How to Get Approved by Media.net

getting-approved

7 Pro-Tips to Get Accepted into the Best Alternative to Google AdSense!

After I reviewed Media.net and revealed how I’ve been earning $400 a day by displaying their ads on my niche sites, I’ve been flooded with questions from so many of you. Most of these enquiries are around what you could do to lessen the chances of a rejection.

For content creators with blogs/websites Media.net ads are a great way to earn off their content. Media.net is the #2 contextual ad platform in the world, second only to Google AdSense and while I believe they have awesome ads, tech, and service, they are VERY particular about who they admit into their program. I’m writing this to help you help your site be approved by Media.net, so that you can monetize your content just as effectively as I do, or even better!

Here is my cheat-sheet to get accepted into Media.net:

1. Write original and engaging content

If your website has original and rich content, you are already one step closer to getting into Media.net. Remember, if you are a newbie, then you should wait till you build a body of work and then submit your website for approval. In case you are a curator and not a creator of content, it may be a good idea to start publishing some original content as well so that you aren’t border lining on plagiarism.

Because Media.net ads are contextual, it’s important that you provide a great quality of context through your content, for their system to pick up concepts from. The ads that you will then see, will be relevant to the page content and the likelihood of clicks by visitors will automatically increase.

The guys at Media.net are very particular about the standard of content they let in. So, work on your content and monetization will become that much easier and effective.

2. Publish content that is in English and receives most of the traffic from U.S./U.K./Canada

A quick look at Media.net’s website tells us that their ad spends are primarily on audience based in the U.S. This basically means that their (huge!) pool of advertisers wants to put money on people in the U.S., U.K. or Canada. So, it is only natural that they’ll want to approve publishers whose blogs/websites have content written in English and receive a majority of their traffic from these countries.

media-net-traffic-distribution-by-ad-spend

Figure 1:Q1 2016 Media.net Ad revenue by region and device type as seen on official website on Oct 2016

What you can do at your end is pick subjects that could be of interest and applicable to people across these geographies.

Let’s say, as an example, if you are interested in creating content around financial advice, then you can consider keeping the scope of your advice wide enough for audience from the U.S., U.K., and Canada. It will take you more time and research, but I believe that will make your content richer and riper for monetization.

3. Steer clear of restricted content

No ad network will put the advertisers’ interests at risk by associating their ads with content that could cause trouble. So, while it is important that you find your niche, you must know that there are some straightforward don’ts that come into play when your website/blog is being considered by Media.net for approval.

Here is what your content or the links you place on your blog/website shouldn’t be about:

  • Porn
  • Drugs – Promotion and/or Sale
  • Violence / Hatred / Profanity
  • Gambling
  • Spurious Products
  • Unregulated chat forums
  • Piracy and/or Hacking
  • Only user-generated content

4. Reach a decent volume of visitors

I’ve mentioned earlier in this post that a newbie should build a body of work to be accepted into Media.net. An extension of that is building a busy blog which has enough readership/viewership for advertisers to want to buy your Ad inventory and reach your audience. Simple and straight?!

Though Media.net doesn’t mention a specific minimum number of page views for qualification, I’d say one way to think of it is “Do I have a good number of engaged visitors reading my content regularly?”. If you have single digit daily visitors, you should probably wait till you get a few multiples more than it.

5. Don’t put too many ads on your website/blog

This piece of advice holds good even independent of applying to Media.net. Overloading your websites/blogs with far too many ad tags increases the latency of web pages which in turn makes your consumers develop a tendency to ignore your ads (there’s a term for it – Banner Blindness), or even worse, head straight for ad-blockers.

Media.net allows 3 ad placements per page. So, don’t be greedy, and put a selective number of ads on each page and optimize their performance by experimenting with them. At Media.net, your account manager will help you do this easily and as often as you want. This is what has worked for all my niche websites without disrupting user experience and consumption of my content. Listen to their advice and you’ll see your income shoot up!

6. Have a neat website with systematic layout of content

Media.net delivers on its ads taking the look, feel, and form of your content – making them sharply contextual and high-paying. So they expect you to meet them halfway, with a website/blog that is easy to navigate, user-friendly and clean.

Keeping in line with Media.net’s requisite of a clean website, be mindful of avoiding these mistakes:

  • Hiding texts and links within the site
  • Manipulating site content to improve SEO
  • Redirecting traffic to sites external to Media.net Contextual Ads Program
  • Submitting parked /free hosted / empty pages for approval

7. Ensure you get clean traffic to your website/blog

Advertisers pay for clicks on their ads and they like to make sure, as far as possible, to pay for clicks that have the intention to take the action advertisers desire of them. At Media.net, publishers are expected to adhere to the highest of standards when it comes to traffic and clicks.

So lay off those click-exchange programs, auto clicking and surfing bots or anything that leads to false / fraudulent / non-human impressions and clicks. It’s not worth getting your account suspended for or not approved at all when you could be earning incremental revenue using Media.net ads on your pages.

Important: These tips come from my experience as a user of Media.net ads for over 2 years now. These are my guidelines and each one of their criteria will, of course, be up for independent review by the folks at Media.net whenever you submit your website/blog for approval.

Media.net is picky about who they choose, but they are top tier with their performance and customer service. So they are definitely worth a shot. That said, I think you’ll find your website/blog getting approved quite easily if you take this post into consideration.

Think you check all the boxes above? Click on the link below and you should hear from them in 2 business days.

BONUS: Get 10% more revenue from Media.net for the first 3 months when you sign up with this link.

Good luck, then!

