Fashion changes, trends come and go but there’s always a need for high quality adult ad networks.
You don’t need a PhD in social sciences to tell that adult thrills are always in high demand, no matter the circumstances. A smart advertiser will leverage this opportunity to show their ads.
The demand for adult content grows with the growing number of people connected to the Internet. So, although many marketers are advertising in this space, there’s still some room for new joiners.
In this article, I will go over ad networks that offer adult traffic and are currently very popular or are on the rise. This distinction is important, because adult marketing, like everything else in life, is forgoing through some changes that I also discuss briefly.
No banner with provided ID foundA vertical like any other…
… except for the high concentration of main actors.
The truth is, there are no more than five adult platforms that hold the majority of the market. There are, of course, hundreds of niche adult sites, but they are nothing more than what they seem – niche sites.
This is reflected in adult ad networks, where main platforms got a hold of one or a few big players each.
Sometimes, the same player (adult platform) cooperates with different ad networks, selling different placements to various platforms.
But this is rather an exception to the general rule that says that each ad network has its own dedicated selection of platforms.
There are also some vertical-specific techniques that are nicely summed up in this article from Zeropark. If you want to learn more about some specific angles or the best adult affiliate platforms, I highly recommend you to read it.
Adult advertising in 2024
Marketers will be gald to hear that in 2024, adult entertainement industry isn’t going anywhere. The projected doubling of industry’s market value between 2022 and 2032 gives confidence for any marketer that still wants to join the adult game. Yes, there are many long-lasting actors on the market that hold a giant share of it. But the market IS getting bigger, so there should be plenty of room for newcomers.
And what factors drive the growth?
User-generated content
One of the most significant trends of the third decade of the 21st century is content generated by users without scripts, realistic to a certain degree, definately more realistic than what is generally recognizable as a “standard PornHub video”.
Platforms such OnlyFans tempt users with more direct and non-scripted integractions with creators, while creators are drawn by a more fair division of their revenue.
Toys & sex dolls
There’s plenty of adult videos circling the Internet and it is hard to innovate in that area. But sex dolls are one of the areas where progress is the most visible. From offers of sex dolls to even videos with them, the opportunities for advertisiers are growing.
Virtual Reality
Adult industry had a part in adoption of some new technologies and helped one format win over the other (for example, adult content wasn’t available on Betamax, which probably helped a cheaper alternative – VHS – to win videotape format war).
This type of content may help VR get some much needed traction, since for years it was mainly a domain of gamers & other tech fanatics. Decreasing cost of electronics should make VR more available for an average user, which will open new advertising options in both senses: there weill be offers of VR content to be advertised and new advertising space in virtual reality for other adult offers.
Tracking of adult traffic
Due to the high popularity of display ad formats, tracking in this vertical is more important than ever. After all, adult is a game of big numbers.
To make sense out of the stream of data, you need to record and analyze it to make any evidence-based decisions. Most adult ad networks listed here have rudimentary tracking & reporting systems – they simply don’t invest into their database technology or reporting engines to make them actually usefull.
Without a dedicated adult tracking software, you will only learn how much you have earned or lost. But if you want to dig deeper – and you should want to go deeper to make your ad spend more reasonable – you are out of luck.
Adult ad trackers allow you to cross reference data based on multitude of characteristics and segmentize the audience. This, plus many other ad trackers’ features, allow you to:
- Tune you traffic targeting data more precisely and only purchase traffic that is likely to convert
- Present different landing pages or offers depending on traffic characteristics, so for example, iPhone user can see one version of the web page and Android users a different one – the one that was proved to engage them more.
- A/B test variations of your landing pages to find the one that resonates with your audience the most
- Automate several mundane task and your bidding strategies, so your campaigns will still be healthy even when you are away from the computer.
Adult tracking software are specialized tools which development is based on many years of experience with this type of traffic. Advertising without such help puts you into severely disadvantageous position, as everyone else is using a tracker – it is an industry standard. Go and check the list below of the best adult ad tracking software to find the platform that suits you the most.
