traffic source
MGID — traffic source: rating and member reviews
Native advertising network founded in 2007: content-recommendation widgets on 32,000+ publisher sites, 850M+ monthly unique users in 200+ countries. Self-serve for advertisers from $100; monetization for publishers.
| Ad formats | Native, Display / banners, Video |
|---|---|
| GEOs | WorldwideWorldwide United StatesUnited StatesLATAMAPAC European UnionEuropean Union |
| Pricing models | CPC, CPM |
| Verticals | E-commerce, Nutra, Dating, Gambling, Finance, Sweepstakes |
| Publisher program | Yes — program page |
| Minimum top-up | $100 |
|---|---|
| Ways to top up | Bank card, Bank wire |
| Founded | 2007 |
|---|---|
| Website | mgid.com |
| In our catalog since | Sep 19, 2026 |
aliencpa review
MGID Review for Affiliates: Native Traffic, Moderation and Payouts
MGID: native ad network since 2007, 850M+ monthly unique users on 32,000+ sites in 200+ countries. $100 minimum deposit, workable moderation for nutra, dating, gambling and finance, personal managers. Needs a pre-lander and bot filtering; ID check is mandatory.
If you've bought traffic for more than a few months, you've seen MGID's widgets: the "sponsored content" blocks under news articles, full of eye-catching pictures and headlines. MGID has run since 2007 and is one of the longest-standing native ad networks. For affiliates it's one of the few big sources where nutra, dating, gambling and finance offers can run without a daily fight with moderation.
We looked at it from the advertiser's side: reach, moderation, the dashboard, payments and what it takes to make the traffic convert. (For monetizing a website with MGID, see our separate guide for publishers.)
What MGID is
MGID connects advertisers with a network of publishers who place native widgets on their pages. Your ad appears as a content recommendation that fits the page's layout. MGID's own numbers: 200+ countries, 70+ languages, 32,000+ content websites, 850 million unique visitors and 185 billion content recommendations a month. Publishers include large portals such as MSN, Newsweek and Opera.
Key facts:
- Formats: native widgets (under-article, in-article, sidebar, header, mobile), smart widgets that mix native and display, IAB banners and video.
- Top verticals: e-commerce, nutra, dating, gambling, finance, sweepstakes, gaming.
- Markets: global, with strong presence in the US, LatAm, APAC and Europe.
- Minimum deposit: $100.
- Not allowed: scams, phishing, adult content.
Moderation: the real reason affiliates use it
Anyone who has had a Facebook ad account closed over a comma knows why moderation matters. MGID is stricter than pop and push networks and much more predictable than Facebook or Google. Creatives are reviewed, and outright fraud gets caught, but offers that are hard to run on mainstream platforms (nutra, dating, gambling, finance) can run here with clean creatives and honest landing pages. When something is rejected, you can talk to a human about why.
The dashboard and tools
The advertiser dashboard is functional rather than pretty. From it you create campaigns, set targeting by GEO, OS, browser and traffic source, upload creatives and install the MGID pixel to track conversions. There are retargeting audiences, a CTR Guard tool and reports by placement.
Every advertiser gets a personal account manager. That's not a chatbot: managers help with optimization, suggest creative angles and flag GEOs that are working. Bigger spenders can ask for more: dedicated targeting help, early access to new inventory or better rates. It isn't advertised, so ask.
Identity verification
Right after you confirm your email, MGID requires identity verification: a passport, ID card or driver's license, your real details and a phone number. Advertisers and publishers alike, no exceptions, no campaigns without it. Many affiliates dislike handing documents to a third party. The upside is fewer scammers and bot farms in the network, which is part of why the traffic holds its value.
Making MGID traffic convert
The audience is typically 25+ and comes from news sites, forums, blogs and video platforms. These people are reading; they didn't come to buy. That changes how you build the funnel:
- Use a pre-lander. An advertorial that reads like a continuation of the article they left: a story, a problem, your product as the answer. Direct linking to an offer page mostly burns budget.
- Match the creative to the context. News-style thumbnails and headlines beat banner-style designs.
- Optimize by placement. Traffic quality varies a lot between sites. Blacklist placements that spend without converting, whitelist the ones that work.
- Watch for bots. MGID filters fraud in real time, but bot spikes still appear on some placements. Track them and report them to your manager.
- Start small. One GEO, one offer, a handful of creatives, then scale what works.
With a working funnel you can run almost anything the rules allow: PWA apps, finance, nutra, dating, e-commerce.
