AdThrive is one of the top display ad networks in the world. There have been many success stories from website owners who have made the switch over to AdThrive and have raised their website income significantly.
Their platform is difficult to get accepted into as they have very strict requirements. Once accepted though, your site can make a lot of money with them.
I recently wrote an article that detailed the process of selling your Mediavine website. I now wanted to cover AdThrive in a similar way. This article will focus on the process of selling a website that uses AdThrive as a part of the monetization.
The quick and simple answer is yes. At Motion Invest, we have sold several websites that use AdThrive as one of their main forms of monetization. Sites that use AdThrive are less prevalent than others (due to their strict requirements) but it can definitely be done.
In July 2022, I reached out directly to AdThrive and asked them about buying a website that uses their display ads. I wanted to know if I would be able to continue using their ad network after taking over the site.
Mediavine asks buyers to re-submit the website and go through their due diligence again after a site is bought. As a result, there is no guarantee that you will be able to use Mediavine after taking it over from a seller. Because of this, I wanted to find out about AdThrive and if they changed their policy to be something similar as Mediavine.
That is not the case as of July 2022. Here was the response that I received from their support team:
Hey Ryan,
You bet!
We’ll need to go through a transfer of ownership process, including getting you approved in Google’s Ad Manager system (if you’re not already). But we have done this with dozens of transfers before, and we’ll be here to take care of you every step of the way!
Let me know if you have any questions or if there’s anything else I can help with. Thanks!
Daniel
So based on the response from the support team, buyers just need to go through their transfer of ownership process after taking over the site. This will allow you to continue using AdThrive after buying a site. This falls in line with what has happened with us in the past at Motion Invest. We have not had any issues getting the new buyer changed over after selling a site that uses AdThrive.
AdThrive has pretty strict requirements to be accepted to their platform. They only want sites generating 100,000 pageviews per month. Most of the traffic needs to be from the following countries: USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, or New Zealand. The site also has to have some unique content that distinguishes it from others:
As you can see, not all website owners are going to be able to get accepted based on these parameters. For reference, Mediavine requires 50,000 sessions per month. So AdThrive is generally even harder to get accepted to.
This is one of those questions that you will need to decide for yourself. We always recommend that people do their own due diligence before buying a website and that applies here. Based on my own experience in this space, I will give you my thoughts and advice.
1) They have strict requirements and it is very hard to get accepted into. You know that at some point, the website made it past their standards and was accepted by their advertising partners. If it gets accepted by them, you know that advertisers found the site valuable at one point.
2) AdThrive allows you to change ownership. So this isn’t a case like Mediavine where the new buyer might not get accepted. Based on the support team’s response to me, the new buyer can take over the site and keep using their network, which is valuable.
1) Just because it passed their requirements, it does not mean that a website is perfect or super valuable. A site could have passed their entry requirements years ago. A lot can change in this space over time. For example, a site could have gotten hit hard by a major Google update and now it is only getting a small amount of traffic. The owner could have also changed up the content and site structure after it was accepted into their program.
You need to evaluate each site on a case-by-case basis and decide how valuable you think it is.
2) At the bottom of their eligibility requirements, AdThrive notes that they do accept websites with lower pageviews if you already have another site with them (and this website meets their requirements other than the pageviews one).
What this means is that someone could have a really successful website that they use AdThrive on. The site that you are evaluating might be one of their smaller sites that wouldn’t have gotten accepted normally but it received some slack by them because they have a larger site with them on the platform.
Make sure to do your own due diligence and decide how you value the site.
Overall, my opinion is that yes, AdThrive sites are generally more valuable than others. This is based on their strict requirements and the transfer of ownership. As I have tried to show, it doesn’t mean that every site that uses AdThrive is a slam dunk. We always recommend doing your own due diligence and deciding if it is a fit for you or not.
Do you have an AdThrive site that you would like to sell? If so, please feel free to email me ryan@motioninvest.com.
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