Cooking Up Revenue: How Rewarded Ads Can Transform Recipe Sites
Food publishers face a familiar challenge: how do you monetize traffic without turning away hungry readers with walls of intrusive ads or aggressive paywalls? Recipe seekers are often high-intent users, looking for specific instructions, printable formats, or bonus content that makes their cooking easier. But they also expect a seamless experience.
That’s where rewarded ads come in.
Instead of forcing a subscription or pushing popups, rewarded ads let publishers offer valuable actions like unlocking a recipe, downloading a shopping list, or accessing “chef’s tips”, in exchange for the user engaging with a short ad. It’s a simple microtransaction: the reader gets the content they want, and the publisher earns more from advertisers who know these users are deeply engaged.
Why Rewarded Ads Work in the Recipe Niche
Unlike casual browsing, recipe consumption is inherently task-oriented. People are there to cook something now, which means they tend to pay close attention and often revisit the same site multiple times. For example, users will "pin it" on their Pinterest board or "save for later." That kind of engagement is a goldmine for advertisers.
Search intent also reveals a great deal of value. Someone looking for “keto-friendly chocolate cake” or “quick dinner recipes” is showing interests that align perfectly with brands selling groceries, cookware, or meal kits. Rewarded ads allow advertisers to place their messages directly in these high-intent contexts while allowing users to continue their cooking journey uninterrupted.
Example Implementations for Recipe Publishers
Rewarded ads can be woven naturally into a recipe site without disrupting the user experience. The following are a few conceptual ideas to implement a rewarded ad:
- Unlock full recipe steps underneath the ingredients list: How many times have you clicked on the ‘Jump to Recipe’ (JTR) button? Most people would agree that they’ve clicked on it more often than not. The reality is that it’s a nearly universal feature in this particular space. But this also means there’s an opportunity since you’re taking the user directly to the main part of the content. Typically, once the user clicks on the JTR button, the user is brought further down the page where the ingredients and instructions list live. Here, a short ad engagement reveals the instructions after a user confirms they want to cook the dish.
- Rewarded “Print Recipe” button: Since printing signals strong intent to cook, this moment delivers higher advertiser value. These tend to live immediately next to the JTR recipe and if not, somewhere within the same viewport. This location has strong viewability and the likelihood of interaction from the user is high.
- Secret or “Chef’s Tip” recipes: Exclusive family favorites, “secret recipes”, or kitchen tricks can be unlocked with a rewarded ad. This type of content can be deemed more valuable and therefore, would perform well with the rewarded ad in place.
- Shopping list downloads: Users can watch a quick ad to access a downloadable list for their grocery run.
- Cooking Apps: For those that have cooking apps, there is an opportunity to increase conversions by implementing a rewarded ad. A user may want to download a dedicated meal plan for a month and they need to purchase this within the app. Studies show that users who interact with rewarded ads are 4.5x more likely to make in-app purchases versus those that do not have rewarded ads (Camphouse.io).
- And more! Publishers understand the value they bring with their content and with the above serving as inspiration, the creative way to implement rewarded ads is endless.
The Data Behind Rewarded Ads
Rewarded formats can outperform traditional display ads in both engagement and revenue. According to a study, 62% of developers reported that retention remained stable or increased after the implementation of rewarded video ads.
The value isn’t just in the completion rate, rather, it’s in the context. Because rewarded ads are tied to intent-rich behaviors like printing or downloading, advertisers pay higher CPMs for this attention. In food publishing in particular, where brands from meal delivery to kitchenware are competing for visibility, these placements command premium value. It’s no wonder that this category is highly competitive.
Equally important is user sentiment. Research across Ezoic’s network has shown that when ads are presented as a transparent exchange, users see them as fair and non-intrusive. This reduces bounce rates compared to hard paywalls or cluttered ad pages.
Final Thoughts
Cooking and recipe sites are built on value exchange: the publisher provides knowledge, and the reader gains confidence in the kitchen. Rewarded ads extend that philosophy into monetization. Instead of cluttering pages with banners or locking everything behind paywalls, they create a fair trade - users get what they want, and publishers earn more.
For recipe publishers, it’s the winning formula: great food, happy readers, and stronger revenue streams.