Welcome to the Mom Blog Money Blog Series! For 30 days we are following the Mom Blog Money Blog Workshop (affiliate link) sharing some tips so that we can work through the steps and grow together. Grab your coffee, have a seat, and join us.
In Day 11 we were talking about understanding Google Adsense. Today we are moving on to the topic of…
Getting paid for every page view!
Like most of you, I have Google Adsense on my blog and I also work with two other ad networks. I haven’t been getting rich but I’ve been getting checks every month and I sort of figured that the little bit I knew about CPM’s and CTR’s was enough.
After going through Day 12 of Mom Blog Money Blog, I realized that I’m not actually getting paid for every page view {my dismal Adsense earnings should have been my first indication there}. Did you know that you’ll sometimes have back-fill ads on your sidebar that are freebies? You’re not making a cent from them! Who wants to be giving away precious blog space that could be making you money?
With the help of some great videos in Mom Blog Money Blog, I set up a Google DFP account. Google DFP is a free service that will manage all of my ad networks in one place. In really general terms, it can be set up to rotate ads from different networks which frees up valuable sidebar space {I no longer have to have five different ads on my sidebar}, eliminates free ads running on my blog, and maximizes my income from the different ad networks.
I’m really excited to see how this simple change will affect my income in the days and weeks ahead.
Are you working with more than one ad network? Have you set up a Google DFP account?
Don’t miss Day 13 which focuses on getting paid to affiliate link.
This is great info. Something I’m going to look into. I use Adsense and one other ad network. Not getting great results with either one.
Hopefully DFP will help you to have the two ad networks work together.
What? Free ads? Oh no. I definitely need a Google DFP account. Thanks Randi! Great post!
Right? No one wants to host free ads.
I had no idea Google ran free ads on my blog! Thanks so much for pointing this out – I’m going to look at the info on opening a Google DFP account now.
Glad you found the post helpful!
Thanks, I really need to figure all this out.
Does anyone have recommendations for what the other ad networks should be?
Some other ad networks out there are BlogHer, Lijit and Federated Media. Of course there are many more but those are just a few that came to mind.
A couple of others are Media.net, Burst Media and Rivit.
Hope that helps.
Wow! Thank for sharing this!! I never thought that Adsense runs free ads on my site. Oh dear. I’ll sin up for Google DFP!
Again, thank you!! 
You’re welcome. Glad you found it helpful.
I have been using DFP for several months now and it is awesome. It is literally the most difficult thing that I have ever had to learn to set up, but once I got it rolling it has given me leverage. I now know EXACTLY what each sidebar ad is worth to my site and can tell ad networks what it will take to get me on board. I also love that google Adsense will then bid against other ad networks for the space. So, the same space can continue to make more money because there is a healthy competition.
Glad I am not the only one who thought DFP is difficult to learn…. thought it was just me. It overwhelmed me so I did not proceed with the set up. Guess I will give it another try and watch Laurie’s video again.
I have GA ad untis, so I just replace them with units from here? I am a bit confused. Please help! Thanks.
There are videos that walk you through the steps to set up Google DFP in the Mom Blog Money Blog workshop. You would need to sign up for the workshop to access them.
I SOOO wish I had seen this series before I spent $200 on the workshop. I would have loved to have followed along and then decided if I wanted more.