Introducing Mediavine Pro & Mediavine Premiere (Invite Only)

Ryuzaki

Ryuzaki

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Source: https://www.mediavine.com/announcing-mediavine-pro/

I just got invited to Mediavine Pro (yep, opening with a humble brag) to learn that two new tiers of Mediavine are opening up: Pro & Premiere.

The TL;DR is this:

If you're a normal Mediavine member you start at 75% revenue share and can get +1% for every year up to 5 years you stay with them for that site. That gets you to 80%, and then if you push enough ad impressions you can get up to 90%. That's how it has worked. Higher earning sites get bigger earnings and loyal sites get bigger earnings. Capped at 90%.

So it's 1% per 1 year, capped at 5 years, and if you push 5 million ad impressions in 30 days you get your 75% bumped to 80%, for 10 million ad impressions you get to 82.5%, and then for 15 million you get to 85%. So add in the 5% for 5 years and you cap at 90%.

Here's what you need to know about the new setup (the original arrangements still exist, which I'll explain):

Mediavine Pro​

  • 85% Minimum Revenue share regardless
  • To qualify you need a site earning $100k or more annually
  • You get a dedicated support team
  • You get access to a private facebook group
  • You get to bring new sites into Mediavine at 50k sessions instead of 25k monthly

Mediavine Premiere​

  • 90% Minimum Revenue share regardless
  • To qualify you need a site earning $500k or more annually
  • You get a different dedicated support team
  • You get a different private facebook group
  • You get to go to their annual Premiere retreat
  • You can bring new sites into Mediavine at even lower thresholds (not specified)
  • Plus more!
So let's say you're getting 87% and you qualify for Mediavine Pro. You don't drop back down to 85%, you keep your 87%. Underneath 85%, all of your bonuses are ignored and you're bumped up to 85% for being in the Pro program. But if you exceed 85%, you still get to keep anything past that. You'll just never dip below 85% And for Premiere, you'll get the 90% off the rippy, regardless. No going up, no going down. You're maxed out just for making so much revenue.

And it appears that this is all based per site, not per account. So if you have 10 sites exceeding $500k but they all do $50k each, you're not a Mediavine Pro. You need one of them by themselves to exceed $100k for Pro and then $500k for Premiere.

Pretty nice arrangement and much simpler to understand. Comes with a small but appreciated pay bump for me since my loyalty bonus isn't as high on my newer site.
 
I've had many chats with my rep at Adthrive over this and their refusal to bump the revenue share for anyone. I think Jon of Fat Stacks started an avalanche of people moving from AT to MV when he posted about his own move (last year?) and now with this, it will only increase.

I wonder if AT will respond.

This will probably sounds very stupid, but MV will obviously drastically lower their margin with this move, and they are hoping that pure volume replaces the lost revenue. Is this the start of a race to the bottom though, and what does that mean for the ability of networks like AT and MV to do everything else they do on our behalf aside from serve ads (tech investments, advocate on publishers behalf, etc)?
 
Darth said:
This will probably sounds very stupid, but MV will obviously drastically lower their margin with this move, and they are hoping that pure volume replaces the lost revenue.
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I don't think it's going to impact them at all. I think it will benefit them, either immediately or ultimately, as you said by sheer volume of new applicants.

But think about how long it takes most people to ever get 50k sessions in one month, let alone the amount it takes to make on average $8,333.33 per month to bust $100k in a year. And it's not a guarantee that even if you hit $100k in a year that you're invited. There's more criteria, I'm sure, and it's not an application process.

So let's say some hot shot site comes out of nowhere and hits $100k a year in 6 months. Easy come, easy go, and Mediavine knows this. This site maybe has been in Mediavine for 3 months (I'm making up this story, of course). There's no loyalty established or even a good history with the exchanges yet. There's zero reason for Mediavine to invite this site into the program and give them the 5% raise or more.

