Since around Q4 of 2022, we’ve been fighting an uphill battle. Our case study domain, even more so now since the beginning of 2023 and up till today, has continued to experience weathering site traffic decline and the general slump in the digital ads market. This has been made even worse lately, with EPMVs that haven’t yet bottomed out. As of August 2023, our monthly ad revenues have reached a new low of $9,248.
This was the first time since November 2021 that we’ve been in the four-digit monthly ad earnings. More so, when compared to July 2023, August saw total monthly ad revenues drop by around 8.54%. That was exacerbated mainly by our case study domain’s page visits, pageviews, and engaged pageviews declining by roughly 8.04% (~346,900), 11.10% (~424,700), and 9.60% (~228,100), when compared to July.
The stubbornly low EPMVs (earnings per thousand visitors) remained mostly unchanged, with a monthly average of $26.66. This was about 0.53% down from July, but it’s mostly negligible. This data looks even more grim when you zoom out a bit further, and compare August 2023 vs August 2022. It’s worth noting that August 2022 was right around our case study domain’s peak, before Q4 2022 came into play.
Looking at it side-by-side, August 2023 saw a massive 50.75% drop in monthly ad revenues compared to August 2022. Year-on-year, our case study domain also noted a roughly 33.00% to 36.00% fall when you look at our page visits, pageviews, and engaged pageviews. If that wasn’t bad enough, EPMVs – which is far beyond our (publisher) control – further cratered by another ~25% between August 2022 and 2023.
| August 2023 Ad Revenue From Ezoic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Revenue (Total) | $9,248 | |
| Traffic | Visits | 346,953 |
| Pageviews | 424,724 | |
| Engaged Pageviews | 228,179 | |
| ePMV (Earnings Per Thousand Visitors) | $26.66 | |
Looking Further Into The Data And Ezoic
Before we analyze further as to how this all happened, let’s take a look at some more figures for August 2023. If you’ve checked out our past monthly ad revenue reports – which you could do so by clicking that Revenue Reports tab up top – you may be familiar by now as to how our earnings are broken down. That end-of-month revenue through display ads and monetization comes from three separate sources.
The bulk of it – which, for August, equates to about $6,800 – came from Ezoic (our ad network provider of choice) and their ad partners. Meanwhile, another $1,100 or so came from Google AdSense, which came courtesy of Ezoic’s neat Mediation service, which allows us to monetize with Ezoic, alongside another ad network. Then, there’s Ezoic’s Premium program, adding another $1,350 or thereabouts to the total.
That aforementioned Premium program from Ezoic is a paid feature, and though it has an odd payment structure and fee model, it does work. In the specific tier that I’m on right now, I’m paying $750 for each month to Ezoic – though, there’s a discount if you subscribe for a longer multi-year plan. Technically, the Premium program is earning me back $500-$600 in profit, so it is made to earn more than what you pay.
If you are keen on monetizing your site with Ezoic, we do have plenty of guides and walkthroughs. In the past, we’ve discussed the Ezoic ad revenue guarantee program and how to get started with Ezoic, as well as how to optimize Ezoic for maximum ad revenue. We’ve also looked at broader things, like how to do keyword research, or finding the best free keyword research tool, and our on-page SEO checklist.
What’s With Google’s Core Algorithm Updates?
So then, what’s going on with our site traffic having declined so heavily? Well, one of the key factors that determine the life and death of any content creator or publisher is Google’s core search engine algorithm updates. This is crucial, given that – according to Ezoic’s Big Data Analytics – nearly 65% of our case study domain’s site traffic is sourced from Google (google.com), which equates to ~224,500 page visits.
Therefore, ranking poorly and uncompetitively in Google’s search results, particularly in the top-10 of the front page SERP, can make a huge impact. It did seem as though, just like it was back in Q4 of 2022, there had been a big Google Core update recently, which no longer views our case study domain as attractively as it did before. In other words, we’re currently not ranking as strongly in Google’s search results.
We have been making plenty of changes to our content strategy on the case study domain, despite 2023 being quite a tough year so far. Mostly, we’ve been working around the clock on content refresh – where we take old content and update it. This might involve making smaller formatting changes to clean things up. Or, making huge revisions to provide additional insight and take on more value to the reader.
So far, it remains to be seen whether or not it’ll work just yet – it does take quite a while (more often than not, several months or more) for refreshed content to rank. Now, we’re also seeing increased competition. Given that our strategy revolves around keyword research and targeting high-value keywords, having any more competing sites overlapping those same keywords means that ranking in Google is tougher.
What’s To Come In The Following Months?
With that being said, it’s not over yet. So far throughout the year, from January to August, our case study domain has netted a total of (just under) $95,000. These results, despite everything, are still enough to give us the encouragement to keep going. As I’ve said in the past, these bumps in the road are normal, and it’s what we’ll do next to overcome these challenges is what really matters. It’s the same with you, too.
If you’d like to learn more about how we came to be, and how you too could solidify your display ad revenues and maximize your earnings, despite these harsh realities and significant obstacles, we’ve got plenty of guides to aid you. That includes my in-depth walkthrough on making money online from content creation websites. Or, you could also check out Ezoic’s free SEO guide eBook to gain additional insights there.
Or, if you want to learn even more from my experiences – including how you could navigate difficulties or challenging circumstances like these – there’s my Ezoic display ads training course that you could attend. There’s also some positive news in the global ad market, to boot. Ezoic’s Ad Revenue Index, which tracks the health, interest, and therefore, the flow of money for display ads, has seen an uptick this month.
Since the beginning of 2023, the Index has shown nothing but one gloomy day after the other. And, that has generally been the mood since around mid-2022, as well. However, September 2023 (which is when we’re writing this, early in the month) saw a healthy uptick – the highest for the year so far. It’s typically indicative that there’s a bit more spending power from advertisers, which is a good thing for us.
Summary And Video Overview
For now, our focus will continue to be put into content creation, as we mentioned earlier. Content refresh will remain our key focal point for weeks and months to come. In addition to improving and updating the content that we’ve already got, we’re still working on putting out new and fresh content, as well. For our end goal here, it’s simply to slowly and gradually work our way up Google’s organic search rankings.
There are plenty of other things, alas, that are beyond our control as publishers. The global ad market as well as EPMVs, for one thing, may continue to remain suppressed for the foreseeable future. We can’t do anything about that. But, what we can do, and are currently doing, is finding alternative revenue streams to buck up our ad revenues. This is mainly through leveraging Ezoic’s Humix video hosting service.
Over the past month (August), we’ve earned around $375.00 through videos embedded onto our site that have been monetized with ads. And, if you’re wondering how we made those videos, it’s through Flickify – which Ezoic also runs. This service allows you to quickly turn written articles into fully edited videos, and it has worked well so far. So, between Flickify and Humix, it’s a pretty good extra income generator.
So, in spite of depressed ad revenues throughout August 2023, we’ll keep charging on through September and the rest of 2023. If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up on our Ask Me Anything section. Oh, and do check out this video overview too, if you’d like to learn more about our case study domain’s August 2023 earnings, and some additional explainers and insights that we might’ve missed here:
