Being a publisher requires a good decision-making process. There are many aspects to your business you should consider, and the list only gets longer as technology advances and the market changes.

Just a few examples include designing your website, choosing a web hosting service, choosing the right content and finding ways to drive traffic to your website or blog.

One of the most important aspects of your work as a publisher is monetization - turning traffic into revenues.

Monetization is very important, and there are lot of strategic decisions must be made, such as identifying a monetization partner, choosing the right ad network, determining optimal ad formats, locking on the best ad placements, and carefully balancing revenue generation with user experience (because you won't make any money without users).

We are one of the most experienced and innovative ad networks, and we want to share our experience with you. We want you to avoid the most common mistakes publishers tend to do while making these decisions, so here's what NOT to do:

First mistake – choosing an ad network only by revenue

This is a tricky one. You may receive offers from publisher managers representing various ad networks, proposing to provide higher compensation than your current earnings.

It's a viable option, of course. Still, remember that increasing your revenue while damaging user experience with aggressive ads will decrease your traffic over time - and your revenue will decline with it.

Choose a well-known network, like AdMaven, which understands the delicate balance between money making and user experience.

Second Mistake – choosing an unknown ad network

Ad networks that are relatively small and unknown will do everything they can to "win" you as a client, including being aggressive and promising you the moon and a few stars. Another known issue of dubious ad networks is lack of transparency, which can make it difficult for publishers to understand how their ads are being served and how much they are earning.

Here is what you should do:

• Ask for examples of websites that the ad network is working with.
• If an ad network is working with big websites, it means they can handle the traffic, pay well, and pay on time.

If they work with similar sites to yours, they have the experience needed to help you monetize your traffic and have proper advertisers for it, therefore the revenue will be higher and stable right from the start.

• Search known forums and communities on social media for feedback.
• Don't rely on a single review or opinion. A lot of those are paid reviews and therefore untrustworthy.

Third mistake - choosing an ad network that runs a single ad format

Putting all your eggs in one ad-format-basket is never a good idea. Several ad formats are necessary for good monetization.

Focusing on one network that has multiple formats as a one-stop-shop will save you a lot of time and effort, and will boost your revenue.

An ad network that offers multiple formats is more likely to optimize the formats to maximize both revenue and user experience.

As a publisher you may want to prefer dealing one ad network, that offers all the ad formats you need (such as pop-under, interstitials and push notifications), instead of working with several small ones.