Payments
MGID has a reputation for paying on time. For advertisers the practical point is the $100 minimum top-up; publishers are paid net-30 above a minimum threshold (details in our publisher guide). When you add or change payment details, MGID sends a confirmation link to your email, and payouts only work after you confirm it.
Our experience
The original version of this review was based on campaigns in nutra, dating and a few eSport tests. What stood out: moderation that talks to you, managers who answer optimization questions and sometimes point to fresh GEOs, and payments that arrived on time. The weak spots were a clunky interface, occasional bot placements and the odd questionable creative from other advertisers.
To see how MGID placements look on real sites, browse the MGID Ads Library: it shows every format in live publishing environments.
Pros and cons of MGID
Pros
- Huge reach: 850M+ monthly unique users, 32,000+ sites, 200+ countries
- Moderation that allows nutra, dating, gambling and finance with clean creatives
- Personal account managers who help with optimization
- Retargeting, a conversion pixel and anti-fraud tools built in
- $100 minimum deposit
Cons
- Needs a pre-lander; direct linking rarely works
- Bot traffic still appears on some placements
- Mandatory ID verification with personal documents
- Dashboard is functional rather than pleasant
Checklist: what to do
Questions about MGID
Is MGID a good traffic source for affiliates?
Yes, if you work with pre-landers. Its audience comes from news sites, blogs and portals, is mostly 25+ and reads rather than scrolls. Direct linking to offers usually burns money; an advertorial that bridges the article and the offer is what makes it work.
What is the minimum deposit?
$100 for advertisers.
Which verticals can I run?
E-commerce, nutra, dating, gambling, finance, sweepstakes and gaming are all common on MGID. Scams, phishing and adult content are not allowed, and creatives go through moderation.
Is the traffic clean?
Mostly, but not entirely. MGID filters fraud in real time, yet bot traffic still shows up on some placements. Track by placement, blacklist the bad ones and report spikes to your manager.
Do I need to verify my identity?
Yes. Both advertisers and publishers must pass an ID check with a passport, ID card or driver's license and a phone number before they can run campaigns or receive payouts.
Compare MGID with other traffic sources
- Average rating 1.5
- Average rating 2.3
- Average rating 3.6
- TrafficJunkyRecommendedAverage rating 3.6
Our verdict on MGID
A reliable, high-volume native source for affiliates who build content funnels. Reasonable moderation, human support and on-time payments outweigh a clunky dashboard and the need to filter placements.
MGID is a workhorse: huge reach, moderation that is stricter than a pop network but far more predictable than Facebook or Google, real account managers and reliable payments. The audience rewards content-style funnels and punishes lazy direct links.
My verdict: one of the first native sources worth testing for nutra, e-commerce, finance and similar offers, provided you bring a proper pre-lander and filter placements. If you want instant results with a banner and a direct link, this isn't the network for you.
Member reviews of MGID
No member reviews yet. Member reviews count 5 times more than ratings from other sites. Sign up free to write one.
No member reviews yet. Be the first to rate MGID.
Loading…
Are you this company? Claim the page
MGID reviews around the web
Public reviews from Trustpilot. Their ratings count toward the users’ score with less weight than member reviews.
Evgeni Minchev MinchevThe support and moderators takes ages to approve your ads, we have run a promotions to our products and will be finish very soon, but the ads are still not approved. Poor support poor communication i would not use them i have requested a refund of my balance
- Eva Sviatko
Update after a year of working with MGID I've expanded our cooperation since my original review and had a chance to test more of the available formats and optimization options. The results have been consistently solid, especially for mobile traffic. I also appreciate that the MGID team has become more proactive in suggesting adjustments when something isn't performing as expected. After a year, the main thing for me is that the cooperation has remained stable and predictable, which is exactly what I look for in a monetization partner
- Francis Jou
Fake traffic Fake traffic, be careful. Don't waste your money and time.
- Muhammad Borhan Uddin
10000% scammer 10000% scammer , all traffic bot . not real traffic . I spend $100 no sale come , no free join . all traffic are bot. do not advertise with MGID . scammer , scammer, scammer
- Abdulrehman Zahid
fake network fake network
- Umar Saleem
MGID is a pure scam for both publishers and advertisers. I used their network for about a month, and when it was time to receive payment, they suddenly blocked my site, claiming they had detected bot traffic. I have been doing blogging for 4 years and I know very well that I don't used any bots. When I asked them to share proof or statistics showing why they believed there was bot traffic, they did not reply, even after many days. They are scamming both advertisers and publishers. They take money from advertisers and then block publishers' accounts when it is time to pay, saying that they will compensate affected advertisers for the so-called bot traffic. However, they do not cooperate with publishers and provide no proper evidence. Stay away from this scam network. There are many other good ad networks available that treat publishers fairly. SCAM. STAY ALERT.
