How to Earn from Online Ads? AdSense, YouTube, and More – There Are Many Opportunities!

Do you want to earn from online ads but don’t know where to start? You don’t need a blog with a million hits or a channel with 500k subscribers. In 2025, your options are broader than ever – from the classic AdSense, through YouTube, to affiliation and other solutions, which we’ll discuss in today’s guide. This post is an overview of things that can genuinely make you money, without the fluff and myths from a decade ago.

How to Earn from Online Ads? Before you start clicking, know the difference between CPC, CPM, and CPA 

If you want to get into earning from online ads, you need to understand basic billing models. Just putting up any random banner and waiting for a payment unfortunately doesn’t work. 

• CPC, or cost per click, means you earn when someone clicks on an ad.
• CPM is billing for a thousand impressions – it’s not clicks that count here, but the mere presence of the ad. 
• CPA, on the other hand, is commission for an action, like a purchase or registration. CPA tends to be the most profitable, though it’s the hardest to achieve.

It sounds theoretical, but in practice this is the difference between a few cents and a few dollars for every thousand visits. If you place ads on a blog with low conversion, CPM might be better. If you have a community that trusts your recommendations – CPA will do a better job. And CPC? It’s a classic, but you need traffic and content set up in such a way that people actually click. Therefore, before implementing anything, understand what works when – and match the model to your traffic and theme.

Earning from Online Ads with AdSense Isn’t a Myth, But It Can Pay Well – If You Set Your Site Up Right

Google AdSense still works, just not as “magically” as it did 10 years ago. If you want to make money from ads on a website, you need not only traffic but also a well-thought-out website structure. The point is for ads to appear where the user will actually see and possibly click them – but won’t disrupt the content. A well-performing place is, for example, in the middle of a blog post or under a headline.

What’s important – AdSense now chooses ads based on your content, but that doesn’t mean you can post just anything. Google assesses the site’s quality, UX, loading time, and even the presence of inappropriate content. If a blog looks like a junk-filled mess, earnings drop. But if you have solid texts, good structure, and optimization – you can earn a few hundred dollars even with 5–10 thousand users a month.

Earning from ads on a website requires not just inserting code, but also continuous testing of layout, formats, and topics. Contrary to appearances, sometimes fewer ads bring in more money – because the user doesn’t flee, and the ads are better rated.

YouTube Pays for Ads, But Not Everyone – What Do You Need to Qualify?

If you’re counting on uploading a few videos to YouTube and the money flowing – better to know right away that the YouTube Partner Program has its thresholds. To start earning from ads in videos at all, you need at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time in the last 12 months or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days. Only then can you enable monetization.

But access itself is only the beginning. YouTube earns primarily from preroll, midroll, and display ads – and the rates depend on the topic, language, and location of the viewers. For Polish creators, CPM often hovers around 4–8 PLN, but if you create content in English, in financial or technological subjects – you can aim even for 10–15 USD per thousand views.

So, how to earn from ads online with YouTube, depends not only on the number of viewers but also on smart channel building, regular content, and good SEO in titles and descriptions. And most importantly – don’t rely solely on AdSense. Ads are one thing, but the best earners combine this with affiliation, sponsors, and their own products.

TikTok and Instagram – how does ad monetization work for creators and who actually earns?

With TikTok and Instagram, the situation is a bit more complex because here you don’t earn from the ads “played by the platform”, but from external actions – either through partnership programs or collaborations with brands. On TikTok, the Creator Rewards program is only recently available, but it requires a minimum of 10k followers and constant activity.

A much more effective strategy can be the so-called “monetization through content”, that is creating videos that naturally advertise a product – with affiliation or your own link. On Instagram, it works similarly: you earn either through reels with collaboration tags or through links in bio and messages.

Earning from ads on the internet through TikTok and IG doesn’t work by simply uploading a video, and TikTok sends you money. Here you earn when your content encourages people to take action: click, purchase, sign up. It’s a different model than AdSense – more active, but available even to micro creators.

Earn from online ads with a smart approach: affiliate marketing instead of banner ads – when does a link earn more than an intrusive graphic?

If you don’t have a large reach but want to earn something – affiliate marketing will be a better start than posting banners that no one clicks. Here you earn for a specific result: a click, a purchase, a registration – not just for an impression. Sounds challenging? Maybe. But a well-chosen affiliate program can bring in more than 10 display ads combined.

Products tailored to the content work best – for example, you recommend a planner in a video about study organization, a video course in an article about remote work, or a book in a YouTube review. Then the link makes sense, people click on it, and actually buy something.

Earn from online ads wisely – don’t rely on random traffic and mediocre banners. If you have trust, authenticity, and a content idea, one well-placed affiliate link can earn you more than an entire AdSense panel.

How to increase ad earnings without increasing reach? 7 things you can improve immediately

Most people think that to earn more from ads, you need more traffic. But that’s not entirely true. You can have the same traffic, but a higher CTR, better format selection, and more optimized content. And suddenly – without increasing the number of users – earnings grow.

What is worth improving? First: ad positions – the best are those in the middle of the content. Second: site readability and UX – if something loads slowly, Google penalizes it. Third: topic selection – evergreen posts, guides, and texts with high advertising potential (e.g. financial, technological) have higher CPM.

Making money from online ads is not a sprint. It’s continuous optimization search, testing layouts, improving SEO. And most importantly: don’t rely solely on ads. When you combine them with affiliates, sponsors, or product sales – then you start to see that even without millions of reach you can squeeze tangible results from it.

RefSpace as a non-invasive ad – how to earn by recommending, even without your own website?

Don’t have a blog? No problem. RefSpace allows you to create your own “store”, where you can add products – others’ or your own – and earn a commission for each sale. It works like an ad, but doesn’t require banners, codes, or integrations. Simply create a Space, link it, for example, on TikTok, Instagram, or in a comment under YouTube Shorts – and that’s it.

This is an ideal solution if you don’t want to mess with AdSense, but want to recommend something of value. You can upload a planner, a course, an ebook, a physical product – and then see how it works. RefSpace handles payments, service, logistics – you focus only on content and the link.

For many people, it’s the first step to enter online earning, without creating an entire infrastructure. Especially if you are a creator, micro-influencer, student, or simply someone who wants to start but without stress and a million formalities.