PropellerAds Review: Requirements, Ad Formats & Revenue

What Is PropellerAds?

PropellerAds is a global advertising network that has carved out a unique position in the ad tech ecosystem. Founded in 2011, the platform has grown to serve over one billion daily ad impressions across 195 countries. Unlike premium networks that cater exclusively to high-traffic publishers, PropellerAds welcomes websites of all sizes, making it one of the most accessible monetization options available to new and small publishers.

What sets PropellerAds apart from traditional display ad networks is its focus on alternative ad formats. While most publishers think of standard banner ads when they consider monetization, PropellerAds specializes in push notifications, pop-unders, interstitials, and native banners. These formats often generate higher engagement rates than traditional display ads, though they come with their own set of trade-offs that publishers need to understand before implementing them.

The platform operates on a self-serve model, meaning publishers can sign up, get approved, and start earning without going through lengthy review processes or meeting strict traffic minimums. This accessibility has made PropellerAds particularly popular among publishers in developing markets and those just starting their monetization journey.

Getting Started: Requirements and Approval

One of the biggest advantages of PropellerAds is its remarkably low barrier to entry. Unlike networks such as Mediavine or Raptive that require tens of thousands of monthly sessions, PropellerAds has no minimum traffic requirement. Whether your site gets 100 visitors per day or 100,000, you can apply and start monetizing immediately.

The approval process is fast and straightforward. After creating an account at propellerads.com, you submit your website for review. Most sites are approved within 24 hours, and many publishers report approval within just a few hours. The review checks for basic compliance with PropellerAds policies, which prohibit illegal content, malware distribution, and fraudulent traffic but are otherwise quite permissive compared to networks like Google AdSense.

To get started, you need a functioning website with real content. PropellerAds does check that your site has actual pages, navigation, and content rather than being a parked domain or a single-page placeholder. However, the content quality bar is significantly lower than what premium networks demand. A blog with 10-15 decent articles can typically get approved without issues.

Your site must also comply with basic web standards. You need a working SSL certificate for HTTPS, though PropellerAds is more lenient about mixed content issues than some competitors. Your site should load without major errors, and you should have basic legal pages like a privacy policy, especially if you plan to use push notification ads that collect subscriber data.

Before applying, it helps to run your site through an ad network readiness check to catch any obvious issues that might delay your approval, even though PropellerAds is generally very accepting.

Ad Formats Explained

Push Notifications

Push notifications are PropellerAds' flagship format and one of the most innovative ad delivery mechanisms available to publishers. When a visitor arrives at your site, they see a browser prompt asking if they want to allow notifications. If they subscribe, you can deliver ads directly to their device even when they are not actively browsing your website.

This creates an ongoing revenue stream from each subscriber. Every time a push notification ad is delivered and viewed, you earn revenue. The beauty of this model is that subscribers continue generating income for weeks or months after their initial visit. A single visitor who subscribes can generate far more revenue over time than they would from a single page view with banner ads.

Push notification ads typically show a small image, a headline, and a short description. They appear on the subscriber's desktop or mobile device just like any other notification. Click-through rates for push ads are generally higher than traditional display ads because they appear outside the website context where users have developed banner blindness.

However, publishers need to be thoughtful about implementation. Aggressive push notification prompts that appear immediately on page load can frustrate visitors and increase bounce rates. Best practice is to delay the subscription prompt by at least 10-15 seconds and trigger it after the user has engaged with your content. This results in higher-quality subscribers who are less likely to immediately unsubscribe.

Pop-Under Ads

Pop-under ads open a new browser window or tab behind the current one, displaying an advertisement that the user sees when they close or minimize their main browsing window. This format has been around since the early days of web advertising and remains one of the highest-paying ad types available.

Pop-unders generate strong revenue because they guarantee a full-page ad view. Advertisers pay premium rates because the user sees the complete ad creative without it competing for attention against your site content. CPM rates for pop-unders are typically two to five times higher than standard display banners.

The trade-off is user experience. Pop-unders are inherently intrusive, and many users find them annoying. Some browsers actively block pop-unders, and ad blockers almost universally prevent them. Publishers using pop-unders should be aware that this format can increase bounce rates and reduce return visit rates if overused. Limiting pop-unders to one per user per session and setting frequency caps helps balance revenue with user satisfaction.

Interstitial Ads

Interstitial ads are full-screen advertisements that appear between page views or during natural transition points in the user journey. When a visitor clicks to navigate from one page to another on your site, an interstitial ad fills the screen for a few seconds before the requested page loads.

These ads command high CPM rates because they capture the user's full attention. The full-screen format allows for rich creative executions including video, interactive elements, and high-impact visuals. PropellerAds' interstitials include a clear close button and comply with Google's guidelines for interstitial implementation, including not showing them on the first page view from a search result.

For mobile traffic, interstitials are particularly effective. The full-screen format works naturally on mobile devices where screen space is limited. Mobile interstitial CPMs often exceed desktop rates because mobile users tend to engage more with full-screen content. However, Google penalizes sites that show intrusive interstitials to users coming from search results, so configure your implementation to exclude search referral traffic from interstitial delivery.

Native Banners

PropellerAds' native ad format blends advertising into your site's content feed, matching the look and feel of your existing content. These ads appear as recommended content widgets, in-feed units, or content suggestion blocks. They typically include a thumbnail image, headline, and brief description styled to match your site's typography and layout.

