You have probably heard by now that display ads are a great way for sites to earn passive income. So that's probably why you're reading several Mediavine reviews to know if this company can help your blog earn money or not. Well we have the answer to this question and a whole lot more. So read on before deciding to give Mediavine a shot.
What is Mediavine?
Mediavine.com is an ad management company that pays blog publishers for displaying ads on their website. Mediavine was co-founded in 2004 by Eric Hochberger, Stephen Marsi, Amber Bracegirdle, and Matt Richenthal. Their headquarters is in Florida, U.S.
How Does Mediavine Work?
Mediavine caters to two audiences; the Advertiser and the Publisher (aka the blogger).
Advertisers partner with Mediavine so they can get their product or service to a certain segment of the market. They pay Mediavine to advertise on their behalf.
Mediavine then works with content publishers (bloggers) by displaying these ads on their websites in return for shared revenue.
What Are The Requirements To Join Mediavine?
It's totally free to sign up to Mediavine for publishers. But your website must meet the minimum requirement of 25,000 sessions in the last 30 days. If that requirement is met, publishers can fill in an application form and wait up to 4 weeks for approval.
If you don't meet the requirements for your site, don't worry. Wealthy Affiliate can teach you how to get more traffic and earn money other ways with your blog. And if you don't even have a blog, they can help you create a successful one that makes you money.
That said making money with blogging can take some time. But did you know you can make money online for things you already do like visiting websites, watching videos, taking surveys and more at sites like Fusion Cash, Swagbucks.com & SurveyJunkie.com? Well, now you know.
Mediavine Advertiser Requirements
Advertisers will need to pay according to a website's demographic inventory. So if a website has 50,000 monthly visitors, advertisers are going to pay more per CPM (also known as cost per 1000 impressions) than a website that has 30,000 monthly visitors. Advertisers usually pay between $1 to $4 and sometimes even more per 1000 ad impressions, depending on a website's inventory.
How Much Money Can Mediavine Publishers Make?
At the time of this review a Mediavine Publisher, earns 75% of what the advertisers are willing to pay. So that means Mediavine takes the other 25%. A publisher's percentage can increase based on your traffic and thus the number of times ads will appear on your site (aka ad impressions), for instance:
- If your site gets at least 5 million ad impressions over a 30 day period, you will now earn 80% of net proceeds paid by advertisers.
- If your site gets at least 15 million ad impressions over a 30 day period, you will then be bumped up to 85% of net proceeds paid by advertisers.
Just keep in mind the revenue is based more on ad impressions, so if your site is properly optimized to increase ad impressions, you could still see a boost in income even without the need to boost your traffic. The dashboard they provide helps you see how to improve your ad impressions.
But obviously getting more traffic to your blog is always a good thing. So that can also help you reach some of the higher pay amounts with Mediavine. Fortunately, Wealthy Affiliate can help you grow your blog so it gets more traffic. But it can also show you how to make money other ways in addition to Mediavine.
What We Like about Mediavine
MVP Loyalty Bonus
Well, Mediavine doesn't have a referral program where you can make money referring other publishers. But they do reward their current publishers for sticking with their company. For every year you are a Mediavine publisher, your revenue share increases as our way of thanking you for being one of their valued publishers.
Data at your fingertips
Mediavine provides an awesome dashboard that is packed with various graphs and charts. You can access data like your total earnings, the ad units which are on your site, and how much you are earning from them. You can also get the data broken down by date and platform (phone, desktop, tablet). This data really makes it easy to understand how you're making money and where you can improve to make more money.
Doesn't Negatively Impact Your SEO
As you may or may not know, ads can definitely slow your site down and negatively impact your rankings in Google. This can also lead to your visitors leaving your site earlier because of a page loading slowly. The great thing with Mediavine is they have tested technology to ensure their ads comply with SEO & Ad Placement best practices. They have done a lot of testing on their own blogs to ensure their ads speed up your site and not slow it down.
Easy to use plugin
Mediavine allows you to download their Mediavine Control Panel Plugin which gives you some awesome features. I know some people panic when they see code, so if you aren't technically minded, don't worry, this plugin has got you covered. It will allow you to insert ads easily on your site. So there is no coding involved here!
White Glove Customer Service
Unlike similar services like AdSense that are very basic with their support, Mediavine is very hands-on with real people that actually email you back and want to help you. They'll literally install the ads for you and tweak them to fit your site's look and feel if needed. They've even helped me troubleshoot a traffic issue. So they really act like a real partner that understands helping you helps them. Google should take note.
Better Pay Rates Than AdSense & Others
Back in the day Google was the best when it came to making money with display ads. But that is no longer the case for most blogs. I've tried AdSense, Media.net and now Mediavine. And I can say Mediavine pays the best and I believe it's because of their technology and how they only use the best combination of ads and placement. They actually have their own blogs so they really do a lot of testing before rolling out suggestions to their publishers. This seems to lead to higher revenues for us.
Mediavine Complaints
As you can see Mediavine definitely has a lot of positives but no company is perfect. While most of these complaints might not be deal breakers, there are still things you should take into consideration. Let's check them out and you can decide for yourself.
Minimum session requirement
Your site needs have at least 25,000 sessions in the last 30 days before you can apply. Note this is sessions and not page-views. So this is a little bit of a downer if your blog doesn't have that type of volume. Fortunately, sites like Wealthy Affiliate can teach you how to get more traffic and make money other ways with your blog!
