What are you making per/1000 pageviews on Web ads?
I have a high traffic Website (~1m views/mo) that has ad revenue via the Carbon Ads network. But, the ad revenue is very low, around $1300/mo. Should I switch to Google AdSense? What are you making on ads per 1k pageviews?
I've got a site running Carbon and netting closer to $2.15 CPM, however, I'm running both an impression based ad and a CPC banner. Overall the CPC seems to perform significantly better, and I imagine that might be similar in your case with a targeted web design/dev demographic.
If your site is doing north of 1m pageviews and you're thinking about switching to a display network I'd recommend going with a more niche partner as their CPMs will likely be 2-3x higher than Adsense. Another site I run does ~1.5m pageviews per month and around $2.80 CPM (originally ~$1.00 CPM using Adsense).
Happy to connect over email if you'd like to know more (it's in my profile).
$1.30 CPM on display ads seems low, I used to make about $2.50 CPM on YouTube in 2012, if that helps as a benchmark. This was before pre-roll and mid-roll ads became popular.
I haven't used AdSense in a couple of years, but this is definitely something you could test for a week or maybe even side by side.
Adsense: between $1.50 and $2.00 depending on the month.
How focused is your audience? What are the demographics.
I should have mentioned that... web developers/designers only.
Yeah I feel like you should be doing better with that and surprised carbon ads aren't getting higher rates. Have you tried speaking to your account manager about it?
You could install an ad rotator and try adding adsense into it and a/b test which is working out better for you. I've only used them with general interest and travel sites though so not sure how they are on tech/design sites but my cpms were never particularly high and I generally recommend moving away from them if you can find a network or direct sales model that works.