Google AdSense is the most common starting ad network for new bloggers. It’s easy to apply to, easy to set up, and carries no traffic minimums. It’s also the network most bloggers eventually outgrow, since higher-paying networks like Mediavine, Raptive, and Ezoic pay significantly more once you have real traffic. This post covers AdSense setup from scratch and when it makes sense to move on.

A WordPress blog post showing AdSense ad placements: in-content, sidebar, and below post

What AdSense pays

AdSense pays per click (CPC) and per impression (CPM). Typical RPMs, meaning revenue per 1,000 pageviews, look roughly like this:

  • Tech, finance, and business niches: $5 to $25.
  • Lifestyle and general-interest content: $2 to $8.
  • Lower-CPC niches, like entertainment or certain hobbies: $1 to $3.

To earn $1,000 a month, you’re generally looking at 100,000 to 500,000 monthly pageviews depending on your niche.

Getting approved

Google’s approval criteria come down to a few consistent factors:

  • Quality, original content, not scraped material or low-effort AI-only posts.
  • Enough content volume. There’s no official minimum, but somewhere around 15 to 20 substantial posts is a commonly cited threshold that gives you reasonable odds.
  • The essential pages: About, Contact, Privacy Policy, and Terms.
  • Clean design with genuinely clear navigation.
  • A site that looks finished, not one that still reads as under construction.
  • Compliance with AdSense’s program policies, meaning no prohibited content categories.

Apply at adsense.google.com. According to Google’s own AdSense help documentation, the review can take anywhere from a few days up to several weeks, so don’t panic if it’s still pending after the first week.

Common rejection reasons

  • Insufficient content overall.
  • Low-quality content: thin posts, or content that reads as copied.
  • A missing privacy policy or other required page.
  • A site that’s simply too new. Some publishers report more friction with brand-new domains specifically.
  • Niche restrictions, like firearms or adult content.
  • Traffic from invalid sources, such as purchased traffic or click fraud.

If you’re rejected, fix the specific issues Google cites, wait at least two weeks, and reapply rather than resubmitting immediately.

Site verification

After you apply, AdSense gives you a code snippet to add to your site, inside the <head> section.

You have a few reasonable options for adding it:

  • An Insert Headers and Footers plugin.
  • Site Kit by Google, Google’s own official plugin.
  • Your theme’s custom HTML or scripts area, if it has one.

Google then crawls your site and makes its approval decision from there.

Auto Ads vs manual placement

Auto Ads

Google’s AI automatically places ads on your pages based on machine-learned best positions.

The upsides:

  • Zero configuration required once it’s enabled.
  • Optimizes for revenue on its own.
  • Continuously tests different placements without you doing anything.

The downsides:

  • Less control over your own layout and user experience.
  • Can place ads in spots that genuinely hurt the reading experience.
  • Can slow down your page speed if left unchecked.

Manual placement

You decide exactly where ads go using an ad management plugin.

The upsides:

  • Full control over placement.
  • Generally better user experience as a result.
  • You can target specific, proven positions.

The downsides:

  • Requires a plugin and some configuration time.
  • Less automatic revenue optimization than Auto Ads provides.

For most beginners, try Auto Ads first, then move to manual placement once you have real performance data to work from.

Ad placement plugins

Ad Inserter

The most popular ad placement plugin, free, with a strong feature set for the price.

Features include positions like before the post, after paragraph N, before image M, or sidebar placement, along with device targeting and AMP support.

Advanced Ads

A polished interface with both free and Pro tiers.

WPCode (formerly Insert Headers and Footers Pro)

Snippet management that’s less ad-specific but still works well for placing ad code manually.

Site Kit by Google

Google’s official plugin, which connects AdSense alongside Analytics and Search Console.

Standard ad positions

The commonly high-performing positions are:

  • Above the fold: at the top of the post, right after the title.
  • In-content: after paragraph 1, 3, 5, and so on.
  • Sticky sidebar: an ad that follows the user as they scroll, on desktop.
  • Below post: right after the main content ends.
  • Below comments: at the very bottom of the page.

How many ads is too many

AdSense doesn’t set a specific numeric limit in its own program policies, but ad density shouldn’t overwhelm your actual content.