No referral program
Most large companies have a referral program where you can earn commissions as an affiliate. Unfortunately, Mediavine don't have a referral program. This is a bit disappointing and it doesn't look like they will change their mind any time soon. They have many valid reasons for this policy. I understand them but I don't totally agree with them regardless.
Waiting for payments
At the time of this review Mediavine pays their publishers NET 65. What this means is that you will have to wait at least 65 days to receive that month's ad revenue. You can see an example of their payment schedule here.
They have such a big delay because they have had problems in the past with advertisers not paying them on time, so this NET 65 rule allows them not to miss payments. The first payment takes the longest to get. But after that you're basically receiving a monthly payment. So you just need to be patient. It's worth it.
Mediavine Vs AdThrive, Google AdSense or Media.net?
There are a few ad networks out there so how does Mediavine stack up against AdThrive, Google AdSense, and Media.net? They basically tend to serve similar looking ads but let's have a look at the main differences between Mediavine and a few of the more popular ad networks:
Mediavine vs AdThrive
AdThrive and Mediavine share a lot of similarities. They both Google Certified Ad Partners and both offer a revenue share of 75% to their publishers (aka bloggers).
The most significant difference is Mediavine requires bloggers to have at least 25,000 sessions in the last 30 days. According to their FAQ, AdThrive requires at least 100,000 monthly pageviews before they will approve your application. So AdThrive have a much higher threshold you need to reach than Mediavine.
When it comes to customer service, both Mediavine and AdThrive shine in that area. Responses to any queries are usually handled very quickly by both.
Most bloggers have reported an average of $1,300 per 100,000 pageviews with AdThrive with an average of $11 to $13 per 1000 pageviews. Mediavine averages between $10 to $25 per 1000 impressions and can even reach an RPM of $30.
Mediavine works on NET 65 which means you get the current month's ad revenue after 65 days. AdThrive is NET 45 days, which is slightly faster than Mediavine. This is just for the first month, both ad companies then pay monthly.
Mediavine vs Google AdSense
Google AdSense is probably the ad network that every blogger knows about. Their ads are currently on 3.3 million websites, where Mediavine is on 3270 websites at the time of this review.
One of the main differences that sets these two ad networks apart is the fact that Mediavine has excellent customer support. You can email real people if you have queries and get lightning fast responses. With Google AdSense, you have to fill out a contact form and hope someone actually gets back to you. So getting help from Google AdSense may prove to be a lot more difficult than Mediavine.
While bloggers need 25,000 sessions to join Mediavine, Google AdSense only requires you to have enough content on our site and it should be active for at least 6 months.
There is also complete transparency with Mediavine. They test all their ads on their own blogs first and are willing for their own sites to take a hit before introducing it to their publishers. If they make an error or something doesn't work, they keep their publishers in the loop and fix it immediately. Their transparency is one of the main reasons why so many sites are leaving AdSense and signing up to Mediavine.
Mediavine pays per 1000 ad impressions and Google AdSense pays out based on CPC (cost per click). Google doesn't release their data on how much they pay per CPC but it is conclusive that publishers do earn a lot more ad revenue with Mediavine which can reach as high as $30 per every 1000 ad impressions.
While Mediavine pays its publishers 65 days after the current month's ad revenue, Google AdSense pays NET 30 days between the 21st and 26th of each month.
Mediavine vs Media.net
Media.net doesn't have any minimum requirements so signing up is a lot easier with Media.net since Mediavine has a minimum 25,000 sessions requirement.
Mediavine and Media.net both do well when it comes to providing their publishers with tools. Both these ad networks give you access to various tools which you can use to track the ads on your site and how much each one is earning you.
When it comes to expected ad revenue, Mediavine pays more per 1000 impressions. While Media.net pays on average between $1 and $10 per 1000 impressions, Mediavine can go as high as $30 per 1000 impressions. Mediavine is now considered as one of the highest paying ad networks.
Media.net does pay their publishers a lot quicker and pay NET 30 days where as Mediavine pay NET 65 days.
Is Mediavine A Scam?
Mediavine is definitely not a scam. I've literally made thousands of dollars with them since I switched over in Jan of 2018. Adding Mediavine to your site is a way to guarantee your site is fully monetized. Because the reality is not everyone is always going to buy a product you recommend or turn into a lead. But with Mediavine you can guarantee that anyone that visits yourself makes you money just from that visit.
That said it's not all good. The downside is you first need to get 25,000 sessions before you can get approved. Once you are approved and start earning revenue, you also have to wait 65 days to get your earnings. But despite these little knocks, I still think it's worth your effort.
If you have the Mediavine Requirements that's great. You should join. But if you fall short of the requirements or want to make even more money with your blog, then you might want to check out Wealthy Affiliate. It's a community that teaches you even more ways to make money with your blog in addition to Mediavine. It can also teach you how to get even more traffic so you can earn more money with Mediavine or any other way you monetize your site
Well I have yapped enough. Now you know the good and bad about Mediavine. It's up to you to decide if it's worth a shot for your blog. If you have any specific questions about Mediavine, you can check out their FAQS here.
If you have any experience using them, please chime in the comment section below.
Until next time,
Eddy with a Y
I currently use Ezoic and find their product very good. However, I think mediavine is a big leap forward for any website if they can meet the 25k sessions needed per month to join. Great review! Thanks
What are your traffic stats and demographics when you got accepted?
You need 25,000 sessions per month.