In this ultimate Ezoic review I will try to provide all the practical information and answer all the questions you might ask about this great ad platform. Let’s dig into it!
What is Ezoic?
Ezoic platform is an ad testing tool, that helps you find the best places for your ads. It’s different than other Ad Platforms because it uses artificial intelligence to test hundreds of different ad layouts. In a nutshell, Ezoic will help you to make as much money on your website’s advertisements as possible. For instance, after we have switched from AdSense to Ezoic, our ad revenue has tripled. Yes, tripled! No kidding!
How does Ezoic work?
When a user visits your website, Ezoic will load the content in one of the experimental layouts. The system will measure the time on site, page views per visitors, bounce rate, and ad income for each layout to find the top-performing layouts for your site. Ezoic’s artificial intelligence can test hundreds and thousands of different layouts, sizes, designs and locations in a short time, which you would never be able to do manually.
After the system has had enough time to gather data, it will begin to promote the best performing layouts. This means that your visitors will see the layouts they prefer more, and your ad revenue will increase.
Ezoic platform is a Google certified publishing partner, which means you can trust them in terms of reliability or payments.
Advantages of Ezoic
1) Increased revenue by ad testing
You can insert ads on your website manually and do A/B tests, however, that’s gonna be nowhere near as effective as automated testing, which uses machine learning. For example, if you insert just 5 possible ad placeholders, Ezoic will test 3000 possible combinations, for 10 placeholders it’s gonna be 142 000 and for 15 placeholders it’s whopping 1,2 million combinations! Why so many? It’s because Ezoic tests not only positions but also different Ad sizes and designs. They then use the data to place the ads in the ideal position to increase your revenue.
2) Fantastic Analytics and Reporting
What I love about Ezoic is their comprehensive reporting and analytics. The user dashboard is full of excellent information and statistics that help you to know everything about your visitors. You can review several different metrics like Revenue, EPMV (earnings per thousand visitors), Page Views, Bounce Rate, Average Engaged Time, Social Shares and more…
You can review the metrics for each day or each individual page, therefore you can see, which page makes you the most money or which page is the most effective in terms of revenue per visit.
You can also filter earnings by location, language, device, traffic sources and so on… One can spend days diving deep into the various analytics Ezoic provides.
3) Sticky and Anchor Ad Units
One of the biggest disadvantages of Google AdSense is that they don’t allow sticky ads. That’s a big problem because these are statistically one of the best performing ads. Ezoic allows inserting ads into the sticky sidebar. You can also turn on anchor ads that appear at the bottom of the screen on both mobile and desktop. I highly recommend using both sticky and anchor ads because they are big earners.
4) Complete Control
You have complete control over your Ezoic ads. You can set up things like the maximum number of Ads shown per page. Define the color and design of the ads. Setup excluded pages, where you don’t want to show Ezoic ads at all (that might be useful for example on pages, where you have a lot of affiliates and ads can drive away the traffic). You can turn on/off anchor ads individually for Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile. Disable specific advertisers to show on your site. And much more…
5) Great Support and Customer Service
AdSense support is absolutely non-existent. As opposed, Ezoic customer service is totally amazing. I have already created more than 20 support tickets and they always replied within a few hours (sometimes even minutes) and patiently guided me and explained to me any problem. They explained everything with screenshots that even a person who is not technically skilled can understand.
6) No further requirements to be accepted
The only requirement to be accepted by Ezoic is to have at least 10 000 sessions per month (and of course to not have adult content on your site etc.). Most of the other Ad Platforms have much higher requirements for being accepted. For example, your traffic must be mainly from the USA. Therefore, Ezoic is often the only option (apart from AdSense) for non-US websites.
7) Ezoic shields you from AdSense policy violations
If it ever happened to you that AdSense banned your account for a week and they didn’t even tell you the exact reason and you had 3 days to fix it, you know how valuable this is. If there is any problem with Ezoic, a great support team will sort it out with you easily.
8) Low Payment Threshold
The minimum threshold for getting paid is as low as $20 with Ezoic. It’s much less than with most other Ad platforms (e.g. AdSense have $100 minimum).
