Ezoic Vs Monumetric – What’s The Better Ad Network?

It’s no secret that bloggers want to earn that first recurring passive income stream as quickly as possible.

You’ve probably figured out that Display Ads on your website are the best way to get that first bit of revenue flowing in.

Adsense is usually the first Ad Network that people think of when it comes to display ads but the earnings are low and there is a lot of working in getting those Ads set up the way you want.

Even though there is now a plug and play Auto Ad Placement setting with Ad Sense, to say it is under optimized would be the understatement of the century.

Luckily, there are other options to choose from once we get a bit more traffic and 2 of the best we have to chose from for small sites are Ezoic and Monumetric.

Ezoic and Monumetric both have a minimum traffic requirement of 10,000 sessions per month and Monumetric charge a $99 set up fee for sites between 10k and 80k sessions, whereas Ezoic is free. Ezoic and Monumetric set up your Ad Accounts and look to optimize revenue through different networks including Ad Sense and they try to maximise your earnings with continual testing of Ad placement and quantity. Ezoic places a high emphasis on Artificial Intelligence while Monumetric are focussed on utilizing the data to make continuous improvement.

Getting Started With Ezoic

I remember waiting a long time to hit that 10k sessions to finally get away from Adsense and the feeling of joy I got when the goal was achieved was long lived.

Here are the advantages and disadvantages I found with the platform.

Quick And Responsive

Having subsequently waited 5 weeks to get accepted by Mediavine, I didn’t know how good I had it with getting accepted and set up by Mediavine.

The customer support was sharp, responsive and ready to roll as soon as I was.

The only confusing thing about the set up was switching the DNS over. The DNS sits between your hosting and Ezoic which I wasn’t mad about but hey, additional earnings were on the line!

Easy Acceptance

I have never heard of people failing the registration review with Ezoic, they want the customers and will more than likely accept you.

One of our sites has been rejected by both Mediavine and AdThrive so it is a good benefit.

Ad Set Up

Our Ad Set was all done by our account strategist and we didn’t mess with it too much but you have complete control of every ad position through the Ezoic dashboard.

It was a great feeling to see specialized Ads on the site as opposed to Ad Sense Auto placement which could doing anything to be honest.

Quality Dashboard

The dashboard with Ezoic is one of the best around. You can measure earnings per day or earnings per 1,000 visitors along with earnings per device and earnings per page which are all important for knowing how everything is performing so you can create more quality content that will earn maximum revenue.

The Earnings

We started out with a nice increase in RPM to about $10 and then the pandemic hit. While they say our RPMS were supposed to increase with time, ours absolutely tanked. The day we left Ezoic, we had an RPM of $5. Only a little better than what we got from Adsense.

This is really the thing about Ezoic, it is hit and miss. Ask 10 people and 7 will say it was great while 3 will say it was awful.

The performance of Display Ads comes down to:
The Quality of your Audience,
The Quantity of your Audience

The Optimization of the Ads

Ezoic Premium

In another situation we would have been delighted with Ezoic Premium, even though it sounds counter intuitive.

You pay Ezoic for access to their premium advertisers and in return, they guarantee that they will give you more than you pay in return.

You pay them $40, you are guaranteed to earn at least $60 extra.

Couple of problems for me:

Our RPM dropped to almost $5 when we switched to Premium and the additional premium revenue meant that our overall revenue stayed the same.
There is a restrictive contract with premium so you need to stay with them for 6 months to a year.
It is a very strange way of doing business, I guess it is the contract they are after.

Important point is that if Premium works well for you then go ahead and use it. As I said, Ezoic is very hit and miss.

Testing And Artificial Intelligence

Ezoic are constantly split testing your ads and they use Artificial Intelligence with machine learning to determine the optimal layout and quantity of your ads to make the maximum revenue and more is not always equal to better.

Any good Ad Management company should be able to offer you increased returns the longer you are with them.

It didn’t happen for us but hey, we were in the middle of a Pandemic.

Cons

Site Speed

Site Speed is one of the biggest gripes I here about Ezoic, we didn’t notice any additional slow down in our site when switching to Adwords and there was definitely no adverse effects on traffic as it grew quickly through our time with Ezoic.

They also offer a Site Speed optimization service for free that will bring your site back up to speed if it does slow down.

Intrusive Ads

The other main complaint we see about Ezoic is that the Ad placements can be intrusive, they can take over the content and make the site look cheap.

Having work with Mediavine and Monumetric, I would say that there Ads are a little bit higher quality than what you get with Mediavine.