- Chaz Orwitz
Rife with BOT traffic I did a lot of testing on this network to figure out the traffic quality was really bad and proved with my tracking tools that around 90% are BOTS. I submitted reports and they refused to refund me after I showed them that a lot of the clicks they were reporting were either non existent and the ones that did exist reporting from my tracking tools stayed for 0 seconds to 2 seconds which is behavior of BOTS. I video recorded all sessions that fired my tracking tools which was a fraction of the clicks they said exist and they chose to ignore the situation even with proof. DO NOT use MGID and their partner websites. You will thank me later. I have super fast website on all devices plus tracking was checked several times and it was firing correctly. AVOID MGID.
- Nik Morrison
From Burnout to Breakthrough: +25% Subscriptions in 3 Days with Smart Optimization We had a subscription campaign where the old banners simply stopped converting. CTR Guard automatically generated 5 new creatives, and within 3 days, subscriptions went up by 25%. At the same time, CPA Tune adjusted bids toward users who actually subscribe, giving us a stable CPA without any manual intervention. The platform really works like a partner, not just a tool
- Arham Ali
they scammed me just before payout day After working with them for more than one year, they suddenly decided to scam me. They blocked my website and deducted all my hard earned money without giving any reason, just before the payout day. I also lost my AdSense account because I was running this scam network's ads along with AdSense ads. I would not recommend this network to anyone.
- saurav sarraf
The policy is stricter than Facebook and Google and it takes a lot of time for ads approval, 2 days or even more.
- Karolina Guk
Scaling Without the CPA Headache: Let the System Do the Heavy Lifting When we scaled our lead gen campaign and increased the budget, the CPA predictably started to rise. Usually in such cases, you have to manually redistribute spend across sources and guess where the drop-offs are happening. Here, we just enabled automatic optimization — and after a while, the system balanced the traffic on its own. Volume went up, and CPA stayed almost the same. This is a really comfortable scenario for scaling.
- jurica borkovic
Great native ads I have used MGID for native ads, results were amazing. Support is also great.
- Nik Harmas
Using MGID to validate demand and test messaging We used MGID to launch a new product when we needed to generate initial demand quickly. In the first month, we received more high-quality traffic than expected and gained valuable insights into which messages resonated best with the audience. The platform works well not only for scaling, but also for testing hypotheses
- Mark Bauman
No magic promises, just solid native traffic that actually works Ran traffic through MGID as an advertiser without big expectations, honestly. I've seen all kinds of stuff with native ads before. But this one actually worked out fine. The traffic doesn't feel dead, clicks look legit, and there's no feeling like they're just padding the numbers. Obviously, nothing takes off from the first launch — you need to rotate creatives, test headlines, and see what really sticks. But once you find a working combo, campaigns become pretty stable, without nasty surprises. The managers are solid — no pressure, no fairy tales about "easy millions." They give useful tips on placements worth scaling and where it's better not to burn budget. For me, MGID isn't a magic button, just a reliable working tool if you use it smartly.
- Oliver Brandt
Saved at the last moment There was a moment when the campaign suddenly dropped and I was ready to turn it off. I messaged the manager, and within a day we reworked the creatives, adjusted the audience approach, and gave it another shot. A few days later the metrics recovered and eventually performed even better than before. Moments like this are exactly why you keep working with a platform
About these reviews. We gather them from public pages so you can see how MGID is rated outside aliencpa. We take the latest reviews from each source, without picking them by tone. Each is quoted in full, word for word, and translated into English where marked; the source icon links to the original. We don’t verify them, and our editorial policy doesn’t cover them. Their ratings count toward the users’ score, but member reviews from aliencpa readers always weigh more and come first. Worked with MGID? Write a member review.
Articles about MGID
People from MGID
- Ivan DorudaCEO
MGID is listed in our traffic source catalog. Paid packages can pin a card and extend it; they never buy a rating, a review or a verdict.
Comments on MGID
Open to everyone, no sign-up. Comments don’t change the rating.
No comments yet.
Add a comment