Media.net is an ad network that runs the yahoo and bing contextual ads. Since these are big companies like Google, the ads are also well designed. Further, they can be used along with adsense as they do look different than Adsense ads.
But I personally do not use these ads anymore. I tried using them on one of the busy sites and also along with adsense ads. But still, the performance was not quite satisfactory due to traffic geography. If your site has a lot of traffic from tier-1 countries like the USA, Canada, the Uk, or Australia you will find it to give better revenues.
Even currently running adsense is also not so lucrative for a serious blogger. Their rates are down and CPC is also low. But of all the ad networks, adsense it the best, and then come to the media.net ads.
My Media.net experience:
Back then I was able to sign up by an invitation and now one can sign up directly through their home page.
One has to enter their website name, email, and contact number. One of their staff will go through your site and if satisfied will approve your account.
Unlike the adsense, every site you add to their dashboard will have to be approved individually for the ads to appear. In the adsene adnetwork, small publishers do not have a dedicated account manager. So, once your account is approved, it is your responsibility to look at the sites you add to comply with their terms and conditions.
Here in media.net, you will have an account manager who will assist you regarding any issues with the ads, payments, and other issues.
This factor is really a good part of media.net. On the other hand, if you make mistakes even out of knowledge with adsense, you could be banned.
Once approved, you will be taken to the dashboard when you sign in.
The dashboard has the option to create ad units, add payment options, and also other websites you own.
For the first step, I would advise you, enter as many personal sites you wish to run ads on the dashboard. The account assistant will go through them and approve them individually over a couple of days.
Even if one of your websites is not approved, try to get details for rejection. Make changes and ask for a re-evaluation. If still no luck, try to test it after a gap of 6 months or one year. Adding more quality content and getting genuine traffic is a must for a website to be approved.
The second step would be to enter your payment information. This is done once and stays so as long as you wish to change.
They offer payments by payoneer online payment system. You can also ask your account manager if wire transfer is possible. Previously they even offered payments by PayPal. But now they seem to have moved on to Payoneer.
I personally like Payoneer than PayPal for reasons like fewer conversion charges, fewer transaction charges, and also the speed of money deposit in your bank account. You can read more details at paypal vs payoneer payment system.
After payment reaches a threshold of $100 they would send the payment over to you.
They offer payment on Net30 terms which means they pay after30 days of the payment for the previous month is finalized. That is the amount accrued till the 31st of March will be on the 30th of April.
Once payment settings are done, go for creating ad units.
Similar to adsense, you have rectangle, leader board, and skyscraper type ad units as shown in the pic below. Besides these, regular ones, other sizes are also available.
Select suitable sizes and save to get the ad unit code. Place the ad units in desired places on your sites to display ads.
Some points to consider while running media.net ads:
1. The media.net seems to pay more for tier 1 countries like the USA, Canada, Australia, U.K, etc.
2. Sometimes having thousands of views would not fetch even a few dollars. This may upset you.
3. Adding media.net ads along with adsense could slow down the website page speed. This is due to the enhanced ad code.
4. Though media.net is better than other ad networks, still, the ads are less attractive, and also the number of advertisers seems to below.
So, try to run the ads for two months or so and decide if this network fits your needs. If not you can check out other networks like the Ezoic, revenue hits, exmarketplace, etc.
In fact, one can definitely make more money with ezoic than the adsense. Revenuehits is also a good ad network that can pay well. But you will have to accept the popup ads for it which could be disturbing.