For the first time in many months, I can (for now) breathe a sigh of relief. If you’ve been here before (if not, you can keep yourself up to date by clicking that Revenue Reports tab up top), you might know that our ad revenues from a case study domain have been declining since late-Q3 and early-Q4 of 2022. Since then, as we’ve implemented some new changes, March 2023 saw a good uptick in ad earnings, now at $14,011.
For context, that’s up from $11,944 in January 2023, and $12,055 in February 2023. The past 30 or so days then, have been looking optimistic for the times to come. (Mostly) across the board, we’re seeing green, for the most part, by double-digits, when it came to last month’s site traffic. Those crucial metrics include over 396,000 page visits, nearly 515,000 pageviews, and more than 272,000 ‘engaged’ pageviews, in all.
That represents a whopping (approximately) 19.45%, 22.93%, and 16.12% increase from February 2023 to March 2023, respectively. This rise in site traffic naturally meant that our case study domain’s ad revenues also saw a healthy 6.42% month-on-month gain, as well. Alas, this had to offset a fairly significant 10.91% decrease in our EPMVs (earnings per thousand visitors), from a $39.70 average to $35.37 in March.
We’re not yet near our recent peak of nearly $20k monthly ad revenues, but we’re gradually getting there. For those who are familiar with our monthly reports, you’ll also know that not all of our ad revenues came from Ezoic directly. As we’re taking advantage of Ezoic’s mediation feature, it meant that we could embed ads from another ad provider, alongside Ezoic’s ads. In our case, these came from Google’s AdSense.
| March 2023 Ad Revenue From Ezoic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Revenue (Total) | $14,011 | |
| Traffic | Visits | 396,135 |
| Pageviews | 514,905 | |
| Engaged Pageviews | 272,570 | |
| ePMV (Earnings Per Thousand Visitors) | $35.37 | |
Key Figures
In total, mediation earned us handsomely over the course of March 2023, netting us an additional $1,210 or so. Meanwhile, the rest of the $14,011 we earned in March was split between Ezoic itself. Ezoic’s ad partners earned us a tad over $9,364. In addition, our case study domain is subscribed to Ezoic’s premium program. This meant that we could display premium ads from A-tier advertisers on our website.
This brought us another roughly $3,437 from those premium advertisers. The fee is $2,200 per month to join the premium program. Which, mind you, has to be paid upfront. Still, they do promise that you’ll earn more than what you’ve paid, which has been true since I joined. If only EPMVs for March could be at their usual high-$30s or low-$40s, in which case, we could’ve earned more.
Nonetheless, I’m pretty happy about last month’s earnings. Another project that I’ve been working on recently is Ezoic’s own video hosting service. You can think of it like YouTube… Host videos on Ezoic, which you can then embed onto your site (in our case, alongside our written content), and earn income from the ads shown in the videos. With over 486,000 views across March, that earned us an additional $437.
So, in summary, the end of Q1 2023 saw our case study domain pulling in over 1-million page visits. When you take into account how much we’ve earned through Q3, Ezoic tells us that we’re in the top-1% for that previous quarter, among Ezoic’s other high-earning publishers. This also accounts for the total watch time of nearly 318,000 minutes. That’s how much our site visitors have watched those Ezoic-hosted videos.
Looking At The Data
Having taken all this data to heart, what’s changed over the last few months that have yielded such gains, then? Well, the crucial factor to consider is Google’s core search engine algorithm updates. The latter was what caused our case study domain to see a noticeable decline in site traffic and ad revenues. Specifically, back in around September 2022, only until recently did we see a reversal of this downward trend.
What caused that reversal was Google itself, which went through another regular core algorithm update back in February 2023. This matters more than you’d think, as most of our site traffic comes from Google. With that latest update in mind, our case study domain is once more being seen favorably in the eyes of Google. Ultimately, this is what led to our site traffic and ad revenues noticing an uptick as of late.
On most days throughout March, our daily 24H ad revenues were easily in that mid-to-high-$400s range. There were also a couple of days when our daily ad earnings were in the $500s, as well. Meanwhile, that can’t be said about February 2023, where there were plenty of days when we earned daily ad earnings in the mid-to-high-$300s. It only rose again by the end of February, to where we’re seeing them now.
The video earnings are also seeing an increase over February. It’s worth mentioning as well, that all those videos shown on our case study domain aren’t necessarily ours. Using Ezoic’s Humix video hosting service, we can also show videos from other creators, which Ezoic thinks our site visitors might be interested in, in a pool of shared content. Vice versa, we also get to earn if our own videos get shown on other sites, too.
Our Future Plans
One piece of analytics from Ezoic that I’ve not really shown here before is this table that shows how much we’re earning per individual link. This basically lets me see which ones are our top-earning articles. There are plenty of possible use cases for this. For example, you’re now able to easily spot what article or link is earning more than the others. Then, perhaps reverse-engineer it to try and replicate that success.
Or, you could even use this to see which articles or links are worth promoting. Alternatively, compare it against, perhaps, other ad providers to see how much more Ezoic could potentially be earning you. What else have we in store for our case study domain in the following weeks, then? Well, back to those Google core algorithm updates, we’ve been spending a lot of time working on doing a content refresh.
For those who are new here, our case study domain focuses on publishing long-form, SEO-focused as well as keyword-targeted content. In other words, that means working with Google’s algorithm – while also writing and putting out quality content. Therefore, regularly keeping the content fresh and updated is vital if you want good SEO and to rank competitively on Google. Albeit, this has been a bit challenging for us.
Mainly, over the past couple of years, we’ve published over 2,300 of these SEO-focused articles. You could imagine then, just how much work is needed to refresh and update, even if just a tiny bit, all or a majority of those articles. Nonetheless, between refreshing old articles and continue cranking out new ones, the fruits of our labor haven’t gone to waste, and I’m optimistic for what’s to come in the next few months.
Video Overview
For a more thorough recap (including some things that we’ve not touched on here) of our March 2023 ad revenues, check out the video down below. Meanwhile, we have plenty of other resources here that you’d find useful. I’ve since written a detailed guide on making money online from creating content for websites. We also have tricks on how to get started with Ezoic, and how to optimize Ezoic for maximum ad revenue.
Elsewhere, we’ve covered the key elements of content creation, such as how to do keyword research. And, having looked at and reviewed the best free keyword research tools. You might also find our on-page SEO checklist handy if you’d want to keep good SEO practices. Then, there’s our huge bank of troubleshooting tips for your site and Ezoic. If you’re still unsure, then hit me up in our Ask Me Anything section.
