Although last month’s (March 2023) ad revenues for our case study domain showed promise that we could continue towards recovering from the brutal ad earnings, traffic decrease, declining search rankings, and a Google core algorithm update that heavily hampered us through late-Q3 and early-Q4 of 2022… The surge of momentum has, unfortunately, stalled as of April 2023, with our ad revenues dropping to $12,857.
To be fair, this still puts our case study domain in a much better place than January 2023 ($11,944) as well as February 2023 ($12,055), it’s still a noticeable drop from March 2023’s monthly ad revenues of $14,011. For a more detailed month-by-month breakdown, you might check out that handy-dandy Revenue Reports tab up top to learn more. For now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of our stagnation through April 2023.
With that being said, the aforementioned situation is mostly out of our control. Traffic-wise, the case study domain noticed a rather minor slump… Just 0.98%, 0.38%, and 2.57% decline in the page visits, pageviews, and ‘engaged’ pageviews. While that points towards stagnation, the numbers are tough to scoff at… More than 380,000 visits, over 497,000 pageviews, and beyond 257,000 classed as ‘engaged’ pageviews.
The primary contributor to these dwindling figures was, in fact, the EPMVs (earnings per thousand visitors) on our ad network provider of choice, Ezoic. Over the past month (April 2023), the average EPMVs for that abovementioned case study domain fell by 4.44% to $33.82. In the past, it was normal for EPMVs to be in the high-$30s, sometimes over $40. This explains the 5.38% reduction in monthly ad revenues to $12,857.
Studying The Data
| April 2023 Ad Revenue From Ezoic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Revenue (Total) | $12,857 | |
| Traffic | Visits | 380,150 |
| Pageviews | 497,375 | |
| Engaged Pageviews | 257,304 | |
| ePMV (Earnings Per Thousand Visitors) | $33.82 | |
So, you might be asking… Why is this so? Well, to get more insight, you’ll have to check out Ezoic’s own ad revenue index, highlighting the average and relative online ad rates for all publishers on their platform. Its analytics isn’t entirely restricted to Ezoic, mind you. This index showcases, in simpler terms, just how much money is at stake in the online display advertising market as a whole. It’s not pretty, to say the least.
Looking at the Ezoic ad revenue index, there’s a humongous spike towards the end of the year throughout 2020 and 2021. It makes sense, given that holiday ad spending by companies and advertisers will typically see massive growth in October, November, and December. This is more so during 2020 and 2021, with a global pandemic confining people to their homes, leading to increased spending in online advertising.
But, when 2022 came around, the ad revenue index shows quite clearly that throughout the entire year, a good chunk of the online display ad rates have plateaued. Even an end-year holiday shopping spree didn’t really help much, and the ad index actually shows, uncharacteristically, a plummeting online ad rate for a substantial portion of December 2022. That slowing momentum has thus carried into 2023, as well.
Stubbornly, online display ad rates since the start of 2023 haven’t encouraged any growth. This means that, in summary, advertisers and companies aren’t investing nearly as much in display ads. That’ll ultimately impact publishers like you and me. There are plenty of reasons for this. Mainly, the economy as a whole isn’t at its best.
What Can You Do?
Admittedly, it’s perhaps pointless to look at the ad market as an average publisher. There’s nothing that we can control from our end and the factors that play a role in its depression is far too large for any single publisher to influence. That’s besides those things that we could do (and have been doing) to attract more traffic to our case study domain… Creating good content, optimizing Ezoic, or doing keyword research.
Also, I’ve recently been working on creating a special training course for my fellow publishers to join in and it’s a great opportunity to learn from my own experiences. There, I’ll be coaching you, either as a very new publisher who’s just entered the fray, or an experienced publisher who wants to add more knowledge to their arsenal. It’s worth mentioning that this is a paid training course, if you’re interested to join along.
However, if you’re not inclined to do so, then no worries, as over the years, we’ve been expanding this site with a plethora of free guides, resources, and insights for you to check out. This includes my extensive and freely-available walkthrough on making money online from content creation websites. Primarily, from the perspective of creating a blog filled with informative and attractive long-form articles and blog posts.
Or, to supplement that, you could also check our Ezoic’s free SEO guide eBook, too. Speaking of, you’ll find myriads of Ezoic-specific guides, such as the Ezoic revenue guarantee program, or how to get started with monetizing your site on Ezoic. Then, we’ve looked at how to optimize Ezoic for maximum ad revenue, and our on-page SEO checklist, as well as how to do keyword research, and free keyword research tools.
