Ad Brokers

An ad broker is a company that serves as the liaison between the website owner and the advertiser. 

The advertiser has an arrangement with the broker and establishes the criteria for the website owners (site content, longevity, traffic, etc) and the commission structure and payout). The website owner then creates an account with the ad broker and then applies to the companies that s/he wants to partner with and if approved, place ads on their website or blog. When you create an account, you provide information regarding your company, your website and the purpose of your website and of course, how you want to be paid. You will need to enter either your social security number or your tax ID number, along with possible banking information.

There are many different ad brokers that provide this service. Many of them like Commission Junction and Link Share offer a diverse range of companies, offering services from financial services, travel, fashion, to software. Then there are others, like Clickbank that allow you to promote software downloads, e-books or programs (some subscription based). 

When you apply to partner with advertisers, there is an approval process. You browse the category of advertisers and typically, you click on the advertisers that are of interest to you. With some of the ad brokers, when you apply for an advertiser, you are instantly approved or not approved. With other ad broker companies, a message will appear that says something like "...this advertiser approves manually. Blah blah blah..," which basically means that someone will probably check out your site and will either approve you or not approve you.

Some of the advertisers may just look at your profile - the site information that you provided when you created your account, to see what the purpose of your site is and if it is a good match for their products / services. Other companies will look at the actual website. Some advertisers are a little more selective about the websites that their products are being marketed on and that is where the criteria may come into play. You might need to have a certain amount of traffic or your website may need to be a little more established. Don't worry about that...there are thousands of advertisers to choose from and you will find more than enough ads to place on your site.

Once you are approved, your advertisers will appear in an area that lists "Your Advertisers" or something to that effect. You will then be able to view the links. Clicking on "view the links" will take you to the snippet of code that you cut and paste within the code (html) of your website to make the ads appear. You will ads of various sizes (125 x 125, 160 x 600, 120 x 600, 468 x 60, etc) and designs. There are also text links. The code has specific information about your account so that when the ad is placed on your site, clicked on by a visitor, a purchase is made, you then receive a commission.

Because you are dealing with an ad broker, the broker receives commission as well. Commission rates vary by advertiser. Rates are all over the place, depending on the advertiser and the product / service. The key to successful monetization is attracting traffic to your site. The more consistent traffic you have visiting your site through engaging content that is updated on a consistent basis, your monetization efforts will be well worth your time.