Best adult tracking software
Ad tracking software needs to check several boxes:
- Its database has to be robust enough to handle loads of traffic
- It has to support different ad formats (video, display, push, native) and cost models (CPM, CPA, revshare)
- It should offer flexible reporting options to enable deep data analysis
- Lastly, it should have an option to anonymize IP data of tracked users to make it compliant with privacy-oriented legislatives such as GDPR
Here are our picks of the best adult ad tracking software:
1. Voluum
Voluum is a top-notch tracker that suits all advertisers – the mainstream ones and those not so much. It works with all ad networks listed here, and it is integrated with some of them on the deepest level using API connection. This allows Voluum to become the center of your digital marketing universe.
Voluum has a powerful reporting engine capable of deep yet easy to perform data analysis, IP anonymization feature, automatic A/B testing mechanism and rule-based paths. Voluum is a great fit for ambitious marketers and an indispensable tool at a certain scale.
API integration means that Voluum is able to fetch cost information even from ad networks that don’t support sending this information via a standard cost token. Apart from that, Voluum can control your campaigns in these ad networks without leaving its interface.
Still not enough? Voluum Automizer allows you to create rules to launch actions when set conditions are met, such as pause or resume a campaign or source, generate alerts, adjust you bidding, use dayparting, mark placements with meaningful icons, and so on.
2. Redtrack
Redtrack is a solid tracker that offers most of what you would expect from a decent adult ad tracker. It can handle any traffic you throw at it. Where it falls short is the extent of features it offers. The reporting engine doesn’t enable drill-down analysis, you can’t use rule-based paths for unique clicks (you only have unique visit metric) and there are no many advanced features like shared reports or accepting postbacks without click ID.
Still, for basic tracking of your adult campaigns, Redtrack should do fine.
3. ThriveTracker
If you go with ThriveTracker, you get all the features that you would expect from an ad tracker. If basic campaign tracking is enough for you, Thrive may be a solid option. What you lose when compared to Voluum is the powerful automation module, which is a gamechanger on a certain scale. Everything has to be controlled manually, which is fine if you run just a few campaigns at the same time.
Lastly, there is also no option to anonymize visitor’s IP addresses.
4. Bemob
Bemob is a basic tracker that, like Voluum, offers tools for team collaboration. So if you plan to run your campaigns with coworkers, Bemob is one of the trackers to consider.
Apart from that you have some bot filtering options but no automation module.
5. Google Analytics
The most recognizable name in the analytical industry, Google Analytics is a mediocre adult tracking software. On one hand, it is feature packed and designed for the most in-depth and comprehensive analysis. On the other hand, GA is only an analytical tool, and you don’t get any features that allow you to alter the path of your traffic. This means no A/B testing, rule-based paths or offer rotations. Google Analytics is great if you run your own adult-themed store or are a product owner. It is less suitable for performance marketers that want to test tens of landing page variations and need answers quickly.
The state of the industry
You would think that the global lockdown would favor the adult industry. It did, from a short-term perspective. On a longer time scale, the lack of new content (adult movie stars are also locked up in their homes) combined with growing consumption may cause that by the end of 2020, every adult video will be watched, re-watched, commented on, and forgotten.
With the unique business model that is based on the majority of the content being offered for free, this is a serious problem for platforms. And then, by implication, for advertisers.
Adult platforms need new content to persuade people to pay for something that is mostly available for free. The absence of new materials will only push viewers (and creators) elsewhere.
The most notable example of a new adult platform is OnlyFans and its clones. These platforms empower creators at the cost of production companies. Content for such platforms can be produced at home – an important factor during the time of pandemic.
Can you, as a marketer, earn money from OnlyFans? Well, you can get a referral bonus for every new member you attract. 5% of their earnings through the first year.
Will they support standard advertising or premium features worth promoting?
Who knows.
Right now, they are on the rise with a 150% increase in subscriptions since the beginning of the year.
Will the classing adult platforms survive? Probably, there’s always a demand for new content.
Best adult ad networks ranked from good to best
To make things a little bit more scientific, I’ve decided to assign points for the following aspects of each traffic source:
- Billions of ad impression per month
- Mainstream traffic available
- Advanced targeting
- Number of ad formats
- Number of adult categories
Additional points will be given for extra features, outstanding support and so on.
