The market of Bitcoin advertisement networks is relatively young and there’s a lot of volatility, which means that ad networks come and go. On this website you find the currently operating ones, which mostly already even exist since a couple of years.
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How to find the right Bitcoin Ad Network – The life beyond Google AdSense
What is a Bitcoin Ad Network?
A Bitcoin Advertising Network connects advertisers with website owners in exchange for bitcoins. The ad network places advertisements on the site on behalf of the advertisers and if the traffic is high enough the publishers get paid in the digital currency. Payments are based on the number of views or clicks.
Benefits of Bitcoin Ad Networks compared to traditional providers
Compared to traditional advertising networks, besides naturally allowing bitcoin and blockchain based content, the bitcoin based networks offer all the benefits that bitcoin has. Due to the privacy features of the cryptocurrencies the anonymity of the advertisers and publishers are both guaranteed. Clients do not need to bother with complicated registration process and providing personal information; they can start the advertising activity right away. As an additional benefit, as payments are processed in bitcoin, clients either spend their bitcoins at one of the thousand merchants online or they can also profit form the cryptocurrency market fluctuations.
During last year, bitcoin price have been tripled, currently traded at almost 1000 USD and considered as alternative safe heaven investment just like gold. The underlying blockchain technology is changing the way we see electronic payments – a cheap, instant and private money transfer option for everyone around the globe.
Learn more about Bitcoin on Coindesk.com.
There are a couple of points that the prospective publishers and potential advertisers can look for when trying to find the right bitcoin ad network for their advertisements.
Services Provided
Categories
One of the reason users turn to Bitcoin Ad Networks is that their content is banned at other advertising companies. The most common categories on these networks are therefore related to the topic of bitcoin itself and online earnings. The remaining categories include blogs, catalogues and entertainment sites. Not all provider has a filter option to exclude NSFW or gambling contact so in case of these topics, clients on both sides should check the filters first.
Type of Ads
All kinds of advertisements are available on these networks such as texts, banners, searches, pop-unders. Prospective clients should better check the advertisement types whether their chosen type is available at the network, as it depends on the provider what they allow for clients. Some of the network offers the option to design banners for an extra charge, which can save a lot of time for advertisers and makes the advertising process more convenient.
Mobile Support
In the era of the smart devices, more and more traffic is coming from mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. So it is crucial to make sure the advertisements coming through the network are properly displayed on any devices.
Test Campaign vs Contracts
At a Bitcoin Ad Network, clients do not need to sign up for fixed term contracts. This helps new users to try out services. Due to the daily payment options, clients can switch networks as often they wish. However in order to achieve better fees long term, loyal users are always appreciated with lower charges.
Targeting Strategies
Targeting the audience for advertisement is one of the most important point in a successful campaign. Advertising networks may offer such targeting strategies based on context, audience, geographics, devices and timing.
Control
The more control an advertiser has over their ads the better position they are in a successful campaign. Adding detailed keywords or exceptions can tailor the traffic received through the ads. In case the place of the ads on a site can be manually chosen the design can be tailored as per the clients requests. Setting the date and the time when the ads are online are especially beneficial for those websites where the targeted audience visits the page at peak times.
Running out of advertisement or space
In case there are not enough advertisements on the network for any reason, it is important to have a backup solution from the provider side. Usually they fill in the free spaces with their own ads, however these are often charged differently. On the other hand, when there are too many advertisement paid for but there is not enough space on the site, the network usually allows to pay only for those ads that were online and clients may get a refund.
Getting Started at a Bitcoin Ad Network
Sign up
In order to sign up for a campaign at a Bitcoin Ad Network, users only need to go through two simple steps. First, they need to provide the details of the advertisement, like title, link, content and banner, if applicable. Then second choose the amount of bitcoin they wish to spend on the campaign. The bitcoin address is provided by the network where the fee can be transferred and after the confirmation is received, the ad campaign starts right away.
Languages
Although English is perceived to be the language of the internet, there are many users from different countries who wish to look for specific ads on their own languages. In case the clients want to target the audience in other countries, it is important that the provider has such feature and it works properly for special characters as well.
Payment Methods
Bitcoin Ad Networks are on the market in order to accept the digital currency as payment. In order to reduce costs, these networks are usually specialized for bitcoins only, however there are some networks which are accepting USD and EUR as payments. The fees in this case can be paid with credit cards or with wire transfers. Bitcoin Ad Networks often have the current bitcoin exchange price listed on their website, so clients can calculate the campaign costs upfront before payment.
Privacy
There is no need to add any personal information during the advertising process. No names or emails are given during the registration as the contracts are based on the public keys of the bitcoin addresses, this is how the contracts can be identified by the network. Although bitcoin is famous of it’s privacy, it is important to understand that the bitcoin addresses themselves are visible on the distributed ledger to anyone. However the person behind the addresses is not known for anyone. Once an advertisement code is added to a website, it just depends on the code whether it can be tracked back to the user.
As the ads lead to specific websites of course, it could be retraceable who you are if the website tells anything about the owner. So think if the imprint information and a private whois on the hoster’s side, if you really want the be completely anonymous.
Payment schedule
Fees
The amount of fees is a pro rata share of the revenues coming from the advertisements. The fee is ranging from 10-25% with a median of 20% of the revenue. The network fees are usually charged from the turnover before the results are paid out to the publishers. Larger networks can attract more traffic and has more options for fitting placement, so higher revenue can be achieved, and in such case the Ad Network can offer lower fees.
Earnings and Payments
Publisher’s earnings are dependent on at least the two most common internet advertising metrics: CPM and CPC. CPM means cost per thousand views or impressions, this is the number of times the users can see the ad on the site. CPC stands for cost per click, that measures the how effectively reaches the campaign the targeted audience. Often further measures are added to the earnings schedule and the providers sometimes even create their own unique metrics for publishers.
Bitcoin Advertising companies have detailed statistics about these measures where prospective clients can get a hold of the estimated future payouts. Publishers can receive the payout regularly with automated withdrawals or they can also opt for manual payout. In this case certain site may charge extra fees for amount below limits or even possible that no withdrawal at all is allowed below a threshold.
Advertisers can choose a maximum daily cost limit, above which no fees will be charged by the network. The amount of fees is dependent on the net effective CPM. Some network are running a bidding system where advertiser with the highest bid gets the desired advertisement space.
Another option to get more Bitcoin is to earn interest by lending Bitcoins.
How do you know if the network is effective for you?
Checking the Net Effective CPM is the most useful method to see whether an ad network is working as expected. As advertisers, clients should compare the CPM with the reached goal (earnings, subscribers, new users etc). This way the ad campaign can be validated with real life results. As publishers, clients compare the CPM results at various ad networks to see which one benefits them the most.