However, if a site is slow-walking it's way towards $100k over 3 years, it's not a big deal to give them another 2% (I'm referring to the 5 year max loyalty bonus). What it does is ensure they don't leave for AdThrive because they won't want to give up their 3% bonus, let alone the new 5% bonus they're getting.

And since it's invite only, they can be strategic about it. Say Mediavine ends up, on average, costing themselves 1% of revenue to attract a bunch of the competitions publishers over, which grows their total revenue by 5%. They gained 4% by hooking up their publishers with more of a rev share, and they'll keep those publishers on probably for the lifetime of the site, and the new owners will create accounts when the sites are sold, and so forth. They get those sites for life, basically. They wouldn't do it if they weren't winning.

It's definitely not a race to the bottom. What they're saying is "We'd rather get 10% of the earnings of 1,000 sites doing $500k+ a year than 15% of the earnings of 250 sites doing $500k a year, knowing we'll keep these revenues for the lifetime of each of these sites. Not one of them will move away from us. And we'll get much higher revenue from the Pro-tier too because they'll likely reach the Premiere tier with us, and to top it off we'll attract a majority of the newcomers, which we already do since our threshold # of sessions per month is half that of AdThrive as it is."

It's not quite a kill shot, but it will have a meaningful impact on their (and our) revenues for many, many years to come (if they don't cancel these programs or shift terms, which I've not seen them do anything like that yet).
 
@Darth the race to the bottom is a potential possible which I can see...

There is absolutely no barrier to entry for Adthrive to do the same and just bump up revenue share.

Alternatively, this could also devolve into a completely rigged system like the Oil Cartels where all ad publishers come together and just all decide to decrease revenue share all across the board at 50% hahahahaha.
 
I don’t make media network sites. If I did I would be using adthrive and ignoring everyone else. Some people say I am stupid. I think I am just simple.
 
secretagentdad said:
I don’t make media network sites. If I did I would be using adthrive and ignoring everyone else. Some people say I am stupid. I think I am just simple.
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Simple can be good, but looking back I definitely was too "simple" on some old projects.

Did some projects in 2016-2018 that were entirely monetized with ads and although money was made if I had paid better attention to ad optimization to maximize RPMs the project would have been on an entirely different level.
 
miketpowell said:
Simple can be good, but looking back I definitely was too "simple" on some old projects.

Did some projects in 2016-2018 that were entirely monetized with ads and although money was made if I had paid better attention to ad optimization to maximize RPMs the project would have been on an entirely different level.
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What did you not do that you would do now in order to maximize the RPMs?
 
secretagentdad said:
Their messaging is less complicated. Kinda dumb reasoning lol
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From a business perspective... mediavine is a notch above adthrive since they actually have a mission statement on there lol...

Nonetheless, both of their about us page leaves much to be desired. Really brings up the question as to what even makes them a good judge of whether or not a website is "up to par"? Theirs need some work.

In that respect, Monumetric has got it right and they're above both of them.
https://www.monumetric.com/about-us/
 
JOoa0ky said:
What did you not do that you would do now in order to maximize the RPMs?
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Good question, that answer makes me look kind of dumb but just not settle for Adsense and lower-tier Native.

Maybe because it was more "news" type content the higher CPMs were not possible but it is something that would have been worth investing more time into instead of a focus on just more traffic.
 
secretagentdad said:
Their messaging is less complicated. Kinda dumb reasoning lol
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Yes, it's a brain-dead reason, but you do seem to like to challenge yourself to succeed while purposefully doing things wrong. In this case, it probably won't hurt you since Ad Thrive and Mediavine are neck-to-neck for the time being.

I get it though. Less complicated messaging equals less responsibility and thinking expected of the possible client. It works for tech companies like Apple, who barely even promote any technological benefits and just barely insinuate lifestyle benefits. It works if the company can be trusted to deliver.

It's a good way to get screwed, too. My mom just called me about a USB cable. She almost bought one that said it was a "USB cable" and nothing more. Turns out she needed a USB-C to USB-A 3.0 cable. She was almost sold a USB-A to USB-A 2.0 cable, because she didn't know any better and the messaging was too simple. But getting rid of old inventory mattered more than the customer here.

