ads pay you for every legitimate click, you have a higher chance of earning with CPC ads. However, you can earn only when visitors engage in your ads.

Adsense and the ad networks that are Adsense resellers use the CPC model. For example Adsense, media.net, Infolinks all are CPC ad networks. They also pay for CPM, however, they are mainly CPC ads. 

Most of the CPM ads (ad networks that offer only CPM ads) are pop-up or pop-under ads. For example, Propeller ads is popular CPM ads and it is a pop-under ad network.

First published on Trendri, in author's name