When creating a blog one of the first ways that you will monetize it is by placing ads on your website. If you have been watching YouTubers in the blogging space you will find that the company they most frequently talked about as an ad provider is Ezoic. So one of the questions that is important to ask is how much does Ezoic pay?
Ezoic typically pays anywhere between $10 to $30 USD per thousand views in most cases however the precise amount that is paid is dependent on several factors which include where the audience comes from that is visiting the website, what the niche is, what device your audience is viewing the website on and also the traffic level that the website has.
The most significant factor is the countries that your audience is coming from. The best-paying country by far is the US, followed by countries such as Canada, the UK, and Australia. Countries in the Indian subcontinent, South America, and Africa pay typically around a 10th of the rate, so it is not uncommon to see rates like $0.50 to $1 for these types of countries.
The second significant factor is the topic of your website which can dramatically affect your return rate for several reasons. The first of these reasons is because of the locality of the audience that you attract as discussed in the first point. If you select a niche like cricket for example it is unlikely that the return rates mentioned above will be reached because there is no significant US audience and the huge audience in the Indian subcontinent.
Additionally, the topic of the site can also significantly influence the return rate on the website because of the quality of the audience that is obtained. Advertisers want to target people with disposable income so topics, where the audience is likely to have significant disposable income or assets, are going to be significantly more valuable. For example, a site on house renovations that is attracting a large US audience is likely to produce a relatively high return.
The third factor is the device that the website is viewed on. Websites that have a greater proportion of visitors viewing on a desktop or tablet will generally produce a higher return than one where it is being accessed via a mobile phone. However, this is not something that a site owner can control in any significant way.
And lastly, the other factor that can affect your results on Ezoic is the level of traffic that you have on your website overall. Generally, you will see that the return rates on a website will normally increase over time as your traffic increases because of the premium plans.
These premium plans increase the rate of return on Ezoic though you do need to pay the company a fee each month which is dependent upon the level of traffic that you have.
What Are The Minimum Entry Requirements To Get Into Ezoic?
At present, there are no minimum traffic requirements for you to get into Ezoic though the company will inspect the websites that they are adding to the ad networks to ensure that the content is not offensive in any way.
How Does The Premium Program Work At Ezoic?
The premium program is offered to the owners of sites once the traffic level rises to a certain level. The actual level of traffic that is required to have that program offered is not explicitly stated by Ezoic, however, in my experience, I have found that you will first get onto the program once you reach around 10,000 views per month.
The lowest fee that you will be asked to pay per month is between $14 and $22 per month depending upon the level that you choose within the program. When the program is offered you will get an indication of the return you are likely to get per month. In all cases, no matter what level you are at this return rate will be higher than the amount that you were paying typically by around double the value.
As your traffic rises the level that you are on in the program increases which means you need to pay more but the return that you get from the premium program does increase. However, should your traffic fall the level that you are on in the premium program will also fall.
This program is not ideal for seasonal sites because the level of premium will rise and fall which means that the return will also reduce. Whereas if you are with Mediavine or Adthrive the return rate is more constant and there is no premium program, however, both of these companies have significant traffic thresholds before you can get into these ad networks.
Additionally, what I also noticed with the premium program is that Ezoic use it as a method to increase your return rate as you are approaching the traffic thresholds of other ad networks which for Mediavine is around 50,000 views per month. As I received several upgrades in the program between 30,000 and 40,000 hits per month.
The graph below shows what happens to the return rate per thousand views when traffic is increasing. In my particular case, I started with around $10US per 1000 view however as the traffic increased towards 50,000 a month it rose to above $20USD. The site for your information has around 50% US traffic and the next highest countries are the UK, Canada, and Australia which together with the US make-up 85% of the traffic coming into the site.
I suspect that this is done to maximize the return that they get from smaller sites that have no other option except to go with Ezoic. So when you are first starting out on your site you can expect the return rates to be relatively low and then rise over time assuming this site is successful.
How To Maximize The Return Rate Of Ads
The return rate that you can get on your side does vary significantly based on your ad placements as well as the factors mentioned above. Generally what is recommended for ad placements is to place an ad every 3 to 4 paragraphs in your site and also fill up the sidebar with sticky ads as this will ensure that the ad is showing for longer while the user is on the site maximizing return.
Additionally, you can also include video ads on your site, however, to do this you do need to create some video content for the site which can easily be done using programs such as lumen5.