No Video Player

Having no video player is another con for Ezoic. It is a great way to earn extra revenue and all of their competitors have one. I’me sure they are workoing on this and will bring one out quite quickly.

3 Sites With Ezoic:

Golf – Average RPM $8
Pets – Average RPM $12
Boxing – Average RPM $3

Decent but not through the roof!

Monumetric

Monumetric sort of fly under the radar a bit when it comes to Display Ad companies and I think it is partly down to the fact that their offering is more catered towards bigger sites.

We say this even though they do accept smaller sites but there is a $99 charge to set up with them if your site is between 10,000 – 80,000 sessions per month.

If you go above that, you will already have had the chance to sign up with Mediavine and Adthrive will be close as well.

Anything over 80,000 sessions and set up is free.

The $99 is a big deterrent for many new bloggers. You want to finally make some money after putting a ton of time and effort into creating a quality site and maybe even forking out your hard earned cash to hire some writers.

The last thing you want to do is shell the first month or twos earnings to sign up for Ads and I can’t blame you.

For me, it does represent a barrier but we have tried out Monumetric with our Pets sites and the results have been quite good. As always, we’ve got some pros and cons for you to digest.

Before we dive in, let’s get the company history out of the way. They were founded in 2010 as The Blogger Network, are based in Utah and recently changed their name to Monumtetric.

The Application Process

We moved our Pets site to Monumetric from Ezoic and our golf site went to Mediavine.

The application process for both Monumetric and Mediavine took a long time, (2 – 4 weeks) and I think it is because they are swamped with Applications due to covid or they want to give every customer individual attention.

Keep in mind that this is an extra 30 days you will have to wait to start recouping your $99 investment.

The Set Up

The set up was really good with Monumetric when they finally did get around to us, they have support technicians to make sure your sites sidebar is 300px wide and everything is set up perfectly on your theme to run the ads well.

The RPM’s

The RPMS’s started out slightly lower than Ezoic at around $8, quickly jumped to $10 and are currently sitting at around $12.5 which is slightly higher than Ezoic.

This is still a rather small site so we will see what kind of additional returns we will get when we add additional traffic.

Overall, I would say there is very little difference between the RPM’s between the two so check them both out for yourself to see what kind of returns you get.

Every site and Ad Network is different.

Monumetric Plans

10k – 80k Pageviews Per Month – $99
80k – 500k Pageviews – Free – Free Site Audit
500k – 10m Pageviews – Free – Testing & Data Team
10m Pageviews – Free – Priority Testing And Data Team

As you can see from the plans, you are likely to a lot more attention and higher RPM’s, the bigger your site gets.

Ad Quality And Site Speed

I have found that the quality of the Ads with Monumetric was better, more similar to Mediavine and it was a better user experience.

1 thing I didn’t like about Ezoic was the amount of ads and their positioning, often blocking the content.

Monumetric was much cleaner and less intrusive.

Video Player

One of the big misses from Ezoic is the video player that you get included with Monumetric.

This allows you to upload short videos with an ad at the start and earn additional RPM’s.

It’s a great way to increase your overall revenue and even a few bucks a day adds up to a lot over the course of a year.

What We Do With New Sites

Setting up a new site is a massive undertaking and while Blogging is not dead in 2020, you need to box smart and hard to turn a profit but once you do, you have laid the foundation for an extremely lucrative asset.

Pick a good theme

Do not use a Free Them and do not use Blogger.com. You need a robust, premium theme that is fast loading and built to handle the stress and strain of running ads and having a lot of traffic. I recomenend the Enfold theme available on Themeforest.

Create Quality Content & Monetize

Once your site is set up and you are starting to build some traffic, the goal is to starting earning something as quickly as possible and starting off with Adsense makes a lot of sense.

If you are a member of income school or know an account rep at Ezoic, you can get passed the 10k minimum so if you can do that, get onto Ezoic as quickly as possible.

If Ezoic messes up your site, the Ads are too intrusive or the RPM’s are too low, then switch it over to Monumetric and pay the $99.

Once you get to 50,000 sessions per month, move over to Mediavine, they are the best Ad service I have used by a mile from the RPM’s to the customer support to thriving Facebook community.

I would see no reason to ever move from Mediavine once you get there.

Conclusion

Ad Networks perform differently for all different niches and audiences and I have a feeling the way your ads are initially set up on Ezoic can have a big impact in your RPM’s and overall performance.

Ezoic are hit and miss, Monumetric have a set up fee and long lead times, Mediavine are excellent but require a lot more traffic.

What ever you decide to do we, creating quality and original content is the best way to make a successful internet business.