Thread by @NicheDown

Let’s talk AD NETWORKS, and who pays the best 💰💰💰

(In MY experience!)

🧵👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

But first: 

I still don’t think display ads get the love they deserve in the #blogging world. 

They pay exceptionally well (niche dependent of course, as always) and they require ZERO up-keep!

My personal blogging content strategy is: informational posts, monetized with display ads.

It’s a WINNING formula. And the best part? I don’t have to go back and check a bunch of affiliate links each month to make sure the product hasn't sold out.

And display ad earnings are a lot more consistent and predictable than affiliate earnings each month.

I’d rather make 20k each month vs 30k this month, 10k the next etc.

Ok, ad networks…

I know there are others, but here are the more popular options:

AdSense - No min traffic 

Ezoic - No min traffic ! (use to be 10,000 pageviews)

Mediavine - 50,000 sessions over past 30 days  

AdThrive - 100,000 monthly pageviews

I'll try not to bury the lede:

I think AdSense is a WASTE of time. I wouldn’t even bother with it (it pays peanuts). I’d start with Ezoic, and then move on to Mediavine or AdThrive, once you meet their session/pageview requirements.

At least that’s what I did.

I joined Ezoic in Jan of 2021, and was with them for ~10 months (until mid October 2021).

They were great to work with.

The highest rates I saw were $25.61 (EPMV) in September.

Here’s a screen shot of all my earnings, month by month:

A note about Ezoic premium: I was invited, and started paying for premium in April.

If you don’t know, Ezoic has a premium ad option that connects you with premium brands. Once you start to hit higher levels of traffic, they “invite” you to pay for this premium access.

Their Premium ad model has different tiers and you pay more each month for the higher tiers. They basically guarantee you’ll make more with premium than without.

I definitely made more with premium, but I’m not a huge fan of this model.

Just pay me the most you can, and take your cut automatically. I don’t want to have to pay separately and make all these choices. I just want to know I’m getting the best ad rates. Period. You take care of the rest.

Also be aware: Ezoic premium has an annual option that locks you in for a year at a lower price.

If you chose this option, then decide to go to Mediavine or AdThrive before your year is up, Ezoic makes you buy-out your remaining contract with them.

Learned that the hard way.

All that said, I LOVE that Ezoic exists. It’s amazing that they are available for brand new sites.

Making your first dollars online is an extremely powerful and motivational experience, and Ezoic makes that possible.

Moving on.

In September 2021 I passed 50k sessions and applied for Mediavine.

I was accepted, and the onboarding process began.

I knew November and December were HOT months for ad rates, and I was determined to be all done onboarding by then.

12 days into the Mediavine onboarding process, I still wasn’t set up, and communication wasn’t great.

During that time my pageviews passed 100k, so I applied to AdThrive as insurance (I wanted a premium ad network!)

@Adthrive accepted me and onboarded me in under a week.

So that’s how I ended up with @Adthrive .

My experience with them has been 10/10. An AMAZING team.

They take care of everything for you. They go above and beyond to make sure you’re successful.

I cannot say enough great things about AdThrive. Truly.

Note: even though my onboarding experience was less than perfect, I do think Mediavine is a great company. And I believe Mediavine and AdThrive pay fairly comparable ad rates (from the research I’ve done).

Anyways, here are my earnings with AdThrive from mid Oct 2021 to today.

Roughly a $35 (RPM) average,with rates going CRAZY in November and December (>$70!)

NOTE: the ad rates you get paid change drastically based on the niche you’re in. I’ve heard that some of these ad networks may pay more for certain niches than others. So maybe it makes sense for a travel blog to go with one network whereas a tech blog will do better on another

What ad partner are you working with? What’s your experience been like?