JOoa0ky said:
In that respect, Monumetric has got it right and they're above both of them.
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This would also be a dumb reason knowing all we know about Monumetric ($10 RPMs) vs. the big boys ($35-$55+ RMs on your average days).

But it does expose how "normies" might be thinking. I can totally see a scenario where someone that doesn't like to think at all would choose the one with the more informative about page. Then they'd come to the conclusion that $10 RPMs are as good as it gets and never try out any other networks and never do any research. That's what lazy thinking gets you, I guess.

Regarding your comment about whether or not Mediavine or Ad Thrive are good judges of what a good website is... they're not the judges. The ad exchanges that they work with are the judges, and when you get denied, you aren't being denied by Mediavine or Ad Thrive, you're being rejected by the 10-12 exchanges.
 
Ryuzaki said:
This would also be a dumb reason knowing all we know about Monumetric ($10 RPMs) vs. the big boys ($35-$55+ RMs on your average days).

But it does expose how "normies" might be thinking. I can totally see a scenario where someone that doesn't like to think at all would choose the one with the more informative about page. Then they'd come to the conclusion that $10 RPMs are as good as it gets and never try out any other networks and never do any research. That's what lazy thinking gets you, I guess.

Regarding your comment about whether or not Mediavine or Ad Thrive are good judges of what a good website is... they're not the judges. The ad exchanges that they work with are the judges, and when you get denied, you aren't being denied by Mediavine or Ad Thrive, you're being rejected by the 10-12 exchanges.
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I don't disagree. At the end of the day we still have to go with the one that pays more or at the very least one that pays marginally less. Definitely not one that has a huge margin.

What I meant was, wish mediavine and adthrive had CEOs who shared the same vision as monumetric.
 
JOoa0ky said:
What I meant was, wish mediavine and adthrive had CEOs who shared the same vision as monumetric.
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I hear you. My understanding is that Monumetric really goes above and beyond for their publishers, each and every one.

I don't have experience with Ad Thrive but I can tell you that Mediavine's CEO is very involved. If he's not personally developing new products (like the Trellis theme and the Grow framework), he's writing blog posts, doing video interviews, doing Q&A seminars, and posting on the Facebook page. Some of this is gated, but much of it is public. Mediavine's other people in general all go above and beyond. Hell, they just gave a bunch of us an extra cut of their revenue, which is already more than others give (Ad Thrive keeps 25%, Mediavine keeps 15%-10% for medium-to-big publishers).

Anyways, I'm not trying to be some brand advocate. I just felt like this thread was getting silly in some ways. I don't want anyone who's doing good by me and others like me to get mischaracterized.
 
FWIW the account reps at MV and AT are EASILY the best out of 20-30+ networks I have been with over my career. They truly understand my business.
 
Call me a fucking virtue signaler I think Ad Thrive are the smart ones with low overhead. You can make money with low overhead or carry water for big tech with high effort. They strike me as the guys that are keeping things simple in the smart way. Maybe I just want to see them succeed lol.
 
Bruh, I think you need to take a break and get a drink haha.
 
I’m as dumb as me and as stubborn as carter.
I’lle double down and go apply for adthrive.
Having a miller genuine draft with lunch.
Cheers to your well intentioned advice good sir.

I’ve always been the type to try to monetize internally. The RPMs and case studies being tossed around In the laboratory and the juststart subreddit are making me rethink things a bit. This might be the new Adsense farming. Maybe I’m the idiot missing out.

I’m really curious about mediavine vine and monumetric. Going foreword will try and pay attention to people’s rpm claims for those. I still bet adthrive comes out on top presuming google doesn’t rug the whole eco system. Sorry my supporting evidence is so shit. Reference this thread later lol.
 
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Has anyone switched from AdThrive to Mediavine with this change, and able to share rough niche and result? In the >$100k camp and tempted - always thought they were neck and neck but that's a pretty huge jump in revenue share.
 
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