The Key Figures
Buy anyway, back to our analytics and data… In short, despite the rather sad state of affairs for the online display ads market, we can only do our best to cope for the time being. If the Ezoic ad revenue index could show anything, it’s that the display ad rates and market are cyclical. Therefore, while it’s bad now, there’s a sense of hope that it’ll recover in due time, and we can see publishers’ ad revenues go back up, too.
Having mentioned that, there are a few other figures from April 2023 that we’ve yet to discuss. First off, if you’ve read our previous monthly ad revenue reports before, you’ll know that we’d have Ezoic’s mediation system turned on. It allows us to monetize our case study domain with Ezoic, alongside other ad networks, where possible to eke out more optimized earnings. This does form part of those $12,857 ad revenues.
Out of that monthly ad revenue, around $1,282 came from Google’s AdSense, thanks to Ezoic’s mediation tool. Meanwhile, a much bigger slice, about $8,098 came from Ezoic’s ‘regular’ advertising partners. That leaves us with the other approximately $3,485, which comes courtesy of Ezoic’s premium advertisers. This is due to us having joined Ezoic’s premium program, granting us access to their A-tier advertisers.
With high-paying ‘premium’ advertisers, this allows us to earn extra ad revenues every month. However, I also have to pay Ezoic $2,200 upfront, every single month, which isn’t an ideal pricing structure – though they did change the pricing model, so more reports on that next month, I guess. Still, they did promise that you’ll still earn more than what you pay, which is true in this case, when you deduct that from the premium advertiser rates.
What Are Our Future Plans?
Another key data to look at is the daily ad revenues. From that chart up above, you’ll see that the highest daily ad revenues for April 2023 were around $476 early on in the month. This is slightly lower than in March 2023, where there were certain days when we notched past the $500 barrier. Nonetheless, on the bright side, 24-hour (daily) ad revenues are much more consistent throughout April than back in March.
Throughout April 2023, daily ad revenues mostly hovered around the low- to mid-$400s. Only on a couple of occasions, did it break down into the high-$300s range. Meanwhile, those daily earnings did rise to the mid- to high-$400s range later in the second half of the month. On top of that, and something that didn’t account for the aforementioned April 2023 monthly ad revenues, is our Ezoic Humix earnings.
Humix, for those who are new here, is Ezoic’s video hosting and sharing service. That allows publishers to embed videos onto their site (in our case, alongside the written content), and put ads on top of the videos to earn additional ad revenue. It’s a good way to expand your potential income stream. Throughout April 2023, Ezoic’s Humix service earned us an additional $445 in ad revenues, which certainly helps.
As you can see in this graph, Humix splits the ad revenues earned from videos into three categories… Ads that show on videos that appear on your website. Or, ads that appear on videos that you create but are then shown on other publishers’ sites, where Ezoic recommends similar topical videos which site visitors might find relevant. And, ads on videos that other publishers created, which appear on your site.
What’s Next, Moving Forward?
Another under-used and under-utilized tool that Ezoic has for publishers on its platform is NicheIQ. This is something that we’ve looked into before as we discussed what is NicheIQ and how it works. TL;DR, it’s an interesting keyword research tool that cross-references your site with other competing websites. It’ll then recommend and suggest a number of popular topics or keywords that you’ve not covered before.
This is a unique way to find new keywords or subjects to work on that might have the potential to attract more readers and visitors to your site. Since NicheIQ works by comparing your domain with others to find keywords that are missing from your site but has appeared on your rivals’, this can give you at least some pointers on what you should be covering keywords-wise with topical subjects when creating content.
It’ll be particularly handy if you’re not really sure about your content strategy. Or, don’t have a baseline of what keywords or topics are worth working on. NicheIQ, besides spitting out a long and never-ending list of fresh keywords for you to consider… It’ll also spew out crucial metrics such as the search volumes for a key phrase. Or, whether or not that particular keyword will be difficult to rank for on Google.
With 500 or so new keywords that NicheIQ recommends each week, you’ll have plenty of ground to cover. This is something that we’ll be leveraging in the near future, alongside our other plans. Aside from that, if you want to learn more, feel free to check out the video down below for a more in-depth report. Or, if you have any more specifics, do ask me any questions you might have on our Ask Me Anything tab.
Video Overview
