In the realm of monetizing online content, only three names reign supreme – Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine. This further underscores the importance of pairing up with the right ad network. Quite simply, synching up your webpage and having it monetized with an ad network provider that isn’t the perfect match for what your long-term aspirations are is practically suicidal!
To be fair, there are loads of other ad providers besides Ezoic, AdThrive, and Mediavine. I think most of you reading this must’ve heard of Google’s AdSense at some point, right? Although, an aspiring website can only go so far with AdSense’s frankly diminutive returns and ad revenues. If you’re serious about growing your fledgling website and making bank, you need to upgrade.
This is where our three protagonists come in – Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine. They’re at the top of the online display advertising game, since monetizing with them is every publisher’s dream. But if you had to pick just one of them, which among them is the better pick… Ezoic, AdThrive, or Mediavine? Comparing them is rather tough, as it has to be assessed by numerous factors.
Crucially, how much could one ad provider earn you over the others? Naturally, you’d go with the highest paying one, no? Moreover, you’ll have to look at what features they each offer. In addition to, any extra tools or services. And, tech support that you may expect if trouble comes your way. So, let’s take a peek to see which ones might be the better choice for your website and long-term aspirations…
Introduction: Who And What Are They?
First off, and before we go any deeper with comparing Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine… We’d have to get acquainted with each ad provider first. Furthermore, we can get a glimpse of their individual specialties…
- Ezoic – What makes Ezoic rather unique compared to other ad providers is their emphasis on using high-tech artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize ads. Specifically, their use of clever computation to dynamically and automatically alter how ads appear on a page. For instance, they can automatically change the placement, sizing, quantity, and type of ad banners shown. In this way, they’re able to serve more engaging and relevant ads to your site’s visitors.
- AdThrive – They’re well-known among publishers as the go-to ad network for any lifestyle-type content. So, if your website mainly covers food, travel, health, DIY, personal finance, parenting, and so on, AdThrive is worthy of consideration. Their specialty is adopting a tailor-made and bespoke approach to optimizing ads on your webpage. They have a highly skilled team of data analysts, scientists, and programmers to mix-max the ads on your site for higher yields.
- Mediavine – In many ways, Mediavine is very similar to AdThrive. Mainly, they offer publishers a tailored approach to ad management and optimization. Just like AdThrive, Mediavine is very highly regarded by publishers for its lucrative ad revenues. This is definitely so if you’re leaning more towards a lifestyle niche. Food and travel bloggers are quite fond of Mediavine. But, they differ from AdThrive in that they also support monetizing non-lifestyle-related content, too.
Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine: Minimum Traffic Requirements
As they’re premium ad networks, the first hurdle to monetizing with either Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine is meeting their minimum requirements. As a publisher, you need to meet all these criteria to even be allowed to monetize with their respective ad networks. In the case of ads, requirements are gauged on numerous scales:
- Traffic – How many monthly pageviews, sessions, or visits is your website getting? They won’t accept you if your website’s traffic is too low.
- Word Count – Most of the time, premium ad providers only let you monetize with them if your content (mostly) meets a minimum word count requirement. Usually, these are for long-form content like in-depth blogs or guides.
- Region – Some ad providers only welcome you if your site’s traffic originates from specific parts of the world. Mainly, from high-earning English-speaking countries such as the US, UK, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.
- Content – Certain ad providers specialize in specific niches, such as lifestyle-only genres. There are also ad providers that generally accept most niches. But, may not allow controversial ones such as crime, gambling, or explicit content to be monetized.
With these in mind, how do Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine compare…
- Ezoic – Used to have a minimum requirement of 10,000 monthly pageviews. But, they recently unveiled their Access Now program for publishers that are just starting out and have fairly minimal (but growing) traffic.
- AdThrive – 100,000 monthly pageviews at the bare minimum. Moreover, most of your traffic has to come from high-earning regions like the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
- Mediavine – 50,000 monthly sessions at the bare minimum (this is measured differently from pageviews, and is equivalent to around 70,000 monthly pageviews).
WINNER: Ezoic (they have low and easy-going minimum requirements, making it easy for any upstart publisher to monetize with them).
Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine: Earnings And Ad Revenues
No doubt the most pivotal element to picking between Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine for a lot of publishers out there is how much they can earn you. Alas, there’s no clear-cut way to display how much you might potentially earn, as they vary wildly depending on several variables:
- Niche Or Genre – Even within a singular ad provider, differing niches will potentially earn you varying amounts. More popular niches or topics such as personal finance or food could earn you a lot more than discussing say, crime stories or the news, for example.
- Traffic Source – You stand to earn more if your traffic originates from high-paying ad markets like the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, among others. Meanwhile, having the mass of your site’s traffic coming from say, Asia or the Middle East, might not be as lucrative.
- Engagement – User engagement with the ads displayed on your site will heavily impact your site’s ad revenues. The more users and visitors click and interact with the ads, the more you’d earn. This is where optimizing the appearance of those ads really matters.
So, what that in mind, let’s see how Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine stack up (again, we’re only providing general figures – LOW, MEDIUM, or HIGH – as what we’re earning will likely be quite different from yours, though it’s within the same ballpark)…
- Ezoic – MEDIUM-HIGH (When you’re just starting out, Ezoic’s ad revenues are likely going to be pretty average, though far higher than AdSense. However, give it a few weeks for their AI and machine learning to fine-tune and best optimize how ads show up, and you’ll then see returns skyrocketing in due time.)
- AdThrive – HIGH (Generally, AdThrive nets you slightly higher returns than Ezoic. However, this is only applicable if you’re creating content in the lifestyle sphere; Ezoic can monetize far more niches or subjects. Plus, AdThrive’s high earnings can only be had if you could meet their lofty minimum requirements.)
- Mediavine – HIGH (Typically, Mediavine out-earns both AdThrive and Ezoic. Nonetheless, this is highly dependent on the topics that you’re covering. Some subjects will see Mediavine earning more than the other two, while other niches might earn you less than AdThrive or even Ezoic.)
WINNER: Draw (Personally, Ezoic wins this for me, as clever optimization and computation can see them earning you handsomely over time. Plus, they’re not asking much from you to join its network. Still, I can’t oversee the fact that for some – mostly lifestyle-related – niches, AdThrive and Mediavine may earn you more.)
Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine: Extra Features And Add-Ons
If you’re looking at the long-term, an ad network provider should be more than just a tool for you to display ads with. In fact, many ad providers offer and include some additional features and other add-on tools or services to complement your site. These tools range anywhere from performance-enhancing page optimizers to providing video hosting services, and much more.
So, let’s see how Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine compares in this regard. And, showcase what else they offer publishers who jump aboard besides the display advertising…
Ezoic:
- Big Data Analytics – Detailed and extensive data gathering and analytics for countless metrics for your site, such as traffic, and so forth.
- Leap Optimisation – Analyses, provide recommendations, and offers settings to best optimize and speed up your website’s page loading speeds.
- CDN – Enables publishers to host their websites on Ezoic’s fast, secure, and highly-optimized cloud hosting service.
- Ad Tester – Uses AI and machine learning to test millions of possible combinations for how ads can appear on your webpage, and pick the best ones.
- Tag Tester – Automates the testing of numerous title tag combinations. This is to ensure that your content could maximize SEO as best as possible.
- Ad Mediation – This allows you to monetize with Ezoic and alongside another ad provider (such as AdSense) to further maximize your ad revenues.
- Ad Revenue Guarantee – An initiative where Ezoic promises that it’ll earn you at least 25% more within 30 days compared to its rivals. If not, they’ll split the difference (with another 25% more on top of that!).
- Premium – It’s a higher membership tier where publishers get the chance to show ads on their site from high-paying (and more lucrative), A-tier advertisers.
- Video Hosting – It’s just like YouTube, where you can host videos (and monetize them) through Ezoic, instead.
AdThrive:
- Ad Customisation – Publishers get ultimate control over how to customize the appearance of ads to best balance out ad revenues and a more pleasing user interface.
- Video Hosting – You can host and monetize videos using AdThrive (just like YouTube). And, use this as an alternative revenue stream to your written content.
- Ad Campaigns – As a publisher on AdThrive, your website might be invited to take part in the many special ad campaigns that AdThrive regularly runs.
