The best ad networks for craft and DIY blogs: the premium end of the long tail
This is a small category that behaves like a large one. Its typical site is stronger than the typical food or travel site, the two premium networks split it almost exactly in half, and the network that dominates the industry by volume is barely a factor.
1 August 2026 · 6 min read
We index 1,334 crafts & diy sites carrying at least one identifiable ad network, at a median authority of 27.
That median is the number to notice. It puts crafts and DIY above food, above travel and above lifestyle — this is one of the strongest categories we index, despite being a fraction of their size.
How the category splits
| Network | Sites in category | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Mediavine | 469 | 36.4% |
| Raptive | 427 | 33.2% |
| Ezoic | 220 | 17.1% |
| SHE Media | 51 | 4.0% |
| Monumetric | 40 | 3.1% |
| Gourmet Ads | 23 | 1.8% |
| Publift | 9 | 0.7% |
| PubGalaxy | 8 | 0.6% |
| Newor Media | 7 | 0.5% |
| Playwire | 6 | 0.5% |
Why craft sites are stronger than their size suggests
Craft content has two properties that build authority almost mechanically. It is intensely shareable in a way that generates real links rather than social impressions — a tutorial for a specific technique gets referenced, embedded and cited by other makers for years. And it is durable: a knitting pattern or a woodworking plan does not go stale, so a post written in 2018 is still accumulating references now.
The result is a category of sites that are individually modest in traffic but disproportionately well linked, which is exactly the profile that clears a premium network’s bar. It also explains the thin showing of the open-funnel network at the bottom of the ladder: in most categories its role is to serve sites that cannot qualify elsewhere, and in crafts a much larger share of publishers can.
The Pinterest problem, and why it matters here
Crafts is the category most exposed to a single traffic source. A large share of makers built their audiences on Pinterest, and that traffic behaves unlike search traffic in a way that affects monetisation directly: it is more volatile, more mobile, and arrives on a single page with little onward browsing.
For advertising, session depth is money. A visitor who reads one page and leaves generates a fraction of the impressions of one who browses. This is the most common gap between two craft sites with identical traffic figures and very different earnings, and it is worth checking your own pages-per-session before concluding that a network is underperforming.
What that means for where you apply
On the evidence, a craft or DIY site that is doing reasonably well is more likely to clear a premium network’s bar than a comparable food or travel site, because the category median is higher. If you have assumed you are too small, check your authority on your site’s page here against the floors in the approval-difficulty ranking before deciding.
The two networks at the top of the table are close enough that neither has a category-fit argument over the other, so the decision is the usual one: terms, ad density, layout control and how each handles the seasonal swing. Crafts is heavily fourth-quarter weighted — holiday making is the peak — which makes autumn the worst possible time to switch.
Real craft and DIY sites and their networks
Craft and DIY are not quite the same business
The label joins two things with different commercial shapes. Craft proper — sewing, knitting, paper, resin, jewellery — has a devoted, repeat audience, deep sessions and endemic advertisers in materials and tools. Home DIY and repair has shallower sessions and far more one-off search traffic, but that traffic sits much closer to a purchase, which advertisers value.
Sites at either end will find their earnings diverge from the category’s averages in opposite directions, and neither is a sign that anything is wrong. As always the honest comparison is against sites that look like yours, not against the category as a whole.
Questions craft and DIY bloggers ask
Which ad network is best for a craft blog?
The two premium managed networks split this category almost evenly — Mediavine at 469 sites and Raptive at 427 — so neither has a data-backed claim on it. What is more useful is that craft sites clear premium bars more often than their traffic suggests, because the category's median authority is higher than food's or travel's.
Are craft blogs strong enough for premium ad networks?
More often than publishers assume. The category's median authority is 27, above food, travel and lifestyle, because craft tutorials attract durable links rather than one-off traffic. If you have been assuming you are too small, compare your own authority against each network's floor before deciding.
Why do craft blogs earn less than their traffic suggests?
Usually session depth rather than rates. A large share of craft traffic arrives from Pinterest onto a single page and leaves, and advertising revenue scales with impressions per visit. Two sites with identical monthly pageviews can differ several-fold in earnings on pages-per-session alone. It is the first thing to measure before blaming a network.
When is the best time for a craft blog to change ad networks?
Early in the year. Craft traffic and rates are both heavily weighted toward the fourth quarter, and onboarding a new network takes weeks of layout changes and unstable earnings. Doing that in autumn means disrupting the only months that materially affect your annual total.
The full list of indexed crafts & diy sites and the networks on each is at crafts & diy sites. To check one specific site, search it from the home page; to compare two networks head to head, use compare networks.
Every figure on this page is read from our own index when the page is built, and refreshes on a weekly cycle — so the numbers move as the data does. Method and evidence rules: coverage & method.