Ad Suppliers Who Pay You to Publish Advertising: A Big List

You need advertising on your website. You’ll publish the ads if someone will send them to you and pay you. Lots of companies supply them.

I tried to find a good list of suppliers, but, so far, I hadn’t. So, I put a list together. If you want to be a publisher of ads, this list is for you. These suppliers may also be known as “ad exchanges”, “advertising exchanges”, “ad networks”, “advertising networks”, and “programmatic advertising” suppliers.

This isn’t a quality list of the best. These are mostly anyone I found. I looked at roughly two dozen online lists that probably are largely trying to promote those that pay their authors referral fees for business they send to the companies, so they’re biased, but I needed something. I also added the large number of companies that are members of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Doubtless, I’m missing some and some that I’m missing may be excellent. I’ll be happy to add them. I’m not interested in referral fees, my list being skewed enough as it is, although I’ll accept advertising from an ad supplier.

EU/GDPR is a major issue. By far, most suppliers seem to have accepted jurisdiction of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). (I’m not a lawyer.) The EU has reportedly claimed worldwide jurisdiction. However, the EU does not have worldwide jurisdiction except over parties who have enough nexus to bring them under EU jurisdiction. Thus, many firms and people are beyond EU jurisdiction. To my knowledge, there is no way to be under GDPR without being under EU jurisdiction; if you’re under one, you’re under both. If an ad supplier is under that jurisdiction and you accept ads from that supplier, you may gain enough nexus to put you under EU jurisdiction. If you are under the EU anyway, using an EU-governed ad supplier may make no difference to you, but if you’re not under the EU otherwise, you may not want to use the services of an ad supplier that is. So, I have indicated in this list which ad suppliers seem to be under EU jurisdiction.

In this list, if a supplier is marked as “maybe under EU/GDPR”, that includes a supplier that is definitely under EU/GDPR as well as any that, solely because of an address, seems to be under EU/GDPR. Perhaps the address is just a mail drop and does not establish enough of a nexus for jurisdiction, but I wanted to be on the cautious side. In many cases, the use of a banner about cookie policy and soliciting the user’s consent by a click was enough for me to believe that the supplier may be under EU/GDPR jurisdiction. While some people argue that every site that sends a cookie into the EU is under the GDPR, I think that’s a legal overclaim and not true. Some sites are under GDPR. Not all are.

Brexit is relevant to a supplier that is under the EU only because of a nexus with the United Kingdom, but no other EU nation. The U.K. being in the EU may only be temporary and the final outcome of Brexit may end that. I’ve indicated Brexit’s relevance where I think it applies. However, it may apply to many more suppliers than I’ve indicated here.

International dealing is not otherwise addressed in this list. Several suppliers operate in multiple nations, but, other than for the EU, the list doesn’t say which ones. You have, basically, three choices: relate only with suppliers that have addresses only in your nation; learn the foreign law governing the supplier you’re interested in and hire a lawyer in that nation; or don’t pay attention to foreign jurisdiction as long as you don’t hear bad news. Not caring has worked out well enough for lots of people in most relationships, since most people don’t do things that violate the laws where they live (so don’t commit fraud or ship nuclear weapons around the world). If you’re isolationist and you live and work in the United States, you’ll still have a wide choice of suppliers, but in some nations there may be no local suppliers, and others have very few, maybe only one. Studying foreign legal liabilities and hiring attorneys are usually practiced only by very large companies and companies making very large deals. Many suppliers do not disclose in which nations they’re located on their websites, so, if you’re concerned, you should ask before committing, but the person who answers you may be misinformed or not know, so decide what you’ll do if you’re not sure. The locations of parent companies may matter just as much, so you likely need the name of any company that owns the company with which you’re dealing, and the parent’s parent, and so on, so you can check for their EU nexus possibilities.

Parent companies are mentioned if I knew about them. I may have missed some. Parent companies may cause EU/GDPR jurisdiction.

Sex ads are offered by some suppliers, which, hopefully, are omitted here. However, I can’t be sure that I found all such suppliers. You may want to ask any supplier before it serves you ads whether it will let you filter those ads before they get displayed on your site. You probably can’t see all the ads that get displayed on your site, so just looking at your site probably won’t be protective enough.

While embedding ads into audio (like podcasts), video (including TV), virtual reality, apps, games, or emails can finance your projects, I think ads for those media are different than website ads. I left those suppliers out. Perhaps someone else will compile lists of those suppliers.

Affiliate marketing is included. Essentially, they provide ads. Several ways of calculating your earnings are offered, and affiliate marketing offers one of those ways, payment based on sales of advertised products rather than on clicks or impressions.

If a supplier’s website was not mainly in English either on the home page or via an easily-found link or button from the home page, I omitted it. They may be very good suppliers, but if I can’t read the website I can’t even judge its basic relevance.

If a supplier’s website is apparently under construction, I omitted it. An example would be a site with a home page with a graphic or animation but no text, link, or button.

If a supplier merged into another, I omitted the former and listed the latter.

If a supplier is closed or out of business, I omitted it.

If a supplier is unreachable on at least two nonconsecutive days, I omitted it. Unreachability means that it either couldn’t be reached through the World Wide Web or my Firefox browser alerted me to a website security problem so serious that it wouldn’t connect to it. If a supplier is offering an automated service but doesn’t know it has a basic problem with its own website, it probably has doubtful competence.

If a supplier did not let me know even a little information about its offering unless I first created a login, I omitted that supplier. I’d have accepted that I can collect a bazillion dollars by publishing their ads and nothing more, but at least that would have told me that I can publish ads they supply. If they don’t even say that and I have to log in to find out, I left it off the list.

Some other notes are included for some suppliers. If a similar note does not appear for another supplier, I may not have known enough to include it. For example, while, for some suppliers, I discuss legal terms, for most others I didn’t read the terms at all, so I wouldn’t know if the terms are similar or different.

This list is more or less alphabetical, with numbers first.

152 Media:

http://www.152media.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

part of Ebsco

Ebsco: see 152 Media

33Across:

http://33across.com

maybe under EU/GDPR pending Brexit

50 on Red: https://50onred.com

Acast:

https://www.acast.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

AdBidCentral: http://www.adbidcentral.com/user/login

Adblade:

https://www.adblade.com

part of Congoo including Adiant

adbuff:

https://adbuff.com

traffic should mainly be from U.S., U.K., Canada, & Australia

no ecommerce or shopping cart

Adcash:

https://adcash.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

AdColony:

https://www.adcolony.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

AddApptr:

https://www.addapptr.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

Adelphic: https://www.adelphic.com

Adform:

https://www.adform.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

Adiant:

Adiant: see Adblade

Adiant: see IndustryBrains

AdKernel:

https://adkernel.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

probably an ad supplier

AdLandmark:

http://adlandmark.com

specialty is websites about computers

adMarketplace:

https://www.admarketplace.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

Ad Maven:

https://ad-maven.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

Admiral: https://getadmiral.com

ad pepper media: https://adpepper.com/en

AdPushup:

https://www.adpushup.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

AdRecover: https://www.adrecover.com

AdRizer:

http://www.adrizer.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

Adslot:

https://www.adslot.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

AdSpirit:

https://www.adspirit.de

maybe under EU/GDPR

Adsterra:

https://adsterra.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

Adtelligent:

https://adtelligent.com

maybe under EU/GDPR pending Brexit

terms restrict linking to this supplier’s website (this could be valid if contractual)

AdThrive:

http://www.adthrive.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

apparently wants your login credentials for other sites (this may be illegal, depending on the terms of use of the other sites)

terms require closing a browser window after each use (possibly burdensome)

prefers most traffic to be from U.S.

Adversal Media:

https://www.adversal.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

Advertica: see ylliX

Adyoulike:

https://www.adyoulike.com

maybe under EU/GDPR

AerServ:

https://www.aerserv.com

maybe under EU/GDPR