How to earn more from your banner spots. A deep dive into the topic with the best practices, expert advice, stats, and charts

Banner ads have bad publicity. Most publishers consider them as not effective enough, not profitable enough. Their CPMs are generally lower than on other formats. So in pursuit of profits, many publishers add as many banners as possible, making their web pages into banner farms. 

We have to agree that if you work with just one ad network, you might find it more lucrative to pay attention to other formats.

However, we at AdSpyglass consider the banners’ reputation unjust. Just like any other ad format, banners must be used correctly to be effective and make bank for you. Working via the AdSpyglass platform with multiple networks simultaneously will transform your banner spots into profitable placements. We have the stats to prove it! Yes, you’ll have to put some time and effort into setting up, but you will see an increase in your income from banners pretty soon. 

In this post, one of our experts will share the secrets to setting up banner ads to bring you more profits. Merely to clear the banners’ unjust reputation, you understand. Not for you to profit from. That’s a joke, of course. We want you to prosper, so please do use our expert recommendations to make more money with your banner spots! 

*All the stats in this article are the average for the US traffic. All the advice here is aimed mostly at adult niche websites. 

What types of banners are there?

Banners have been around for a long time, so you definitely know how a banner ad looks. 

You can see them everywhere today – in your mobile apps, on every website you visit, in every email newsletter you receive. There are static and animated banners, interactive and rich media banners, and even expandable ones. 

All the banner ads can be categorized into three general types:

• Native banners. These are the ads that look like a part of your website’s design. This type of banner ad is considered more user-friendly than the rest of them because the users perceive the ad as a part of the content and not as an annoying advertisement. 
• Regular banner. Unlike the native banners, these ads don’t look like part of the website’s content. These are your simple banners of various sizes. They can be animated or static, interactive or expandable. Basically, whatever creative can be inserted into a banner ad spot. 
• Multi-format. The combination of the above types. Currently, only two of the ad networks we work with offer this type of banner – ExoClick and TrafficStars. Though TrafficStars call theirs Masterspot. The format unites native banners with common ones in one spot and then rotates the banners on the network’s side, the visitor sees whichever banner will pay you more for this particular impression. The great news is – with AdSpyglass, you can create a multi-format banner from any spot on your website. So you won’t have to limit yourself to just these two networks.  

Not all ad networks work with banners. And those that do might support just one banner type or another, not all of them at once. Here’s our list of adult ad networks that support banners and which banner types they offer:

What banner spots placements are the most profitable? 

Placement of the ad spots directly correlates with how much profit you make on them. The higher a banner’s clickability (CTR), the more its value (CPM). That’s why the most expensive banners are those placed closest to the video player.

The list of possible banner placements listed from the most profitable to the least effective:

• In-video or player banner. This is the banner placed over the player itself.
• Near the player (NTV). Placement is to the right or left of the player.
• Under/above the player. The name is self-explanatory. A banner is placed either under or above the player.
• Header. A banner is placed in the website’s header.
• Between thumbs. Banners are placed between the video thumbs on the website.
• Footer. A banner is in the lowest place on the website. 

Whatever placement you choose, you should ensure the banner looks concordant with the rest of the content and the website’s design. It’s perfect if the banners and your website’s thumbs look alike. 

To give you an idea of what placements and networks might be more profitable for you, here are the stats we gathered on the average CPMs on each banner placement*.

Networks/banners	NTV	Header	Under player	Between thumbs	Footer
Adnium	0.038	0.01	0.055	0.018	0.0168
AdsTerra	0.019	0.09	0.052	0.01	0.026
Clickadilla/Tubecorporate	0.0067	0.006	0.0058	0.006	0.0059
Clickadu	0.0186	0.026	0.0257	0.017	0.015
Clickaine	0.0016	0.115	0.009	0.0014	0.005
Ero-Advertising	0.002	0.00123		0.002	0.0019
Evadav					0.016
ExoClick	0.02	0.019	0.026	0.015	0.015
TrafficShop	0.06	0.124	0.007	0.04	0.0016
TrafficStars	0.023	0.019	,0.018	0.018	0.011
TwinRed	0.013	0.02	0.031	0.011	0.016

Above or below the fold 

Above the fold is the part of the website that is visible without scrolling down. This upper part gets a lot of attention from website administrators since users decide whether to scroll further based on above the fold. The portion of the page that requires scrolling in order to see the content is called “below the fold.”

When it comes to banners, you have to understand how the network you work with counts the impressions. Some of the networks simply count the number of times their code was loaded. Others, however, count the number of times the banner was actually seen.   

Naturally, if your banner ad is placed below the fold, its views will be lower than those of the banner placements above the fold.                                         

To make informed decisions on your banner spots placements you need to know how far down your users scroll your pages. 

For example, a tube site visitor most probably will be engrossed by the top-most video on the home page and won’t scroll all the way down to the footer. So placing banners in the homepage footer of a tube website doesn’t make any sense. But if you place your banners in the upper part of the home page or your video page the visitors will definitely see the ads. 

An example of a thought through placement in this scenario is interactive banners on the first screen and the video on the second. 

What to add in those spots?

Now that you know where to place your banner spots, let’s find out what to show in those placements to make the most out of your banner ads. 

When you work with just one ad network, your choices are very limited. You can show only those banners the network has on offer. That’s it.

Let’s imagine most of your adult tube site visitors come to you from Italy via Chrome and only 2% of your mobile traffic comes from the US. The network you work with offers banners for the mobile US and desktop Germany via Mozilla. That’s it. As a result, only a tiny portion of your impressions is covered with banner ads. The rest of your visitors see the so-called fallback ads, which are cheap CPA offers. Not very profitable, is it? 

