What to choose: Ezoic vs Monumetric vs Mediavine

[Janiform]

My non-English website now meets the traffic requirements for Ezoic & Monumetric (Mediavine not yet, but I will get there).

After doing some research, there's a couple things I'd still like to know before choosing.

1. Non-English RPM's
Yes, the niche you're in matters and so do the countries/languages you're targeting but still... it would be nice to hear from other non-English publishers about what kind of RPM's they're doing with Ezoic/Monumetric/Mediavine.

2. Payment methods
Ezoic offers international wire transfers for a very low fee (good), while Monumetric offers PayPal & "bank transfers" (without saying anything about international). Meanwhile, Mediavine offers PayPal & international ACH (not sure how that differs from international wire).

Also, Ezoic has a $20 minimum payout, Monumetric doesn't say and Mediavine has $25 for PayPal, but $200 for international ACH.

PayPal charges 3.2% and currency conversion from USD to EUR, so I'm down 5-6% before getting the money in the bank and therefore I'd prefer a different payment method.

If none of this is a big deal because of much better RPMs than AdSense, let me know. I'm just trying to figure out the hassle of non-US payments.

3. How to setup
Ezoic has a WordPress plugin, just like Mediavine, while Monumetric has tags that can be easily installed via Ad Inserter or something similar. I've seen a lot of people complaining about Ezoic (because of the DNS change install), plus the usual "my site is slow because ads" with the other two. Seems to me, though, that as long as you keep your load speed ducks in a row you'll be fine on a WordPress install. Or am I missing something here?

4. Anything else?
I know Ezoic pays based on Net 30, while Monumetric has Net 60 and Mediavine Net 65. That's fine. Is there anything else I need to be aware of?

I'm leaning towards starting with Ezoic, then leveling up to Mediavine, but that decision is based on Ezoic's better payment schedule & payment methods (& lack of setup fee) versus Monumetric. There's not a lot to go on in terms of RPMs of Ezoic vs Monu.

 

[Darth]

Why not test Ezoic, then Mediavine, then Adthrive as you level up?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Why not test Ezoic, then Mediavine, then Adthrive as you level up?

I'm not sure about Ezoic, but be aware that testing can't happen as fast as you might expect either. All of the big networks make you sign exclusivity deals for X amount of months and all of the exchanges and partners and advertisers take time to "learn" your site, meaning you won't experience the full bidding pressure for a while either.

 

[DarkRed]

Mediavine is better than Ezoic. It's also far easier to setup. But I don't know if they will take a non English site. Usually they don't.

I tried with a site that has over 100k visitrs per month (non English site, but most traffic is from Europe) and they didn't accept it because of that.

Ezoic did take that site and the RPM is good, much better than AdSense.

For payments, Ezoic is better. They pay faster (NET 30) and via Payoneer. Mediavine uses Tipalti and you can use Payoneer with that too via ACH.

I don't know the other one

 

[Janiform]

then Adthrive as you level up?

Adthrive is a no-go for this site, since they require the majority of traffic to be US-based. I have a non-English site targeting a country in Europe.

I'm not sure about Ezoic, but be aware that testing can't happen as fast as you might expect either. All of the big networks make you sign exclusivity deals for X amount of months and all of the exchanges and partners and advertisers take time to "learn" your site, meaning you won't experience the full bidding pressure for a while either.

Good to know! Any thoughts on how long it takes until you're at full bidding pressure? 3 months? 6?

Ezoic did take that site and the RPM is good, much better than AdSense.

Interesting. What's the improvement like, percentage wise? Is it 30-50% or more like double or triple?

Mediavine is better than Ezoic. It's also far easier to setup. But I don't know if they will take a non English site. Usually they don't.

I tried with a site that has over 100k visitrs per month (non English site, but most traffic is from Europe) and they didn't accept it because of that.

Hmm ok. I found several places online where Mediavine staff specifically states that they do accept non-English sites when asked about it, but that it's up to the advertisers to approve. From what I've read, they do like to be vague when declining a site.

 

[Ryuzaki]

From what I've read, they do like to be vague when declining a site.

These ad networks aren't being vague when they decline a site. In fact, they don't decline sites. The ad exchanges do that. And the ad exchanges don't provide reasons to the ad networks about why they're declining them. If enough ad exchanges decline a site (say 7 out of 12), the network can't deliver a good enough RPM due to lack of pressure and so it hurts everyone to allow that site into the network.

But I've read discussion from the network people themselves talking about being able to deduce some reasons why sites get declined (though they don't know for sure).:

• The site doesn't have enough premium locale traffic.
• The site is a bunch of listicles and roundups without unique content or added value where the users scroll through quickly without actually viewing the ads.
• The site might get too much traffic to too few posts (the traffic isn't diversified across enough pages to weather algorithm updates).
• The site is less than a year old in terms of history in the SERPs and social media.
• The site has non-family friendly content.
• The site doesn't have enough content in general and isn't updated even semi-regularly.
• The design, the content quality, the user experience, and all of that isn't up to par.

 

[Janiform]

UPDATE: Ezoic just denied my site/application. I'm confused about their reason(s) why, because I never got the chance to share Analytics access and prove I meet the traffic requirements. I did share AdSense data with them via API though.

The site doesn't have enough premium locale traffic.

It's a Dutch site targeting the Netherlands, so this could be a reason. It doesn't seem likely because they state the site must be in an Adsense supported language (and it is).

The site is a bunch of listicles and roundups without unique content or added value where the users scroll through quickly without actually viewing the ads.

Not the case.

The site might get too much traffic to too few posts (the traffic isn't diversified across enough pages to weather algorithm updates).

I personally think two pages are doing "too well" versus other pages in terms of traffic. Also, my traffic is trending down because of the Google update + the low season in my niches. Those are things I need to work on for sure, but is this really why they declined me while all they have is AdSense data?

The site is less than a year old in terms of history in the SERPs and social media.

Nope. It's got history for sure.

The site has non-family friendly content.

Nope. Everything good.

The site doesn't have enough content in general and isn't updated even semi-regularly.

Nope. Enough content & updates.

The design, the content quality, the user experience, and all of that isn't up to par.

I can confidently say I don't have the best blog in my country, but it is above average in terms of design, quality and UX. It's way less cluttered than your average blog.

So, it seems likely they declined based on traffic and not quality, but how can they tell using just Adsense data? Also, I do meet their traffic requirements in May but am not sure yet about June (plus the spread of traffic across pages).

The next best moves:

• remove all the Ezoic placeholders, code wrappers, plugins, etc.?
• work on traffic & the spread of traffic?

I honestly don't understand what's going on. Also, I spent a ton of time on setting up everything like placeholders and what not, only to be declined. Was that the wrong move? Next time, would it be better to re-apply, share Adsense data and just wait until they approve or decline before I spend so much time on settings?

 

[CCarter]

because I never got the chance to share Analytics access and prove I meet the traffic requirements

Why didn’t you share the traffic data in time?

 

[Janiform]

Why didn’t you share the traffic data in time?

Just to clarify: they didn't give me an account/e-mail address to give access to Google Analytics to. So, I was declined before they even had a chance to look at my traffic data. I wasn't too late but declined beforehand, know what I mean?

 

[KevinOH]

This is way late, but what did you eventually go with? You should try Ezoic again. At the moment, they don't have traffic requirements. Got accepted into their program with a bunch of low traffic sites.