9) Management of objectionable content
Ezoic gives you a list of your pages, where you may have content unfit for ads. This could be adult content, some types of gambling content, or even swear words. Ezoic blocks these pages from showing ads. This is a great feature because it blocks only the individual sites as opposed to AdSense, which usually blocks the whole website.
10) You can make money with Ezoic affiliate
If any friend signs up using your affiliate link, you will then receive 3% of what they earn with Ezoic for a lifetime! That’s a lot! The 3% is taken from Ezoic and not from your friend, he still earns the same money, whether they use your link or not. Therefore, if you like this Ezoic review, you can sign up using our link and help me in future writings. Thanks a lot!
Disadvantages of Ezoic
1) Minimum traffic requirements – 10 000 monthly sessions
To be accepted by Ezoic, you have to have at least 10 000 monthly sessions. That’s pretty low compared to Mediavine’s 25 000 or AdThrive’s 100 000, however it’s still 10 000. AdSense doesn’t have any minimum traffic requirements.
However, if you have less than 10 000 sessions per month, you would not make much money anyway, therefore I would recommend skipping ads and focusing on the traffic first.
2) Small Ad at the bottom of the page
If you don’t want to pay for the service, Ezoic inserts a small ad to the bottom of your page. That’s a litter bummer, however, it’s almost invisible and the vast majority of visitors don’t even scroll till the end of the page. Therefore, I don’t see this as a major problem. If you don’t want the ad, you can pay 5% of your revenue to remove it.
3) You need to wait at least 30 days to see the results
You will not see the results immediately after switching to Ezoic. Your revenue could even potentially be lower in the first few days before Ezoic gathers enough data from the testing. It usually takes about one month to find out the best ad layout and start earning the most money.
4) Setup is a bit trickier
The setup is slightly tricky. You have to point your site’s DNS to their DNS server, which might be a problem for someone. However, the support team will help with that if you need it. The dashboard is not that intuitive first. You need to get used to it a little bit to find out which setting is located where.
Ezoic Review – Key Features
Ad Tester
Ezoic Ad Tester uses the power of multivariate testing on your website. You can create up to 100 potential ad units, place them on your website, and Ezoic will test the different combinations of sizes, locations, ad types, and quantity of ads, to find what works best for each user that visits your web.
Ad Tester is always balancing revenue and user experience, so it will determine the optimal number of ads based on the specific user. For example, if you have 20 placeholders on a page, Tester may determine that the optimal number of ads for User A is 6 and for User B is 4.
Ad Tester also tests different layouts for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
Site Speed Accelerator
Ezoic Speed Accelerator guarantees Google PageSpeed Insights score of 80+ for every website. Since 2019, Google started to use page speed as a ranking factor, therefore it’s very important to have a fast loading time. The only downside is that after 30 days trial, you have to pay $40 per month for the accelerator. In the screenshots below, you can, how the scores on our site improved – increase from 51 to 98 on mobile and from 50 to 99 on desktop!
Chrome Extension
Ezoic Chrome Extension is a great feature, which allows you to easily and conveniently add, remove or edit ad placeholders on your website. Just remember that you have to be logged out of your WordPress admin panel to use the extension.
PWA converter
Ezoic offers a build-in PWA converter. What is PWA? PWA stands for a progressive web app, which is essentially a lightweight version of the website, which is shown in mobile devices. It can help a lot in terms of faster loading time. I personally don’t use it because the website looks a lot different, which I don’t like. However, it’s definitely worth at least try it.
Header bidding
You can easily implement header bidding on your website on your dashboard. Ezoic will create a server-side competitive auction for ad space that will increase website income. Here you can read more about header bidding.
Caching App
You can use Ezoic’s build-in cache to store your content and speed up your website. It’s not necessary if you already use other caching software like WP Rocket. If you don’t, then definitely turn the Cache on. The Caching app can be found in your Dashboard under the “Speed” tab.
How does Ezoic pay?
Ezoic pays you on a monthly basis. The default minimum payment threshold is $20, however, you set up higher if you wish. For example, if you pay fees for the incoming transaction, it might be wise to set up a higher threshold to be paid higher amounts less frequently.
How do you get paid?
You can choose these options:
- PayPal
- US Bank Transfer via Payoneer
- International Bank Transfer via Payoneer
- Prepaid Card via Payoneer
- Check (Rec. USA and Canada Only)
Is there a contract or any hidden terms?