If you work via the AdSpyglass platform, your hands are free. The platform allows rotating different types of banners from different networks in one ad spot. The banners in the rotation compete with each other on those segments where there are a lot of offers from different networks. The algorithm will show your visitors only the most profitable offer. And the rotation will cover those segments that have limited offers too. 

Adding to the rotation as many networks as possible is guaranteed to increase your income from banners by at least 40%. 

If you’d like to learn more about the AdSpyglass platform and what it can do for your adult niche website, here’s a post to read. 

 The table below has the CPMs for the native banners and the most popular regular banner sizes. AdSpyglass system sees the multi-format banners as regular ones, so we can’t provide stats on them separately, but the clients who use the formats can confirm their profits are higher on these banner spots. 

Networks/banners	Native	300х100	300х250	728×90
Adnium	0.019	0.007	0.017	0.001
AdsTerra	0.1145	0.073	0.051	0.465
Adskeeper	0.166
Clickadilla	0.002	0.005	0.005
Tubecorporate	0.002	0.002	0.002	0.0001
Clickadu	0.033	0.011	0.017
Clickaine	0.004	0.01	0.0005	0.01
Ero-Advertising	0.0008	0.001	0.01	0.0001
Evadav	0.003		0.032
ExoClick	0.02	0.019	0.021	0.013
TrafficShop	0.001	0.003	0.026	0.023
TrafficStars	0.014	0.017	0.021	0.009
TwinRed	0.033	0.013	0.022	0.0001

The table shows the average CPMs of all the networks that work with banners. Choosing the one with the highest CPM makes the most sense if you work with only one network. But working with AdSpyglass, you can rotate all the networks in one spot. Adding ALL the networks to rotation makes a lot more sense. The network with the lowest CPM might be the most profitable for a small segment of your traffic. The more such segments you cover with ads, the higher your average CPM gets. It will get much better than the best-paying network’s CPM. The higher your profits become at the end of the day. 

Wouldn’t it be easier to add only Multi-format and Masterspot to all the placements?

Easier? Yes. Effective? Not so much. As we’ve mentioned above, multi-format banners are offered by ExoClick and TrafficStars only. Adding only these networks to the rotation will not be as effective. However, rotating the multi-formats alongside other types of banners from other networks is definitely a winning strategy. 

 When you set up ExoClick Multiformat and TrafficStars Masterspot, unite every banner they offer into the combined spots. This way, the spots’ effectiveness will be much better. 

The more options the AdSpyglass algorithm has, the better the chanes that every single visitor will be shown a high-paying ad. So to make more money on your banner spots add as many networks to your adSpyglass rotation as possible. 

How many banners should there be on a page?

How many banner spots per page should you have? We can not give you an exact answer to that question. What works for a tube site won’t be as effective for an eCommerce one and vice versa.

We can tell you this: you must be very careful with the number of banners you place on your pages. If you have too much, you risk looking like a “banner farm”. And that can have severe consequences – the CTR on the banners will go down, the CPMs will go with it, and the ad networks might even ban you. 

Besides, if you work with just one ad network adding 20 banner spots will do exactly nothing for your income. The visitors will most probably see the same creative in every spot. 

According to our tests and experience, the best placement quantities are as follows

Max 2 Header banners

Max 3 NTV banners

1 Above and 1 Under the player

1 in-video banner

1 big Footer banner or 4 small ones. 

The number of Between thumbs banners is harder to calculate. It largely depends on the website’s design. However many banners you place here, they have to fit seamlessly with the design. 

The number of placements we provided above does not mean you have to add all of them on one page. Experiment, find what works best for your design and your traffic. 

If you are an AdSpyglass user, you can also reach out to our experts in Telegram or via email, they’ll be happy to advise and even set it all up for your website specifically. 

Should a big adult tube site even bother with banners? Can they really be effective? 

Absolutely! You inevitably get many offers from direct advertisers if your website has huge traffic volumes and a good reputation. And direct advertisers love banner ads. With AdSpyglass, you can add direct ads to the rotation alongside the networks’ banners. Since direct ads usually pay more, the networks will raise their CPMs to compete for your impressions. And make even more money for you. 

Moreover, with the AdSpyglass Media Kit generator, you get a way to efficiently work with direct advertisers. The generator creates a Media Kit page that features stats on every ad spot you have. When interested advertiser clicks on the “ad by AdSpyglass” link on a banner, they are directed to the Media Kit page and see precisely what traffic this banner spot can offer them. 

Your Media Kit page will show what placements you offer, their execution page, ad type, size, appearance, and daily impressions for each spot. The stats are available for the country, device, and browser used to view your ads. And the stats are continuously updated.

In this scenario, the work with direct advertisers is conducted via the advertisers’ area at Traforama.com. 

If your advertiser was referred to Traforama from your Media Kit the conditions will be very lucrative for both of you:

• All your deals with them are commission-free. You will receive exactly as much as the advertiser spends.
• All the transactions with the advertiser are done by us. You don’t have to do a thing, we will accept their payments and pay the money out to you via the payment method you specify.
• The advertiser can buy out only the particular segment of your traffic they are interested in. 

In conclusion

According to the AdSpyglass stats and the experience our experts have with banner ads, rotating the offers from the 10 networks we’ve looked at in this article increases the income from banners by 40-50%. Of course, every website is different and a lot depends on your traffic volumes and your GEOs, so the results will vary from website to website. 

To be sure you are getting everything your banner spots can offer, register with AdSpyglass and reach out to our experts for help with setting up your banner placements. Let’s make your banners great again together!