Native ads generally provide a better user experience than other PropellerAds formats because they feel like a natural part of the content rather than an interruption. Click-through rates for well-implemented native ads are typically higher than traditional display ads because users engage with them as content recommendations rather than ignoring them as advertisements.

The revenue per click for native ads varies widely based on your traffic geography and niche. Sites with US and European traffic see significantly higher native ad rates than those with primarily Asian or African traffic. Content niches like finance, technology, and health also command premium rates for native placements.

Revenue Expectations

Revenue from PropellerAds varies dramatically based on your traffic volume, geographic distribution, and which ad formats you implement. Setting realistic expectations is important so you can evaluate whether PropellerAds is the right fit for your monetization strategy.

For push notifications, expect to earn between one and five dollars per thousand impressions for tier-one traffic from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. Tier-two countries like those in Western Europe generate around half a dollar to two dollars per thousand impressions. Tier-three traffic from developing nations may only earn a few cents per thousand impressions.

Pop-under CPMs are generally higher, ranging from two to eight dollars per thousand impressions for premium traffic. However, pop-under fill rates can be inconsistent, and many users with modern browsers or ad blockers will never see these ads. Your effective RPM from pop-unders will depend heavily on your audience's browser configuration and ad blocker usage.

Native banners typically generate the lowest per-impression revenue but provide the most stable and sustainable income stream. Expect CPMs between fifty cents and three dollars depending on traffic quality. The advantage of native ads is that they work with ad blockers better than other formats and provide a consistent baseline revenue.

A realistic monthly income for a site with 50,000 monthly visitors using a combination of PropellerAds formats might range from fifty to three hundred dollars. This is lower than what premium display networks like Mediavine would pay for the same traffic, but the key advantage is that PropellerAds accepts sites that premium networks would reject.

Compatibility with Other Ad Networks

One of the strategic advantages of PropellerAds is that most of its ad formats do not compete with traditional display advertising. You can run PropellerAds push notifications and pop-unders alongside Google AdSense, Ezoic, or other display networks without violating their terms of service, as long as you follow each network's specific policies.

However, there are important caveats. Google AdSense explicitly prohibits certain types of pop-unders and interstitials that modify the browsing experience in ways Google considers deceptive. If you run AdSense, carefully review Google's policies before enabling PropellerAds pop-unders on the same pages. Many publishers solve this by running AdSense display ads on their content pages and PropellerAds push notifications site-wide, keeping pop-unders on pages where AdSense is not active.

Push notifications are generally safe to run alongside any other ad network because they operate through the browser's notification system rather than placing ads within your page content. The subscription prompt is a standard browser feature, and the notifications themselves are delivered outside your website entirely.

For publishers working toward premium network approval, PropellerAds can serve as a bridge monetization strategy. Use PropellerAds to generate income while building your traffic to meet Mediavine or Raptive thresholds, then evaluate whether to keep PropellerAds push notifications running alongside your premium display ads for additional revenue.

Best Use Cases for PropellerAds

PropellerAds is not the right choice for every publisher, but it excels in several specific scenarios. Understanding where PropellerAds fits in the monetization landscape helps you make informed decisions about your ad stack.

New publishers who cannot yet qualify for AdSense or other display networks benefit enormously from PropellerAds. Instead of waiting months to build enough content and traffic for AdSense approval, you can start earning immediately with PropellerAds while working toward higher-paying network approval.

Publishers with high-volume, low-quality traffic find PropellerAds formats more profitable than display ads. If your site gets significant traffic from social media, viral content, or entertainment niches where users browse quickly without deep engagement, push notifications and pop-unders can capture value from visitors who would never click a traditional display ad.

Sites with predominantly international traffic often earn more with PropellerAds than with US-focused display networks. PropellerAds has strong advertiser demand across Southeast Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa. For these traffic sources, PropellerAds CPMs frequently match or exceed what AdSense would pay.

Download sites, tool sites, and content aggregators with high page-per-session counts work exceptionally well with interstitial ads. Each page transition creates an opportunity for an interstitial impression, and users on these types of sites expect transitional screens between content.

Optimization Tips

To maximize your PropellerAds revenue, implement multiple ad formats simultaneously. Each format captures different types of user engagement, and combining them creates a layered monetization approach. Start with push notifications as your foundation, add native banners for in-content monetization, and selectively deploy pop-unders or interstitials based on your audience tolerance.

Use PropellerAds' anti-adblock technology to recover revenue from users running ad blockers. Their anti-adblock solution serves ads through alternative delivery methods that bypass most ad blocking software. This can recover ten to thirty percent of otherwise lost impressions depending on your audience's ad blocker usage rate.

Segment your traffic and customize ad delivery by device type and geography. Mobile users respond differently to ad formats than desktop users, and different countries have different advertising norms. PropellerAds' dashboard lets you configure format delivery rules based on these dimensions for optimal performance.

Monitor your site's user metrics carefully after implementing PropellerAds formats. Watch for increases in bounce rate, decreases in return visitor rate, or drops in average session duration that might indicate your ad implementation is too aggressive. Finding the right balance between revenue and user experience is key to sustainable monetization.

Use AdGateScore to evaluate your site readiness across multiple networks and plan your monetization strategy as your traffic grows beyond what PropellerAds alone can optimally serve.