If you want to monetize your website with display ads, these are the 3 most popular options, Mediavine, Adsense, and Ezoic. All of these platforms are different and offer very different results and ad performance for each niche, country, or ad placement.
In this post, we are sharing an analysis by Colin Newcomer, an SEO and affiliate marketing enthusiast from CodeInWP that will help you compare and choose the right ad monetization platform for your site amongst Mediavine, Ezoic, and Google AdSense.
To analyze the differences between these 3 ad platforms, there are a lot of areas to consider including how much money you can make, the requirements to join, payment terms, the effect on website performance and user experience, and more.
Let's take a brief look at these networks before we go into the more in-depth Mediavine vs. AdSense vs. Ezoic comparison. Let's take a brief look at these networks before we go into the more in-depth Mediavine vs. AdSense vs. Ezoic comparison.
1. Mediavine
Mediavine is a premium display ad management network that bloggers can use to effectively monetize their websites. It’s rated as one of the highest-earning ad networks out there for bloggers and other content creators.
The network is very popular with bloggers in the food niche, travel niche, family and parenting, hobbies and interests, home and garden, health and fitness, personal finance, education, style, shopping and fashion, and arts and entertainment niches.
Mediavine, as an ad management network, requires exclusivity for managing your display ads. Although you’re still free to use affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and so on but not any other ad network.
The Mediavine team began as a team of content publishers, and Mediavine sprang from their need for an ad management solution for their websites. This gives them an interesting publisher-first perspective on ad management, which tends to give a lot more privilege to bloggers and other content publishers.
2. AdSense
AdSense is the display ad network from Google and it’s the “go-to” platform for a lot of bloggers and website owners. It's popular since almost anybody may join and no actual traffic limitations exist.
AdSense, on the other hand, is typically the lowest-paying network, in part because it still prioritizes ad clicks above ad impressions. It is, however, beneficial when you are just getting started because there are no traffic number prerequisites. As your website's traffic grows, you may advance from it.
3. Ezoic
Ezoic is an ad network that puts more of a focus on using data and technology to improve your revenue. Ezoic usually runs numerous tests on your ads and ad placements to see which one performs the best and then utilizes that one in the future.
Ezoic is not exclusive like Mediavine, therefore you may use it with other networks. Ezoic will even allow you to integrate those other networks in its testing framework so you can compare their earnings to Ezoic's, which is amazing.
Ezoic pays more than AdSense in general, but not as much as Mediavine. It's a useful gateway network for growing sites that can't quite match Mediavine's standards yet.
RPM Comparison: Which Ad Network Earns the Most?
RPM stands for revenue per thousand page views, and it's an important measure to consider when selecting an ad network.
Comparing the specific RPMs between Mediavine, Adsense, and Ezoic is difficult because RPM rates vary from one website to another based on different factors. Factors like your site’s content, traffic sources, viewability, fill rate, CPM, scroll depth, and so on.
However, what can be done is to compare sites that have a similar nature in terms of niche and traffic statistics. For a case of two similar sites, one using Mediavine and another using Adsense, the one using Mediavine will be earning more even though they are both in the same niche and have equal or approximately equal traffic statistics.
Here is a table showing the RPM comparison of Mediavine, Adsense, and Ezoic from the highest to the lowest.
Requirements to Join the Networks
Advertising networks always set the requirements that they expect webmasters to meet to accept them into the network. As a webmaster, you'll find several different requirements, although not all networks will require them all.
- Traffic — Some networks insist on a minimum number of monthly sessions/page views.
- Visitor geographic locations — Some networks prefer traffic from high-income English-speaking nations including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
- Traffic source — Some networks will place a higher value on organic search traffic than on social media traffic (because social traffic can be more erratic).
- Content — Certain types of content or niches are not accepted by all networks. True crime and gambling blogs, for example, are frequently rejected by premium networks.
- Content length — some networks will only accept you if you have long-form content (like 500+ words per post).
The table below shows the different traffic limits of Mediavine, Adsense, and Ezoic.
Note: These networks require that you verify your traffic with Google Analytics, so make sure you’re using Google Analytics on your site.
