How to get into AdPushup: what its publishers actually look like

AdPushup sits in an awkward part of the market to research. It is not one of the two names every publisher has heard, so there is little written about it; and it is not small enough to ignore, so publishers keep encountering it and finding nothing solid.

We can describe its book of business precisely, because both sides of every relationship it publishes are on the open web.

A high median with almost no floor

That combination is unusual and worth dwelling on, because it is the practical answer to “can I get in”.

A median of 33 places AdPushup’s typical publisher above Mediavine’s, which is a genuinely selective-looking number. A 10th percentile of 1 says that a tenth of its publishers have virtually no measurable link profile at all. Both are true simultaneously, which means the network is not applying a hard authority threshold — it is taking a broad range and happening to have a lot of strong sites in it.

For an applicant, a wide span is much better news than a high median is bad news. A network with a narrow, high band will decline you mechanically if you are below it. A network with a span this wide is deciding on something other than the number we can measure, which means applying is worth the twenty minutes even if you sit toward the lower end.

Where its publishers are

The spread across categories is broad rather than concentrated, which fits a network positioned as an optimisation layer over a publisher’s existing setup rather than as a category specialist. Compare that with a network like Venatus, whose roster is almost entirely one subject.

An unusual signature in its records

One detail sets AdPushup apart from every other network we track. 5 of its 997 published relationships — about 1% — resolve to what we classify as a different account: both sides name each other, but under an account id the network does not publish for that specific domain.

That is the signature of shared or house seats, where a network places several publishers under one account rather than issuing each its own. It is entirely legitimate, and no other network in our index shows it at anything like this rate. It is a structural fact about how AdPushup operates, and worth knowing because it means the simple ads.txt check that works elsewhere will look like a failure here when it is not.

What actually improves your odds

Since the measurable floor is close to nothing, the assessment is happening on things we cannot see. Based on what the roster looks like, the sensible reading is that the network is interested in whether your inventory is worth optimising — which is a question about traffic consistency, layout, and whether there is enough of it to be worth the integration work.

Three things are worth doing before applying, and they are worth doing regardless of the outcome: make sure your ads.txt is reachable and current, so the relationship can actually be evidenced; know your traffic geography, because it determines what any network can do for you; and have a clear picture of your pages per session, since that is what determines inventory volume at any given traffic level.

Publishers it carries

How it compares

Against the two big managed networks, AdPushup is a different proposition rather than a weaker one — it is positioned as a technology layer rather than as a full takeover of your ad stack, which is why it appears alongside other networks on more sites than most. The pairs that actually occur are in can you run two ad networks at once.

Against the open-funnel networks, its roster is markedly stronger — the median is several times higher — so it is a step up rather than a sideways move. The full ladder is in which ad networks are hardest to get into, and its complete publisher list is on AdPushup’s network page.

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.