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Raptive Alternative

Raptive, formerly AdThrive and CafeMedia, manages the display and video ads on creators' sites: it places the ad units, sells the inventory to advertisers, and pays a share of the revenue, mostly earned per impression. Those ads earn from the space around your content, not from the products your content recommends. Mentionlink earns from those products: it uses AI to link the product mentions in your posts and makes the products in your photos clickable with hotspots. It adds no ad slot, so it runs alongside Raptive and every dollar it earns comes on top.

Category Raptive Mentionlink
What readers see Display and video ads placed around and within the content Links on the products your post names, and hotspots on the products in your photos
What gets monetized Ad inventory on your pages Your recommendations, in your text and images
Relevance Whatever advertisers bid on for that reader The exact product in the sentence or the photo
Where the click goes An advertiser's website The store in the reader's own country, in a new tab, while your page stays open
Paid on Mostly impressions Commissions on purchases
Layout Ad units inserted into your pages No slot needed; links inherit your existing link styles
Cookies Used for ad personalization and measurement None
Revenue Model Revenue-sharing Revenue-sharing
Works alongside the other Yes Yes

Monetize Your Recommendations

Food, home, fashion, and travel creators recommend products in almost every post: the stand mixer in the recipe, the rug in the living room, the jacket in the outfit photo. Each of those is a reader who wants to know where to buy it, and an ad next to the post doesn't answer that. Mentionlink does, without your team adding a single link by hand:

  • Text. Product mentions in the post become affiliate links, only where the reader is likely to click.
  • Hotspots. The products in your photos become clickable regions with visible labels. On a small image or a phone, labels that don't fit collapse to a dot, so the photo stays readable.
  • Text and image together. When a reader hovers over, or focuses, a product mentioned in the post, the hotspots for the same product light up in the photo.
  • Product cards. A strip of product cards can follow the paragraph or caption that mentions them.

Where Higher RPM Comes From

Revenue per 1,000 pageviews (RPM) from affiliate links breaks down into five numbers:

RPM = 1,000 × clickthrough rate × conversion rate × average order value × commission rate

Raptive RPM depends on how many ads a page can carry, how long readers stay, and what advertisers bid for them. Mentionlink adds a second, independent source of revenue that grows with the products your content already features. Plug your own numbers into the Affiliate Revenue Calculator to see what that's worth on your traffic.

A reader is most likely to click on a product while they're looking at it or reading about it. Mentionlink puts the link on the sentence that recommends the product and on the product in the photo, instead of in an ad unit next to the content. It uses AI to link only high-intent mentions, so readers see a handful of links that are worth clicking rather than a wall of them.

Conversion: The Right Product, the Right Store

A click only pays if the reader buys. Mentionlink links to the product you actually recommended, from well-rated listings, and sends each reader to the store in their own country. In the US, it even takes into account that prices vary across more than 40,000 ZIP codes. A reader who lands on the item they wanted, in a store that ships to them, at the price they'll see at checkout, is a reader who buys.

Order Value and Commission: Earn on the Whole Basket

Mentionlink matches each product to the affiliate program with the best fit, such as Amazon Associates, Fanatics or Lids. Programs like Amazon Associates pay on the qualifying purchases the reader makes after the click, not only on the product that was linked, so one recommendation can earn on a whole shopping basket.

Session RPM: Keep the Reader on Your Site

An ad click takes the reader to an advertiser's website. Every link Mentionlink adds opens in a new tab, so your page is still there when the reader comes back, and your Raptive ads keep earning on the next post they read.

Stacking: Add Revenue Without Taking Any Away

Mentionlink adds no ad slot, so it doesn't compete with your Raptive ads for space or attention, and you don't have to change your ad layout. It only links text that is not already linked, and it never interferes with Skimlinks, VigLink or other link converters. Every dollar it earns is added on top of what your page already makes.

A Better Reading Experience

  • No extra ads. Links and hotspots point to the products your content already shows and names.
  • Works on phones. Hotspot labels sit on the photo, with no hover required, and adapt to the size of the image.
  • Looks like your site. Links match your fonts and colors, so they read like part of the post.
  • Fast. The script is about 35 KB compressed, loads with defer, and waits for the page to finish loading. See Performance.
  • Accessible. Links, hotspots and product cards conform to WCAG 2.2 Level AA.
  • No cookies. Mentionlink sends no cookies, so it doesn't need to be in your cookie consent banner.
  • Disclosed for you. A footer on every page discloses that it may contain affiliate links.

High-Quality, Relevant Content

Every link Mentionlink adds points to a product your content already features, not to whoever bids the most for that reader. Before Mentionlink captions a photo or links a product seen in it, an image safety classifier reviews it, and photos of political, religious, assistive tech, or violent subjects are left exactly as you published them.

You stay in control:

  • Links per page: cap how many affiliate links Mentionlink adds to a page.
  • Sections: enable Mentionlink only on the sections where it fits, by URL pattern. See Configuration and Customization.
  • Individual links: refine, remove, or add links one by one.
  • Search engines: every link carries rel="sponsored nofollow", so it has no impact on SEO.

You don't have to switch anything off. Add Mentionlink next to Raptive and measure the difference on your own traffic:

  1. Start a pilot on a few sections of your site, rolled out by URL pattern.
  2. Compare page RPM and session RPM on the pilot sections against similar sections without Mentionlink.
  3. Widen the rollout section by section once you're happy with the results.

Mentionlink is a revenue share with no upfront cost and no locked-in contract, and our team handles the installation for free. Email us at hello@mentionlink.com to set up a pilot.

See also: Mentionlink vs. AdSense, Mentionlink vs. Luminate, Mentionlink vs. Outbrain, Mentionlink vs. Pixazza, Mentionlink vs. Skimlinks.

Raptive is a trademark of its owner. Mentionlink is not affiliated with or endorsed by Raptive.

Get Started

Schedule a free demo or email us at hello@mentionlink.com