Certainly the most popular and easiest-to-manage of the banner advertising forms, CPM-based advertising programs pay host sites according to the number of adviews the site generates. Action is secondary; click-through and sales ratios will not affect payment, except in the attraction of more advertisers.

The popularity of impression-based ads is based on the fact that they are easy to manage, they generally produce a consistent, predictable revenue stream (based closely upon the number of pageviews your site generates), and they offer some of the best CPM rates, as many advertisers are more concerned about building their brand-name recognition than in generating a specified number of click-throughs.

The large rates are also connected to the fact that most impression-based advertising networks enforce rigid legislation upon their sites in terms of the quality and popularity of sites that are accepted into their network; making the entire network a very impressive placement for banners. Since CPM rates can vary markedly within each network, I have arranged the company links below into categories that define which sites (in terms of a popularity scale) are potential host sites.