If you’re like me and you think about monetization when you blog, then you’ve probably looked into Google AdSense as a simple way to earn a bit of money as you write. And if you’ve used AdSense more than for a week, you discovered AdSense pays peanuts. So what next?
Or, if you’ve heard of Ezoic – there are a billion reviews out there, and all are glowing with praise – but you’re wondering, is it really what it’s made out to be? Read on to find out why I hate them, but still use them.
Available Ad Networks
AdSense is not the only ad network that serves ads. There are several, and as your audience grows, so does your choice.
Depending on the number of page views you have in your Google Analytics, these are the networks you can get into:
- Google Adsense (less than 10k page views)
- Ezoic (between 10k-30k page views)
- Newor Media (30k+)
- Mediavine (50k+)
- AdThrive (100k+)
- Private Display Networks
- Private Partnerships
Differences Between These Ad Networks
The difference between them is in:
- Quality of ads (ad networks that require fewer page views tend to show ads that are more spammy-looking)
- Website speed (lower quality ad networks tend to slow down your website more)
- Earnings (obviously)
- Service (as you graduate to a higher quality ad network, you will get increasingly better service by their representatives, a personal account manager, and other benefits)
Why Ezoic?
Ezoic is different from other ad networks in the sense that they build on top of Google AdSense, but with a curated selection of vendors (companies that pay for you to show their ads).
If your site does not exceed the 50k page view threshold for Mediavine, your best bet in (almost) all cases is going to be Ezoic – at least in terms of revenue.
Almost everyone reports a four-fold or even higher difference between their payouts with AdSense and Ezoic.
But it’s not all rosy with Ezoic.
Biggest Problem: Misleading “Premium” Program
As soon as you start making a little money with them, Ezoic signs you up for their Premium program. They give you access to their “selected ad vendors” that pay you more money, but here’s the kicker: in exchange for you paying them money. Say, you pay them $10 to get back $15.
Why wouldn’t they just sign you up for that extra $5, you say – and you’re right. Their goal is to play with your brain – and maybe get you to sign up for a yearly package.
Here’s how this looks for one of my sites:
If I’m at Starter, I pay $22 and get $37 in return. If I’m at 3 Stars, I pay $144 and get $187.
That sounds like a good deal on paper, right? Who wouldn’t pay $14 if they knew they were getting back $19? But the payment is due at the middle of the month, and you’ve paid for the month before last at the end of the month.
This is set up in such a way as to make you forget you even pay anything and sound like you are just getting more money.
Plus, the dashboard shows only the premium revenue amounts, and your personal numbers look better if you’re not doing proper P&L all the time. “Hey, I got $43 bucks more this month because of Premium! Thanks, Ezoic!”
It really messes with your brain – it’s designed to.
Yearly Agreement
But also, see that “yearly agreement” switch? It’s on by default. Who wouldn’t want to pay even less to get the extra premium payout, right? Еhe trick is, of course, that they require you to sign a contract with them and force you to pay a fee should you stop serving ads with them until the year is up.
They do this because they know that you’re on track to graduate to a much better network like Mediavine, and want to stop you from doing so – or squeeze whatever they can out of you if you still do.
But even with their misleading business model, are they worth it? I would actually say, yes – with a few caveats. Let’s do a point-by-point summary.
Ezoic Pros
✔️ Payouts are higher
This one is easy. If we talk money then it means the more the better, and Ezoic pays more than AdSense.
Ad networks usually pay per thousand views of their ads. In the dashboard, you will see it as your ePMV (earnings per mille visitors), or as your RPM (revenue per mille).
Your ePMV with Ezoic will depend on factors like:
- Niche (product-related niches like sports or pets pay more because they sell more stuff)
- Quality of audience (an average US viewer will spend more than, say, average Chinese user)
- Time of year (people tend to spend much more around Black Friday and Christmas, so vendors pay more to serve ads)
Another factor to consider is, with Ezoic the bigger your audience is, the more you’re paid as you graduate to higher tiers of publishers.
✔️ Option of automatic placements of placeholders
When you first sign up for Ezoic, you need to set up places where Ezoic will show ads on your blog. This is super important for revenue and UX.
Pro ad-based blogs tweak every little detail of where the ads show up, down to a pixel, to maximize earnings and improve the user experience at the same time.
But if you’re not a pro and just want to start making money, you can use their WordPress plugin and it will automatically pick spots for your ads. Or, you can reach out to your Ezoic rep and ask them to set them up for you.
Super easy – but check what they’ve done and remove any unwanted placeholders. My site had a gigantic placeholder right below the featured image. It looked terrible, so I removed it.
✔️… that’s it
Yup. Those are the only two redeeming qualities of Ezoic.
Ezoic Cons
❌ Misleading “premium” program
You saw my take on this above. Don’t sign the contract. Or, some have offered a pro tip: sign it and then gradually lower the number of ads shown in the settings until your Premium level downgrades, and then break the contract and pay the lower fee. Caution though: while some people were able to do this, their reps say you will be locked in and won’t be downgraded.
❌ Technical problems
I haven’t experienced this myself, but many people have reported on dozens of problems with ad placements, their tools like Leap, etc. For some people, it was even breaking their sites.
❌ Bad customer support
To top it off, Ezoic’s technical support literally takes a week to get back to you.
If you try to troubleshoot a problem with them, they will respond once per week (in one case, a guy spent six weeks trying to fix something over six emails), and their CEO is notorious for bad-mouthing users during webinars.
❌ Spammy ads
I haven’t experienced this myself, but some people have reported seeing very spammy-looking ads on their website, so much so that AdSense even served better ads.
Ezoic reps usually respond to this by saying that their “AI” determines the best ads to show in every specific user session, so the owners would not see the exact ads that their users would. This “deus ex machina” argument sounds super fishy.
Other Things to Consider
- When you have at least one site with MediaVine or AdThive, you can onboard your other sites even if they have fewer page views.
- If you are using Nitropack, note that they are incompatible with Ezoic, and this is not documented anywhere except some anecdotal evidence like mine. You will get drastically worse payouts – one month, I got a payout that was less than 10% of what I was earning before I switched to Nitropack.
Verdict
In a nutshell, Ezoic would not be my choice if not for the revenue. Yes, they a misleading (if outright have bad customer support is worth it if you do not qualify for a higher-quality ad network (although be aware of the pitfalls).
As soon as you do graduate to 50k monthly sessions, change to Mediavine and never look back.