Mediavine's Other Requirements
Beyond50,0000 sessions per month, Mediavine also looks for the following details:
- Generally, they want the majority of your traffic to be from the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, and/or New Zealand. However, Mediavine has started accepting non-English sites in European markets. For example, if you have a German-language site targeting Germans, you might still be eligible for Mediavine if you meet the other requirements. I know someone who has a Swedish-language site and still got accepted.
- Unique advertiser-friendly content.
- Long-form content — aim for 500 words as the minimum for an average post.
There’s also a requirement that your site must have a good relationship with Google AdSense. If your site has been banned from AdSense in the past, you can’t join Mediavine.
AdSense's Other Requirements
AdSense has no traffic requirements, but there are a few basic requirements you must meet, including the following;
- Unique content.
- Advertiser-friendly content — e.g. no illegal stream sites.
- One of the 50+ AdSense-supported languages.
Ezoic's Other Requirements
While Ezoic has gotten rid of the 10,000 minimum page view limit and now accepts sites with any traffic level, there are a few other requirements to consider, which are:
- Unique, advertiser-friendly content.
- No shady tactics like automatically generated content, copying content from other sites, and so on.
- One of the 50+ AdSense-supported languages [2].
Effect on Website Performance and User Experience
While you always want to earn as much as possible from your display ads, you don’t want to do it at the expense of your site’s user experience. A display advertising network can harm your site in two ways:
- They can make your load times longer, which will give your visitors an unpleasant experience and hurt your SEO efforts.
- They might overload your content with advertisements, making your visitors' experience irritating.
All three ad networks give you options to control the number of ads that are displayed on your site. So, as long as you pay attention and make use of these options, you can always pull back the number of ads to avoid affecting users (though you might make less money as a result).
In terms of performance and load times, Mediavine performs an excellent job of ensuring that your site's advertisements do not slow it down. For example, they often use slow loading to reduce initial page load times and placeholders to minimize layout shifts, allowing you to maintain a high Core Web Vitals score.
AdSense and Ezoic, on the other hand, don't, and it's rather common for both AdSense and Ezoic to have a visible detrimental impact on the performance of your site.
However, with a little additional tweaking, you may reduce Ezoic's influence. You may also pay for Ezoic's speed-up service. However, if you want to prevent hurting your site's load speeds and user experience, Mediavine is the ideal option.
Payment Terms
When you start working with the more exclusive ad networks, you may become frustrated since some of them have long payment periods. While this isn't a problem in the long run, it does mean that you'll have to wait a few months for your first check, which may be a significant factor for some.
The Table Below Shows the Payment Terms of Mediavine, Adsense, and Ezoic:
So with Mediavine, you’ll need to wait an extra month to get your money, compared to Adsense or Ezoic. Once you get past the first few months, though, you’ll still have money rolling in each month.
Apart from the payment timing, you also might have issues with minimum payouts.
The table below shows the minimum payouts of Mediavine, Adsense and Ezoic:
At Mediavine, minimum payments will never be an issue. If you can fulfill the network's traffic requirements, you will undoubtedly make more than $25 per month if you barely meet the traffic criteria, you'll most likely earn $750 to 1,000 per month.
Final Thoughts on Mediavine vs AdSense vs Ezoic
When it comes to Mediavine vs. AdSense vs. Ezoic, the results are relatively straightforward:
If you want to make the most money from your sites while simultaneously providing the finest experience for your visitors, Mediavine is the ideal solution. However, because Mediavine has the most stringent conditions for membership, it may not be a possibility for you if your site is still new and developing. However, if your website has grown sufficiently, this is the way to go.
You can always join Ezoic if you can't get into Mediavine right now. There's no reason to use AdSense anymore now that Ezoic has abolished its10,000-pagee visit cap. You may apply to Ezoic right now, and if accepted, you'll make a far greater RPM than you would with AdSense.
You can keep using Ezoic until you reach the requirements for Mediavine. If Mediavine accepts you, Colin recommends moving as soon as possible because they provide greater RPMs and better performance.