No, you don’t have to sign any contract with Ezoic and there aren’t any hidden terms.
How much does Ezoic cost?
Ezoic can be absolutely free for you, you don’t have to pay for anything! After the first month of trial, Ezoic will insert a small ad to the bottom of your page to also make some money even when you don’t pay anything.
If you don’t want to have the ad at the bottom of your page, you can choose a subscription plan. You will then pay 5% of your revenue.
If you want to use their Speed Accelerator, you have to pay $40 for that as well. It might look like a lot; however, you will probably make much more money from the ads, therefore it’s not a problem. You can review the pricing plans in the image below:
How to start with Ezoic?
Installing and integrating Ezoic on your website is pretty easy. Just follow the steps below. If you have any problem, question or struggle with something, don’t hesitate to write on Ezoic support, they will be happy to help you.
1) Create your Ezoic account
Click on this link to create an account and get started. After you confirm your email address, you will have access to setup wizard on your dashboard. The setup wizard will help you to go through the next steps.
2) Integrate your website
You need to have your website integrated with Ezoic before you can start testing and optimizing your website’s layout. You have three different ways, how to do the integration:
- Using Cloudflare – if you already use Cloudflare, this is the best option. If don’t, we highly recommend it. Cloudflare improves the security and speed of your website.
- WordPress Plugin – this is the easiest way, how to integrate your site if you run on WordPress. Install the plugin named „Ezoic Integration“ and follow the instructions. However, it’s not the best option because the plugin can slow down your site a little bit.
- Change Nameservers – this looks like a more technical quest, however, it’s also pretty easy. Read instructions here.
All these integrations are easily reversible, so if you don’t like one result, you can always change to a different integration option.
3) Place JavaScript code to your header
You need to place a JavaScript code into your header to show ads on your website. Just follow the instructions in the setup wizard.
4) Wrap your existing ads
You will be asked to wrap your existing ads, which allows Ezoic’s system to test the same locations on the Ad Tester layouts along with new ad sizes/locations. If you have unwrapped ads, they will show up on all versions – both the original and the Ad Tester versions. However, Ezoic’s system won’t be able to track the performance of the unwrapped ads or see how they impact the overall revenue and user experience. Also, there may end up being too many ads per page because the unwrapped ads show up alongside ones that Ezoic is testing.
For the best results, we recommend wrapping all your existing ads – read this article, where they explain, how to do that.
5) Turn on Ad Testing
In the monetization section in your dashboard, just simply turn on Ad Tester. You can individually turn on/off on desktop, tablet, and mobile. You can also turn on AI placeholders, which allows Ezoic to automatically insert other placeholders to different locations. Turn this on if you don’t mind, where the ads will be. I personally have this turned off because it was inserting ads into my header, which I don’t like. You can also set up your optimization goals. If you prefer to optimize more on user experience or more on revenue.
6) Install the Ezoic Chrome Extension
If you use Google Chrome, the easiest and most convenient way, how to manage your ads, is using Ezoic Chrome Extension. It will allow you to effortlessly insert, delete, and preview your ad placeholders. If you don’t like the extension, you can use a WordPress Plugin Ad Inserter as an alternative.
And how to insert ad placeholders? Let’s have a look in the next section:
How to insert ad placeholders?
In this section, I will explain to you in detail, how to insert ad placeholders to your website using Chrome Extension.
1) Log out from WordPress
You need to be logged out to use Ezoic Chrome Extension to insert and preview ads.
2) Activate Placeholders
Click on the Ezoic Chrome Extension’s green icon in the top right corner and press Activate Placeholders. All your active placeholders should show up (in the beginning you probably don’t have any).
3) Create Placeholder
- Click on Create.
- Select Placeholders size (I recommend using Automatically Detect option).
- Click on Select Location.
- Click on your desired location, you would like to insert your ad placeholder.
- Click on Insert here.
4) Set up Placeholder
A window with 5 tabs with show up. Here is, what you should do in these tabs:
- Settings – select the position of the ad. It’s important to place ad placeholders into several different positions.
- Sizes – always choose as many ad sizes as possible. Just choose every size that possibly fits into that position. Ezoic’s Ad Tester will then test every possible scenario and find out, which works the best.