You may say that this is arbitrary. And you’ll be right – all point-based systems are. But I would argue that this system is reasonable and will allow us to quickly sort out all traffic sources, from good to the best.
Honorable mention: EroAdvertising
EroAdvertising is a widely recognized network that deals with adult traffic. It offers 7 ad formats, 4 adult content type levels that allows you to target your ads more precisely and the only reason this network is not somewhere on the list is that there is no concrete data on the number of impressions they get.
The website claims it’s billions but without being more specific, this network had to go outside the list.
8. TrafficJunky
This is a well-known and loved adult ad network. It has one of the most recognizable publishers: Pornhub. Their focus is to polish its auto-optimization technology to deliver the right ads to the right people.
Points were given for their impressive number of ads served daily, which is four billion and the ads format available: display in various sizes and video. TrafficJunky also allows for keywords targeting. Their other targeting options are pretty standard.
Since October 2020, TrafficJunky is fully integrated with Voluum, so cost tracking, rules and alerts are all available to you.
Overall score: 8
7. ADxAD
Slightly higher on our list is ADxAD. It’s a ad network specialized in Asian traffic. It scored more points due to the impressive number of adult categories, which allows you to precisely target your audience.
Outside the standard traffic targeting options, you can also target selected premium publishers.
Overall score: 9
6. Plugrush
Plugrush is an old network that definitely knows new tricks. It features a native ad format – a rarity in the adult vertical, along with three other standard ad formats: display, push, pop-under.
Plugrush also offers traffic retargeting for all those fine-tuners out there.
Overall score: 10
5. Zeropark
Zeropark is a widely recognizable name in the affiliate community. As an exception to the remaining ad networks presented here, it doesn’t focus solely on adult traffic, but offers it in parallel with large volumes of mainstream traffic.
Zeropark offers standard ad formats with a nice addition of an in-page push format, an alternative to standard push format that recently is being blocked by browsers more often than not. The traffic targeting options are quite advanced and all this is packed in a nice UI.
As a cherry on top, Zeropark is also fully integrated with Voluum and has been since the beginning of time.
Overall score: 11
4. TrafficFactory
TrafficFactory allows you to advertise on one of the bigger players in the industry: Xvideos. Along with it come billions of daily ad impressions. Six, to be exact. Add to this many different ad formats and you can gloss over its rather dated UI and focus on reaching TrafficFactory’s vast audience.
Overall score: 13
3. Push.House
Coming just shy of TrafficStars with the overall score of 16, Push,House is a solid network that offers little targeting options but makes up for it with huge amounts of traffic.
The Push.House’s overall kinds of push traffic: regular, in-page, iOS push plus native traffic. It supports many payment methods and is generally praised for good customer support.
Overall score: 16
2. TrafficStars
TrafficStars has a lot of everything: ad formats to choose from, adult categories to fine-tune your reach, and traffic targeting options.
You can retarget your previously engaged audience or create a lookalike audience. You can target premium or members-area users which usually means higher conversion rate.
Combine that with an access to another big player: xHamster, and you’ve got yourself a runner-up on this list.
Overall score: 17
1. Exoclick
The first place should be obvious for anyone who knows the industry. Exoclick offers big and small publishers that add up to a whooping 7 billion daily ad impressions. It’s got all the features you may need, all the traffic, and, to make things better, a top-notch API integration with Voluum!
That’s right, adult king and tracking king work together like a charm. Synchronize costs, create rules, set alerts and, above all, profit.
Overall score: 20
Never let a good pandemic go to waste
If you have never worked with adult traffic, there won’t be a better moment to start. That is, until a next pandemic happens.
If you worked in this vertical a bit, the above list should provide you with an overview of differences between main adult ad networks. But the main factor is common: they all offer high-quality adult traffic.
Truth be told, you will be good working with any of these platforms.
It’s directly the opposite when it comes to an ad tracker: only Voluum has integrations, automation, and AI to let you focus on what you are best at: advertising in the most exciting vertical there is.
Get Voluum now and go on your adult affiliate journey with a trusted tracker.
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