- Performance Plugins – Streamlining the back-end of your website to quicken page load times even further, thus improving the UX.
- Future-Proof Ad Code – This enables AdThrive to more effectively adjust to changes in how browsers collect and store cookies to deliver relevant ads.
Mediavine:
- Lazy Loading – This allows ads to load in the background. Thus, enabling the primary content on a webpage to load faster, as the ads load in later.
- Video Hosting – Like AdThrive and Ezoic, Mediavine enables publishers to host and monetize videos using their ad platform, as an alternative to YouTube.
- Data Analytics – Just like Ezoic, Mediavine’s data analytics dashboard is packed with metrics and information pertaining to your site’s performance.
WINNER: Ezoic (By far, joining Ezoic instantly permits publishers to try out various other tools and services that they also provide. These allow you to further provide some quality of life to your website. Hence, you can optimize the UI while maximizing your earnings. Though AdThrive or Mediavine may sometimes net you higher ad revenues than Ezoic, they don’t offer much else besides that. Thus, you’re left having to rely on third-party tools and plugins, instead.)
Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine: Miscellaneous Other Factors
As we’re rounding things off, here’s a short final knockout round to compare Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine in several other, miscellaneous factors that might prove useful to you…
- Site Loading And User Experience (WINNER: AdThrive/Mediavine) – As you tack on more ads on your website, it’ll naturally crowd up the user interface and slow down page loading. This could make it pretty unpleasant to browse around and will impact your site’s SEO. Both AdThrive and Mediavine are pretty good at optimizing for a slicker, cleaner UX. Ezoic does this quite well too, but it requires a bit more manual tweaking and tinkering to get optimal results.
- Payment Interval And Withdrawal Options (WINNER: Ezoic) – With Ezoic, you can withdraw ad revenues after just 30 days. That’s compared to 45 with AdThrive and 65 with Mediavine. Plus, Ezoic has a lower minimum withdrawal payout, so you don’t have to wait as long for it to accrue. In addition, Ezoic supports far more withdrawal options – bank transfer (ACH), PayPal, cheque, or a wire transfer (Payoneer).
- Ad Quality (WINNER: Draw) – Since they’re all premium ad network providers, Ezoic, AdThrive, and Mediavine will only display top-tier, premium adverts. In other words, you’re not likely to be served with low-quality or spammy ads on your website.
- Granular Control And Configurability (WINNER: Ezoic) – With Ezoic, you have extensive ways to set up the advertising on your end. The settings and options menus are incredibly in-depth. For instance, you’re able to set up parameters such as how many ads you’d like to show on a page. Specifics like these aren’t as readily available on either AdThrive or Mediavine. The latter two prefer to tailor their set-up for you, rather than letting you do it.
- Set-Up Process And Approval Period (WINNER: Ezoic) – Unlike AdThrive or Mediavine, where an approval process typically takes a long time, Ezoic is much faster. If all is well, you could have a website approved for monetization with Ezoic within just 24 to 48 hours. Their integration and set-up processes beyond that are rather seamless and pretty easy, too.
- Customer Service And Tech Support (WINNER: Draw) – All three ad providers – Ezoic, AdThrive, and Mediavine – have great support lines if you need any help. In the case of Ezoic, you’d even get a personal manager to speak to directly. Not just with issues, but also if you’re keen to get tips on how to keep growing your website.
Final Thoughts: Which One Is The Best For You?
So then… Who’s the winner among Ezoic vs AdThrive vs Mediavine? Well, as we’ve seen earlier, it’s quite clear that Ezoic has taken more wins than the rest. For any upstart publisher, it’s fairly easy to get onboarded onto Ezoic’s ad platform and have your site monetized in a jiffy. Yet, the earnings that you’ll experience over time are just as impressive as either AdThrive or Mediavine.
Furthermore, joining Ezoic entitles you to access numerous other tools and services. They range anywhere from optimizing your site’s page loading times… To help you out with maximizing its SEO and long-term revenues. All in all, AdThrive and Mediavine are fantastic ad networks for publishers creating content in the lifestyle niche. Yet, Ezoic is generally better at everything else.