- Pages – you can choose if you want to insert the placeholder to all similar pages (basically to all your pages) or choose only a single page, all pages in a directory or subdomain.
- Style – you can set up margins around the ad, float, and alignment. I recommend turning on the „Put ad in its own row“ option, otherwise, the ad can show inside your text.
- Open App – you can edit your placeholders directly in the Ezoic Ad Tester App. It’s not good for inserting, however, it could be handy if you want to edit multiple placeholders at once.
5) Wait for the results
Perfect, you are all set! Now you just need to wait a while before Ezoic gathers enough data from the testing. You can check your earnings on your dashboard.
Watch this video, where they explain everything about Chrome Extension:
Reporting and statistics
Reporting is my favorite part of Ezoic. It’s simply amazing! The Big Data analytics dashboard is full of excellent information and statistics that help you to know everything about your visitors. The analytics are massive, similar to Google Analytics. You can review the metrics for each day or each individual page, therefore you can see, which page makes you the most money or which page is the most effective in terms of revenue per visit.
Ezoic Review – Metrics explanation
There is a lot of metrics you can review in the reports. You can click on the Columns button to select, which metric you would like to see. Here is an explanation of these metrics:
- Visits – The total number of visits (if a user visits multiple pages, it still counts as one visit).
- Pageviews – The total number of pages viewed.
- Engaged Pageviews – The number of page views where the user interacted with the page for a minimum of 10 seconds (engagement are metrics like clicking, scrolling, zooming, etc.).
- Engaged Pageviews / Visit – The average number of engaged pageviews viewed during a visit.
- Average Engaged Time / Visit – The total amount of time that a user engages with pages during a visit.
- Bounce Rate – The % of users that leave the site without visiting another page (visiting only one page).
- Revenue – The total revenue earned.
- ePMV – earnings per thousand visitors. The most important metric, which Ezoic focuses on improving by Ad Testing.
- % New Visits – An estimated percentage of visits from users that have not visited your site before.
- Average Visit Duration – The average amount of time a visitor stays on the site.
- Copy Paste / Visit – The average number of copies & pastes made during a visit.
- Navigation Bounces – The total number of times a user navigates to another page on your site and quickly returns.
- Pageviews / Visit – The average number of pages viewed during a visit.
- Shares / Visit – The rate at which users share information on the site.
- Visit Navigation Bounces Per Visit – The average number of times a user navigates to another page on your site and quickly returns during a visit.
Ezoic Review – Reporting tabs explanation
- Real-Time – Real-time stats of users, that are currently reading your website.
- Revenue – Your revenue stats. You can see reports daily, hourly, weekly, monthly. You can check revenue from desktop, mobile, and tablet.
- Traffic – Your page views stats. Again, you can see reports daily, hourly, weekly, monthly. You can check traffic from desktop, mobile, and tablet.
- Experiments – Results from different tests realized by Ezoic Ad Tester.
- Audience – Reports divided by age, language, location, times and time zones and even weather.
- Behavior – Reports of how many new and returning visitors you have, navigation bounces or how deep your visitors dive into your website.
- Content – Reports of individual pages, categories, authors or content age.
- Sites – This tab is for users, who use Ezoic on more than one website.
- Site Speed – Here you can see, which pages are fastest and slowest and what is a user bounce rate based on page loading time.
- Technology – Reports divided by device, browser or connection type. You can also see how many bots visit your website.
- Traffic Sources – Reports divided by traffic sources.
- User Experience – Here you can see for example, what content percentage users read and how many social shares you receive.
- Yield – Here you can see a report by AD density.
- Custom Reports – You can save any of your custom reports and it will show up on your site. For example, if you use some particular filter frequently, it’s convenient to save it.
Watch also this video tutorial about Ezoic review analytics:
Ezoic Review – Placeholders performance
If you want to review the performance of each individual placeholder, it’s not available in the Ezoic dashboard. What you can do, is to view the placeholders in the Chrome Extension and click delete on a placeholder you want to check. It will give you a warning stating the revenue percentage. From there just click cancel rather than deleting it.
