How to make money with Mediavine ads [2023]
I may get paid commission for purchases made after clicking a link in this post.
Want to make a really great passive income from your blog? Then join Mediavine! In this article I share exactly how to make money with Mediavine ads.
Hands up who wants to make money from their blog while they sleep? Passive income is like the holy grail of blogging. The idea of being able to earn a good income every month without having to lift a finger sounds too good to be true. And yet it is totally possible*. Put high-paying Mediavine ads on your blog and you can literally make money while you sleep.
*OK, OK – so there’s no such thing as truly passive income – you do need to put the effort in to grow your blog to the monthly pageview requirement for Mediavine to accept you. And then you will need to continue to put the effort in to grow your blog, because the more you grow your blog, the more money you will make from it. But income from Mediavine IS passive in the sense that, you could take a week off blogging – or even a whole month off blogging and you would STILL earn good money from Mediavine ads.
But how exactly do you do it? How do you get started with Mediavine? How can you grow your blog to the minimum threshold required to get in? And how much can you earn? In this article I share exactly how to make money with Mediavine ads.
What is Mediavine?
First things first, what exactly is Mediavine? Mediavine is a full-service advertising management company. In other words Mediavine place ads on your site and manage all the complicated business of selling ads, optimizing ad placements, making sure the right ads appear on your blog in the right place at the right time, managing the relationship with advertisers and more.
All you have to do is sign up to Mediavine and then get on with the business of creating great content for your readers, safe in the knowledge that Mediavine will handle everything else and send you money at the end of each month.
Better still Mediavine are passionate about building sustainable businesses for content creators, which means they don’t just supply and manage ads, they also offer support, technology and resources to help their publishers (us bloggers!) to optimize their content and maximise ad revenue.
How do you qualify for Mediavine?
If all this sounds just too good to be true, there is a slight catch. Mediavine have strict qualification criteria.
To qualify for Mediavine, you must:
- produce original web content (for example, a blog)
- have at least 50,000 sessions a month (Google Analytics figures)
- be in good standing with Google AdSense (you’d know if you weren’t!)
- give Mediavine exclusive access to both your mobile and desktop ad inventory
- have a site design that accommodates Mediavine’s ad placements
For most bloggers, the biggest problem is reaching the minimum session requirement to qualify for Mediavine… (If that’s you, don’t worry – I’ll show you how to do that later in this article!)
However, this is not an exhaustive list and Mediavine evaluate each blog on its own merit and sometimes turn down applications for other reasons. For example, members of my Productive Blogging Community have reported that they have been turned down because:
- They did not have enough US traffic
- They had too much seasonal content and not enough evergreen content
- Their content was too short (You have more potential to earn from in-content ads with long-form content AND long-form content typically gets more traffic)
- Their website was not a Self-Hosted WordPress website
How many pageviews do you need to qualify for Mediavine?
Mediavine doesn’t state a specific pageview requirement. Instead they specify that you must have at least 50,000 sessions per month to be accepted by Mediavine (Google Analytics figures).
In reality, to achieve 50,000 sessions per month, you are looking at approximately 60,000 pageviews – but this figure is just a guide, it will depend enormously on exactly how many pageviews per session you get on average.
How can you grow your blog to 50,000 sessions?
The best way to grow your blog to 50,000 sessions is by optimizing your site for search engine traffic. In other words – search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO is by far the best and fastest way to grow your blog. If you work hard on your SEO, you can easily grow your blog to 50,000 sessions… and beyond!
SEO is a much easier and quicker way to grow your blog than social media or Pinterest. Better still, the traffic you get from search engines is far more reliable and consistent than traffic from social media and Pinterest and will continue to build and get better over time.
If you need help with SEO, you are in luck! I have lots of free resources on my blog to help you with SEO. I suggest to start with, you check out this post: A beginner’s guide to SEO for bloggers and this post 17 SEO mistakes to avoid. Then take a look at all my other SEO posts. If you work through those posts, implementing everything I advise, you will be well on your way to getting to that magic 50,000 sessions.