Practical guidance that holds up in most niches:

  • 3 to 5 ads per article works for most blogs.
  • Use more on genuinely long articles, fewer on short ones.
  • Overly aggressive placement tends to reduce RPM eventually anyway, since users simply bounce.
A blog post layout showing strategic ad placement: one above the fold, two in-content, one below post

Mobile ads

Most of your traffic is mobile, so mobile-specific considerations matter:

  • Responsive ad units adapt automatically to screen size.
  • Don’t stack multiple ads above the fold on mobile; Google penalizes this specifically.
  • An anchor ad, sticky at the bottom of the mobile screen, tends to perform well.
  • Interstitial ads, full-screen between page loads, can convert well but genuinely irritate readers.

Ad blockers

Somewhere between 20% and 40% of users run ad blockers, and you won’t earn anything from those visits.

Your realistic options:

  • Ignore it and move on.
  • Display a polite “consider supporting us” message.
  • Use anti-ad-block detection, though this is often considered an aggressive tactic by readers.

The best path for most blogs is simply to ignore it. Trying to defeat ad blockers usually annoys users more than it recovers in revenue.

Privacy compliance

AdSense relies on cookies, which means you need:

  • A cookie consent banner covering GDPR and CCPA.
  • A privacy policy that explains ad cookie usage clearly.

Plugins like CookieYes, Complianz, and Iubenda handle the banner side.

Inside AdSense itself, configure “Consent management” to let users opt out of personalized ads, which is legally required in the EU.

Showing ads on different page types

You can configure ads to appear only on certain page types:

  • Show on posts but not on standalone pages.
  • Hide on landing pages or sales pages entirely.
  • Show or hide on archive pages, based on preference.

This gets configured inside your ad plugin’s settings.

When to graduate from AdSense

Several networks offer meaningfully higher RPMs once you qualify:

Mediavine

  • Mediavine has moved away from a flat traffic minimum. Its main network now evaluates applicants partly on revenue, but its Journey on-ramp program accepts sites with as few as 1,000 sessions a month, a much lower bar than the 50,000-session figure that used to be the standard requirement.
  • RPM: typically 2 to 4 times AdSense.
  • Full ad management is included.
  • The most popular upgrade path for established bloggers.

Raptive (formerly AdThrive)

  • Requirement: roughly 25,000 monthly pageviews, a threshold Raptive has lowered from its earlier 100,000 figure.
  • RPM: typically the highest among the major networks.
  • A premium, higher-touch service overall.

Ezoic

  • No traffic minimum, which makes it accessible to smaller sites.
  • RPM: typically 1.5 to 2 times AdSense.
  • AI-driven ad optimization runs in the background.
  • A reasonable middle step before applying to Mediavine or Raptive.

Monumetric

  • Requirement: roughly 10,000 sessions a month.
  • Carries a setup fee.
  • RPM: generally between AdSense and Mediavine.

For a fuller side-by-side comparison, see our display ad networks compared post, and our guide on monetizing a blog before you have ad-eligible traffic if you’re not there yet.

Page speed and ads

Ad scripts hurt page speed by nature. A few mitigations help:

  • Use lazy-loaded ad placements so ads only load once scrolled into view.
  • Defer ad scripts wherever possible.
  • Keep overall ad density reasonable rather than maximal.
  • Monitor your Core Web Vitals regularly, since slow sites lose both rankings and ad revenue at once.

Slow sites simply earn less, because falling rankings mean fewer visitors to show ads to in the first place.

AdSense reporting

Track these inside the AdSense dashboard:

  • Total earnings.
  • RPM broken down by page and placement.
  • CTR, or click-through rate.
  • Top-performing pages.

Use this data to optimize deliberately: drop placements with genuinely poor performance, and double down on the positions that consistently work.

Where your theme fits into all this

Ad placement fights your layout more than most bloggers expect. A theme with flexible content sections, like Aurora, gives you clean, pre-defined spots for ad units that don’t fight your existing design or push your Core Web Vitals into the red. That matters more than it sounds like, since a theme constantly wrestling with ad-injected markup is exactly what produces the layout shift issues that hurt both reader experience and your ranking.

The real starting point, not the ending point

AdSense is the standard starter ad network for a reason. Get approved after building 15 to 20 quality posts and putting the essential legal pages in place. Set up through either Auto Ads or manual placement with Ad Inserter or Advanced Ads. Use 3 to 5 ads per article in positions that don’t fight your content. Stay compliant with consent banners from day one. Monitor your RPMs, and graduate to Mediavine’s Journey program, Raptive, or Ezoic once your traffic supports it, for meaningfully higher revenue at the same pageview count. AdSense isn’t where blogging monetization stops. It’s where it starts.