I would suggest not diving too deeply into how much each placeholder makes you as the point of the Ad Tester system is that it serves different placeholders at different times, and to different users to maximize earnings. Here is a support article with more information on that: Why Multivariate Testing?
How to get the best results?
1) Be patient with experiments.
You will not see the results immediately after switching to Ezoic. You need to wait before Ezoic gathers enough data from the testing. It usually takes about one month to find out the best ad layout and start earning the most money.
2) Use lots of ad placeholders.
For the best results, you should place as many ad placeholders as possible. Placeholders aren’t ads, they are just possible locations of ads. Ezoic doesn’t place ads on all of them at the same time. They test the best layout possible. If you place more placeholders, there will be more possible layouts to test and you will get better results.
3) Choose multiple ad sizes.
Always choose as many ad sizes as possible. Just choose every size that possibly fits into that position. Ezoic’s Ad Tester will then test every possible scenario and find out, which works the best.
4) Use all the available “Position Type” options.
Ezoic’s Ad Tester doesn’t show more than one ad for each “Position type”, therefore it’s important to have at least one ad placeholder for each “Position type”.
5) Use Mobile Ad Units.
As of 2020, mobile traffic makes more than 50% of all internet traffic. Yes, more people browse the internet on mobile than on desktop. Therefore, it would be foolish not to use mobile ads. Desktop ads have usually higher EPMV but mobile ads have usually more impressions. For instance, this blog makes more money from mobile ads than from desktop ads.
6) Enable Anchor Ads (especially on mobile).
The anchor ads, which stick at the bottom of your site are statistically one of the best performing ads. They are also less annoying than ads in the middle of the content.
7) Check the analytics thoroughly
Check the analytics, which pages make you the most money and which pages have the best user experience. You can then write similar content, which will make you even more money.
Ezoic vs AdSense revenue comparison
I have used AdSense for some time and then decided to move to Ezoic. I was surprised a lot about the change! I totally didn’t expect such a huge improvement. You can review my statistics below. Yellow numbers are from the last week of AdSense, light green is the first week with Ezoic and dark green is the second week with Ezoic. My ad revenue has doubled in the first week and tripled since the second week. And why was the first week with Ezoic lower? It’s because the testing takes some time to determine the best ad layouts.
Ezoic Review – Conclusion
Hopefully, this Ezoic review will alleviate any concerns you may have had about joining the platform. I was also a little bit skeptical and was not convinced to make the switch. After two months of using Ezoic, I regret that I haven’t made the switch from AdSense earlier! My ad revenue has tripled since then. What I love about Ezoic too, is their amazing reporting and very helpful support team.
Therefore, if you have over 10 000 monthly sessions, don’t hesitate and join Ezoic, you will not regret! If you like this Ezoic review, you can sign up using my link to support my further writing at no additional cost. And feel free to ask me any questions in the comments below.
Watch this video with Ezoic review and case study:
Digital advertising evolution:
From Visually.
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Ezoic review – FAQ:
How to start with Ezoic?
Click on this link to create an account and get started. After you confirm your email address, you will have access to setup wizard on your dashboard. The setup wizard will help you to go through the next steps.
What are the main advantages of Ezoic?
Read here everything about advantages of Ezoic.
What are the main disadvantages of Ezoic?
Read here everything about disadvantages of Ezoic.
Is Ezoic free?
Ezoic can be absolutely free for you, you don’t have to pay for anything! After the first month of trial, Ezoic will insert a small ad to the bottom of your page to also make some money even when you don’t pay anything. Read here everything about Ezoic pricing.
How to turn off Ezoic?
You don’t have to worry about being stuck with Ezoic. You can turn off Ezoic anytime with one button click. You can turn off individually desktop, mobile, and tablet.
Is Ezoic premium worth it?
Ezoic premium is an invitation only. Therefore, you can’t join before they invite you. It usually takes several months to get invited and many publishers are not invited at all. Is it worth it to join? The vast majority of publishers say that their revenue has increased quite a lot after joining, therefore you should definitely try Ezoic Premium if you receive an invitation.
How does Ezoic make money?
After a 30-day free trial (when you keep 100% of the site’s earnings), Ezoic then keeps the revenue of a single ad at the bottom of the page. They also make money from paid services like premium memberships and Speed Accelerator feature.
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