Alternatively, if you want the ‘fast track’ – a more structured approach and a proven process – then do check out my SEO course for bloggers: SEO Jumpstart. Many of my students who have taken SEO Jumpstart have subsequently gone on to qualify for Mediavine and now earn good money from their blogs every single month. You can read their testimonials HERE.
How long does it take to grow your blog to 50,000 sessions?
This obviously varies from blog to blog. My own experience is that it took about 5 months to grow my blog to 50,000 sessions, once I started to take SEO seriously.
(For reference, before I started taking SEO seriously, my blog was at about 10,000 sessions.)
When should you apply to Mediavine?
You should apply to Mediavine as soon as you get to 50,000 sessions! If you have had 50,000 or more sessions in the last 30 days (Google Analytics figures), you are eligible to apply. And if you want to start earning money from Mediavine ads as soon as possible, you should apply immediately.
I made a big mistake here. I first met Mediavine’s required number of sessions on my food blog, Easy Peasy Foodie, in September 2017, however I did not apply to Mediavine until January 2018, by which time my blog traffic was over 100,000 sessions. I estimate that I probably missed out on about $4K – possibly more!
How do you apply to Mediavine?
Applying to Mediavine is very simple. The first step is to go to the Mediavine’s Website and the big hit APPLY NOW button. You will then need to fill out a very simple Google Form (it will take less than 5 minutes) and submit.
Once you have done that Mediavine will be in touch with the next steps. This may involve supplying Mediavine with more information about your blog and Google analytics figures, making small changes to your blog, such as increasing your sidebar width, moving certain popups so they don’t interfere with ads or removing ads from other ad networks.
You will also need to upload the Mediavine plugin, which takes care of most of the technical stuff.
At every step of the way, Mediavine will help you – either by showing you exactly how to do what they are asking for, or doing it for you, if you prefer.
How long does the Mediavine application process take?
This does vary, but typically it takes about a month from first applying to Mediavine to getting ads on your site.
What kind of RPM can you make with Mediavine?
RPM is short for Rate Per Mille. Rate Per Mille means the amount of money you get paid in dollars for every 1000 pageviews.
Your RPM depends on a large number of things: how many ads you have on your site, where those ads are placed, whether you have any jump links (e.g. a ‘Jump to Recipe’ button), what country your visitors come from, what niche you operate in…
However, as a rough guide, when you first start out with Mediavine you can expect an RPM of $15-$25 per 1,000 pageviews if the majority of your audience are in the UK and an RPM of $25-$35 per 1,000 pageviews if the majority of your audience are in the US.
(Yep, US RPMs are THAT much better than UK RPMs!).
How much money do you make with Mediavine?
You can make serious money by putting Mediavine ads on your site. But of course, it does vary wildly, depending on location, niche, ad placement etc.
To give you an example, if you have 60,000 pageviews per month, and you are getting an RPM of $25, you would be looking at around $1,500 per month. And if you have 600,000 pageviews, and you are getting an RPM of $25, you would be looking at around $15,000 per month!
But it is totally possible to earn much more than that… To find out how, head over to my post on 12 easy ways to grow your Mediavine income.
How much control over ad placement do you have with Mediavine?
A lot! You can control how many ads you have on your site and where they are placed. You can control the spacing of ads in an individual blog post and even turn ads off for an individual blog post if needs be. You can also select which kinds of adverts you do and don’t allow on your site and choose whether or not your ads are lazy-loaded.
To begin with, Mediavine will set up your ads to their recommended settings… and they strongly advise that you stick with their recommended settings for a few months while everything settles down.
However, ultimately you are in control and you can decide if you want to dial your ads up or down to suit your audience and your revenue goals.
How long does it take to get paid on Mediavine?
Mediavine pays on a NET 65 basis. This means they will pay you 65 days from the end of the month that money was earned.
Mediavine state that they will pay you by the 5th of each month. But in reality, you usually get paid on the 1st or 2nd of the month.