37 thoughts on “How to Get Approved by Media.net”

  1. Hi Jon,

    I got approved by Media.net using a blog which receives majority of traffic from US/UK. I have a second blog which receives majority of traffic from other (mid/low tier) countries. I have registered this second blog in my Media.net account and got approved as well. Do you think I will have a problem to place ads on the second blog? (since the traffic is not from US/UK/CA) ?

    Thanks

    Harry

  2. Jon, getting approval for Media.net is not the problem; the problem is the transparency of their system especially when compared to Adsense. I joined Media.net based on recommendation i got from your blog FatStacks and i average $2,000+ monthly and i receive payment as at when due.

    But surprisingly, i am yet to receive my earnings for August which was due to be sent in September. No notice for the delay, no provision to check if payment have been sent; NOTHING!!! And for the records, my account is still active and ads are running. I contacted my account rep and he said he will get back to me. My point is can’t they make their system more transparent and trackable?

    P.S: I read that Media.net has been sold in August2016 to a Chinese firm for $900million . Are they in distress? I just hope that the sale is not the reason for the delay in payment. Please permit me to ask Jon, have you received your earnings for August 2016??

    1. Hey Martins,
      I’ve never had an issue with Media.net paying on time and I did receive recent payments on time. I’ve found the very reliable so I’m surprised you’re having an issue. I would not tolerate that. All I can say is talk to your rep and I hope they get you paid up asap.

  3. Hi Jon
    I’m not familiar with Media.net, but thanks for extremely informative tips. Also found this post i.e. [Adsense Account Approval] How To Make The Adsense Team Like Your Website on Rank XL by Chris Lee that I think also very useful.

    Awesome read and looking forward to more posts!

    Imer

  4. Hi,
    I have already applied to media.net but due to what reason they have rejected can you please confirm what would be reason. Might it help me out for future

    Thanks

    1. Your traffic needs to be from US/UK. You should have well written content in English that is both advertiser friendly and complies with their TOS. They would expect you to do some research before taking part in their program because if you don’t have time to make sure you comply with their terms while applying they’d think you’re an unworthy publisher.

    1. Hey James,

      RPM for Media.net is down a bit but I’m also being far more aggressive with Monumetric since I’m getting killer RPM numbers with them. At the end of the day there are only so many premium spots on a website and since Monumetric is performing so well for me, I’m giving them top billing.

  5. Hey John, have you heard of AdThrive? Currently using them to manage non-direct banner ads and getting ~$6.35 RPM (September).

    Haven’t used Media.net so can’t compare, but I’ve been very happy with AT.

      1. Yeah, I place direct ads myself, but that RPM is just for their units.

        I’ll rotate up to two leaderboard ads and three sidebar ads (direct), then AdThrive handles everything else.

        Ad revenue is still small compared to sponsorships, though.

  6. Hi Jon!

    Nice post!

    Was wondering if you were planning on releasing more monthly sales stats soon, as it’s been quite a few months. Of course I’m sure you’re busy with many other things though and it’s just a time issue.

    Also I noticed when looking back through past years, you used to spend a lot more on advertising, which resulted in bigger ad sales on your own sites, and higher profit. I’m wondering why you have decreased / stopped that strategy? I couldn’t find any articles about it and was just curious.

    Hope you are well 🙂

    Cheers,
    Mark

    1. Hey Mark,

      I have the numbers compiled from the summer for the 2 niche sites I feature in income reports, now I just have to publish the posts. Sorry for the delay… I usually do these quarterly. I’m launching 2 new niche sites currently so am pretty bogged down but should get to the income reports soon.

      Yes, I spend much less on paid ads in recent months. A big reason for this is the Nessie arrows come and go on my AdSense ads which fluctuates revenue so much that buying traffic is very difficult for me. Moreover, I’m investing in more content to grow organic search traffic now that I have a lot of organic search traffic. Organic search is a much more passive form of traffic.

      I’m also working hard on increasing affiliate revenue which is more organic search based although I want to test some PPC traffic in this regard as well as some retargeting advertising.

  7. Hey Jon,

    There are many alternatives of Google AdSense from which, Media.net can be quite good. People get afraid when they get rejected by Google.

    Whether you want your blog to get approved from Google or any other network like Media.net. The first is to have the quality content.

    The visits from the developed countries like UK, US are considered as more valuable.

    An informative post indeed.
    ~Ravi

  8. Hi Jon! I recently uploaded my site for the review from media.net and got rejected 🙁 but my site was a free blogspot is that the reason because I was rejected?

    1. Hey Pranav, I’m not sure it being a free blogspot is the reason for being rejected. I’m not sure about Media.net’s stance on that. I think in the long run, getting your site under your full control is a smart way to proceed.

  9. Dear sir , I am very happy for approved media.net for your suggestion and guideline. Thank a lot for your suggestion and guideline. Now i want to know i have a website that is english and bengali both language based. can i implement media.net ads in my site? and give me also tips how i can earn lot of from this site? please give me message – [email protected]

  10. Getting approved for MediaNet is really tough, although the recommendations can always help. The key thing about MediaNet approval is the well written unique content.

  11. The key thing about MediaNet approval is only one! majority of traffic from US or UK.
    If you get 100.000 uniques monthly from US and 100.001 from a non english speaking country …simply you get rejected!

    everything else doesn`t matter

  12. Hey Jon,
    I have applied for Media,net last week using your affiliate link.
    But, they haven’t sent any confirmation mail!

    This is the main con of Media, net.
    They are poor in new approvals.
    I have seen that so many new publishers are waiting for approval email.

  13. As you know I follow every new blog post from you, but this one was that really inspiring, that I could do nothing else, just comment and let you know about this. Simpli EPIC.

    Regards

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