Typically, the end of the year brings plentiful joy and good news. However, that’s not been the case with our case study domain, which has broken down to the same threshold that we (excitedly) broke through early this February. Specifically, December 2022 netted us $13,188 in ad revenues. If you want a month-per-month breakdown, do check out the Revenue Reports tab up top to get yourself up to speed.
This isn’t new to us, as it’s part of a familiar trend that we’ve seen over the past few months. Since we peaked highs at around August, with monthly ad earnings of $18,476, it’s since gone lower and lower in September ($17,963), October ($15,155), and November ($14,139) of 2022. Unfortunately, besides that gradual decrease in ad revenues, we’re also notching lower traffic across all of December 2022.
Page visits to our case study domain in December were sitting at about 333,000, while pageviews were just over 413,000, with more than 233,000 of them being classed as ‘engaged’ pageviews. When paired with a slightly lower ePMV (earnings per thousand visitors) of $39.54 – around 2.91% lower than back in November. Percentage-wise, site traffic throughout December was comparatively more dismal.
Visits were down nearly 8%, while pageviews dropped by approximately 7%, as engaged pageviews are down by about 5%. With declining foot-traffic and lower ePMVs, that naturally led to lower ad earnings for December 2022 – $13,188; or a 10.65% drop compared to November. When you look at how and where our case study domain began, this doesn’t seem too bad at all, given that we started with very little.
| December 2022 Ad Revenue From Ezoic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Revenue (Total) | $13,188 | |
| Traffic | Visits | 333,577 |
| Pageviews | 413,774 | |
| Engaged Pageviews | 233,338 | |
| ePMV (Earnings Per Thousand Visitors) | $39.54 | |
Key Figures
But, seeing how much momentum we’d carried from 2021 and into early 2022, we had anticipated a bit more. To further break things down, we also have to account for the upfront fees that we have to pay to Ezoic for being a part of their Premium program. While we do have to pay them around $2,200 upfront per month, they do at least guarantee that with premium advertisers, we’d earn more than what we pay.
From the total $13,188 in ad revenues that we earned in December 2022, about $3,426 came from that Premium program. On the other hand, Ezoic’s ad partners and ‘non-premium’ advertisers earned us the bulk, raking in over $8,748. Another $1,015 or so comes from Ezoic’s neat mediation tool, which allowed our case study domain to be monetized alongside another ad network if that’s more profitable.
So, what gives… Why have our ad revenues dropped this much? If you take a look at this chart below, you can see how our best day in December gained us about $536 in a day’s worth of display advertising. Plus, it could also be noted how most days were earning in the $400s range, only once breaking into the $500s, with the worst (of the worst) days dropping to as low as the low-$300s, as well as high-$200s.
By comparison, our best months so far saw us cashing in daily ad earnings in the $700s to $800s range, with the $600s being the average. Well, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, that crater in the ad revenue chart marks Christmas Eve and Christmas. Since it’s a day that you spend with your loved ones (away from the computer), not a lot of folks are reading blogs or long-form SEO content.
Looking At The Data
The latter of which brings us to the other reason why our case study domain hasn’t been performing all too well by Q4 of 2022. One major factor is the Google Core algorithm update for the ubiquitous search engine, where most of our case study domain’s traffic is directed from (google.com). This began back in August (when we first started seeing a decline), before more updates came, through to December.
As a consequence of these changes to the Google search engine, our case study domain is no longer being prioritized as much in its search rankings. In other words, links to our case study domain (not for all pages, but some) are slowly slipping from the top spot in the search results.
One other critical factor that we have to note is the state of the global economy and financial markets. This will determine just how willing advertisers are with spending their ad dollars. That, unfortunately, is something that a publisher like us has no control over.
You can refer to Ezoic’s Ad Revenue Index to see for yourself. Typically, we’d see ad spending increase by the end of the year, leading toward the holiday season. But in the case of 2022, there’s hardly a spike at all, with ad spending being fairly flat for most of the year. The only activity that we can see by the end of the year was during Black Friday – noted with a spike above the red reference line in the chart below.
Our Future Plans
Alas, though we hoped for a reversal of the downward trend that we’ve been experiencing over the past few months, the good times never came by the end of 2022. Yet, this hasn’t dampened our resolve. With our case study domain, we’re still pursuing our usual goal of publishing at least 100 SEO-focused articles per month. All of which are underpinned by extensive keyword research to pull organic search traffic.
For now, it’s just something that we’ll have to bear with, especially when January’s ad revenues come in. It’s no surprise to any publisher or content creator that January CPMs are commonly pretty brutal. You’d notice how the Ezoic Ad Revenue Index is already crashing when you peek at early January, thus far. And while you’re here, fellow publisher, we do have plenty of other guides that might help you out.
I’ve written an extensive starter guide on how to make money by creating content online from my own experiences. Between my mistakes and what I’ve learned, hopefully, this could be a great springboard to aid you in learning what it’s like. If you’re keen on monetizing your site with Ezoic, we too have guides on how to get started with setting things up. And, knowing how to optimize your earnings with Ezoic.
Besides that, you could also refer to our site for additional resources on how to do keyword research. Or, understanding what sort of SEO-related variables you need to take into account. We even compared the features between Ezoic and other major ad networks. Or, if you’re unsure, feel free to hit me up with any questions you might have in the Ask Me Anything section, and I’ll do my best to answer them.
