Mediavine Review – Best Ad Management Platform

Mediavine has been my ad management network since February of 2018. 

Since then, I’ve earned a total of $118,084.29 from 8,435,034 sessions.

For a total RPM of $14.

Before Mediavine, I was with Ezoic.

They’re another great company, but my loyalty is fully devoted to Mediavine.

Not even higher earnings would turn my head.

And before Ezoic, I used Google AdSense.

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Application

When I first applied, Mediavine was asking for sites with at least 10,000 sessions a month.

Now it seems, they require at least 50,000 sessions a month. 

They require complete control over your advertisements, although other affiliates (like Amazon) are allowed.

It took about 3 weeks for my application to be approved. 

Then I had to sign a contract, with lots of stipulations. Mostly for mutual protection but there has never been any contract issues at all.

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Set-Up

It took just 1 week to set Mediavine up on the site. 

Few teething problems with ad placements but I sent an email to get some help, they replied the next day with the fixes.

As for ad settings, you get complete control!

You can choose where you want your ads going, or have them auto-inserted and choose how many show up per post.

You also have access to optional ad units.

I believe these are partnerships Mediavine has with other companies. They provide advertisements (and revenue) in new ways.

As you can see, I don’t use too many of them. They take up a bit too much screen space away from the content.

Could easily implement them, and earn extra revenue. But I think user experience is more important.

Mediavine also supplies you with a Privacy Policy. Very handy for those like me, who have no idea how to write one!

 

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Pagespeed

As we all know, advertisements slow down your site.

A user visits your site, the ad space finds an ad to show, then loads it.

All of this can have a negative impact on performance.

Cumulative Layout Shift

An ad finally loading can cause layout shifts, negatively affecting user experience.

Mediavine ignores this by reserving space.

If you look at any of my posts, you’ll see an empty grey box that is eventually filled with an advertisement.

No layout shifts occur whatsoever.

You can enable or disable this setting at the click of a button!

Optimizing Ads for Pagespeed

Mediavine has a great clickable option to optimize ads for mobile/desktop page speeds.

At the cost of revenue, users will see far faster page speeds and have a better experience on your site.

Definitely have this enabled. User experience is far more important than an extra bit of revenue.

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Results

Mediavine’s RPMs are insane and have allowed me to run the site full-time.

During the holiday periods, I see RPMs as high as $27.

But that quickly drops back down to $11-$14.

You earn more of a revenue share, the more impressions you hit. 

Also, you get loyalty bonuses 🙂

Since I’ve been with Mediavine so long, my revenue share is 79%.

I can increase it even higher if I start to 5,000,000 impressions, but that’s very far away.

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Support

Mediavine support consistently goes above and beyond.

You can email them about a quick page speed questions, and they’ll reply back with a ton of answers and improvement suggestions.

Like, why?? You just run my ads, why help me in other aspects so much? This is not what 99% of companies do.

I feel bad for them sometimes, putting so much effort into my stupid questions!

Legit the best support I’ve ever encountered.

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Community

Mediavine’s best aspect is its community, transparency, and public service announcements.

You always know what cut you’re getting from ad spenders.

Access to a social media group full of other content creators, who constantly help each other with anything from website issues to SEO concerns.

The Mediavine staff themselves are friendly, human people who seem to love their jobs.

And to top it off, you have access to PSA options.

These allow you to display unpaid public service ads while an ad is loading.

I chose to display anti-racism ads, but you can choose anything from suicide prevention to cancer awareness!

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Futureproofing

Google’s algorithms are ever-changing, as are how ad spenders approach their campaigns.

Mediavine is constantly ahead of the curve, with an amazing team of engineers working behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly.

Privacy has been a huge concern in recent years, and Google is scheduled to remove third-party cookies by 2022.

This will have a catastrophic impact on content creators.

Ad spenders won’t have the information they need to target their preferred customers, so they’ll spend less.

Mediavine is aware of this and is working on ways to keep ad spending up while simultaneously protecting user’s privacy.

One of the key forms is grow.me, you’ll see it active on the site (in the bottom right corner).

Like I mentioned with the CLS issues, Mediavine had their fix ready by the time the update hit.

I’ll always trust Mediavine to be ahead of the curve, to see and minimize problems that might arise in the future

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Summary

Mediavine is the first company I’ve felt loyalty for. I know I’m here purely so they can earn money, yet I feel like I real member of the Mediavine family. 

They’ve allowed me to earn a passive living income from this website. If I need help, they’re there. 

Honestly, I seriously doubt there’s a better ad management company in the entire world.

Sure, some might provide a bit more revenue, but nothing compares to the community and support provided by Mediavine.

Overall, a solid 10/10 from me.