So, for example, Mediavine will pay you on or before April 5th for all money you earned in January, on or before May 5th for all the money you earned in February, and so on…
Is Mediavine better than AdSense?
Mediavine is way better than AdSense! I was with Google AdSense before I moved over to Mediavine. When I was with AdSense, I was earning approximately $1 per 1000 pageviews. When I first started with Mediavine I was earning $10 per 1000 pageviews. That’s 10 times as much! And that was just the start, I now a much higher RPM with Mediavine.
To give you an illustration, when I left AdSense, I had about 100,000 pageviews a month and was earning about $100 a month. My first month with Mediavine I also had 100,000 pageviews, but I earnt $1000 in my first month with Mediavine!
But it’s not just the money. Mediavine’s customer service is way better too, and because Mediavine offer a full ad management service, they do all the hard work, so hosting Mediavine ads is also much easier than hosting AdSense ads.
What is Mediavine’s customer service like?
One word – AMAZING! Mediavine’s customer service is one of the best I’ve ever encountered. If you have a problem, they will help you fix it. They will also go to great lengths to help you maximise your ad revenue. And if there’s ever a problem with ad performance at their end, they will make sure you as the publisher don’t lose out. Occasionally there have been problems either with Mediavine or with their suppliers (e.g. Google) which have meant that my revenue has been lower than it should have been. Each and every time, they have issued an extra payment to me to cover those losses – even if the fault wasn’t theirs! Now THAT is what I call AWESOME customer service.
Mediavine are also very on top of new developments in the blogging world and if something changes, they are quick to adapt to whatever that new requirement is. In fact, they are so on the ball, I often hear about changes in the blogging world from Mediavine, before I hear them from anyone else!
Is it worth joining Mediavine?
YES! If you want to earn a really good passive income from blogging, then I absolutely and wholeheartedly recommend joining Mediavine.
And if you do not have 50,000 pageviews yet then I recommend that you work as hard as you possibly can on your SEO so that you can join Mediavine as soon as possible.
Does Mediavine have an affiliate scheme?
No! Which means I do not earn a penny from Mediavine for this blog post.
Though I really wish they did, as I would have earnt a lot of money from it… Over the years I have recommended Mediavine to so many people and helped a lot of bloggers reach the Mediavine threshold.
But I never recommend products or services because I get a commission. I recommend them because I use them myself and absolutely love them! And I absolutely LOVE Mediavine 😀
Over to you…
Are you with Mediavine? How long have you been with them? Do you love them as much as me? Let me know in the comments below!
Or are you considering joining Mediavine? What’s stopping you? Do feel free to ask me any questions you have in the comments below…
- 12 easy ways to grow your Mediavine income
- How to make money on your blog… with advertising
- How to earn passive income from a blog: a step-by-step guide
- How to treat your blog like a business (and start actually making money!)
- How to turn your blog into a profitable business
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My AdSense is disabled on my site, Can I get mediavine ads where Google Adsense is disabled?
If you meet the requirements for Mediavine, you can apply and they will accept you if you meet their criteria. Mediavine places ads automatically to maximize ad revenue, but you can work with Mediavine to ensure you are happy with those placements.
Hi Eb, thanks for the great info on Mediavine. But I would like to know something. What if the majority of my website visitors are from countries other than the UK and the US? Can i be accepted to join them?
Hi Habakkuk – glad you found my article helpful! Mediavine say that ‘Traffic from the US monetizes at a higher rate than traffic from other countries. But that is not to say that we don’t accept international traffic — WE DO! What we are looking for here is a breakdown in locations that will be good for revenue. Canada, the UK, Australia and the Netherlands all also tend to be high on the list for advertiser spend.‘ So if your website traffic comes from countries that have high advertiser spend, then Mediavine are likely to accept you. However, if your traffic comes from countries with low advertiser spend, then they probably won’t. However, country is only one variable. There are other variables at play which may also make a difference, such as niche. Mediavine will look at each website on a case by case basis. So if you have reached the sessions requirement, I would apply anyway. Hope that helps! Eb 🙂