As my blog has grown so has the time I have spent writing posts, cooking up low histamine recipes, taking photos, editing photos and promoting my posts. While I first started my blog simply as a place to write, I do believe my time is worth something, so I started to look at how to monetise it and at least cover the costs of producing content that is free for people to read. After trying various options, I have come to use a pay per view ad company and this is my review of Monumetric for this.
This post contains affiliate links.
Jump to:
Why monetise your blog?
OK, so I think this is pretty obvious, but the time of a blogger is worth something! Of course, it isn't just my time that I wanted a degree of pay for. Running a blog typically isn't free, even if some companies seem to say it is! Personally I try and run mine with as little expenditure as possible and opt for the free versions of plugins and other programmes such as Canva. However, I do have to pay for hosting and my domain name, and I also pay for Lightroom for editing photos, my newsletter and now and then for a web developer to fix a problem.
This is my review of Monumetric and I hope it is helpful!
The early days - pay per click ads
To begin with I placed google ads on my site. This was around 4 years ago and I was definitely very new at blogging, and wouldn't have been able to tell you what SEO was, let alone how to place code on my site myself. However, I somehow managed to place the ads or they did (I have no idea who did, it's a distant memory!) and waited for at least a few pounds to come rolling in . . .
I waited, and waited, and waited some more. Nothing. Not a penny. It's true that my site traffic was far less back then, but still I had thought I would get a tiny revenue from them. But nope, nothing. Eventually I took the ads off my site.
As you may know, google ads are pay per click. So you only earn if people click on the ad itself. The ads showing were so random, and for things I couldn't imagine many people having any interest in. I guess that is part of the reason I didn't earn a penny.
Amazon ads
After a while I started to include affiliate links on my site, mostly from Amazon although I do have some partnerships with other companies that I work with whose products I really love and use myself. Affiliate revenue is very up and down, but it is a welcome way to help pay site fees.
Amazon also have banner ads which I used to have on most of my posts. I usually have them for deals that seem beneficial for my readers such as for Kindle, Audible or Amazon Prime. Typically they give a month free, sometimes more for the customer. The uptake on these is very low, and over time as I have updated posts I have begun to delete them as I don't want too many ads on my pages.
Pay per view ad revenue
Over the past few years my blog page views have grown a great deal, which I am so thankful for. I should have looked into pay per view ads earlier, but finally did so this past year. I definitely suggest doing so as soon as you meet the requirements for page views as I have found it to be much better than my zero income from pay per click!
What are pay per view ads?
Pay per views ads are basically what they say they are - you get paid for a person on your site simply seeing the ads. They don't have to click on them, just see them when reading your posts.
Who offers pay per view ads?
As far as I am aware, there are four main ad companies offering pay per view ads - Monumetric, Mediavine, Ad Thrive and Ezoic.
Mediavine - this ad company requires you to have 50K sessions (not page views, sessions) per month to apply. It used to be 25K and I was literally a week away from that goal, and ready to apply. In fact, I reached the goal earlier, but the plugin for my google analytics got accidentally switched off for 3 days, ruining my numbers and showing 0 sessions for that time . . .
Ad Thrive - requires 100,000 page views per month.
Ezoic - also offers pay per view. The reason I didn't go with them was simply that you have to place the ads yourself, and I didn't want to have that to do or to manage them in the future if things went wrong for any reason.
My review of Monumetric
I chose Monumetric as the company had good reviews online from others, placed the ads themselves and offered a good level of customer service.
Monumetric requirements
To apply for Monumetric you have to have 10,000 page views per month to your site.
The application process
This was super simple. At the time I applied it stated there was a 3-4 month wait to have your site reviewed and potentially accepted. I suspect it was due to Mediavine recently putting up their required session rate and more people applying to Monumetric, and perhaps more people were starting blogs or wanting to monetise them as we stayed home.
The online form was straightforward and I had to fill in basic information about my site, and my page views per month. As I had many times the number required, this wasn't an issue and I wonder whether this may have been why my site was reviewed a bit more quickly than the three months it stated (that's just a guess though!).
Online I had read that you got a phone or Skype call with a staff member to talk through your ad placement once accepted. Now I didn't receive any invitation for a call, and this is my only bugbear with the process. However, I did receive emails along the way telling me where I was in the process. I was asked the type of ads I wanted, and I let them know. I also emailed and specifically stated that I didn't want any video ads on my site, and they replied saying that was fine. They responded quickly to any queries I had, and still do.
The ads are placed! Now what?
Once my ads were placed, I was given access to my dashboard. This gives me information on my earnings for each day, and has details for payments too. This happens once a month, and has so far gone without a hitch. I receive my payment via PayPal. It has a 60 day delay, so you get paid for your revenue for two months previous.
It took around 6-8 weeks for my session rate (the amount you get paid for views) to stabilise. It crept up and up, starting at about $5 per 1000 page views and is now many, many times that. The rate fluctuates depending upon many factors, notably the number of impressions (how many times ads have been viewed).
My session rate has gone up recently as my ads went a bit haywire for a few weeks. Some posts had none in the body of the post (I think they are called in-flight ads), others had too many and were 'stacking'. I contacted Monumetric and they got back to me the next day. After seeing the problem, they took all the ads off, and put them all back on again as they should show. It all seems fine now. Since then (a week prior to me writing this), my ad rate has gone up each day. I imagine it will stabilise in the next few days.
Customer service
Any review of Monumetric needs to talk about customer service and as you may have already guessed, I am very impressed with it. Everyone I have spoken with is polite and helpful, emails are answered within two days (usually either the end of the same day or the next day), and they have acted promptly when there is a problem.
I have been paid on time, and with no issues at all.
Overall thoughts
My one regret about the ads on my site? That I didn't apply to Monumetric years ago! Honestly, it makes me sob a little inside to think that I have lost out on earning from my site to cover my costs and give myself some pay too. Blogging takes time and money, and I wish I had given myself some pay for all my work. I wish I had looked a review of Monumetric by another blogger (or many bloggers!) and realised I should apply.
I am more than happy with Monumetric and appreciate how helpful their staff have been to me. It seems as though no request is too little and they review everything thoroughly. Although saying that makes it sound as though I have had a ton of issues to complain to them about - I really haven't. There have been two issues and both were dealt with very promptly.
Now I wonder if some of you are thinking would I switch to Mediavine once I reach the 50K sessions requirement they have . . . Honestly no, I don't think I will. I've heard people complain about the type of ads they run, and that they are more dominant on the posts. I'm not sure whether this is the case, but the customer service, pay rate and ease of Monumetric means I have no plans to go anywhere.
Hope this review of Monumetric was helpful, and good luck if you are applying to them!
Karla says
What I don't understand is that you write about Monumetric but only put google ads here. Is this a paid article that has not been identified?
throughthefibrofog says
No, this is not a paid article. I have not been sponsored in any way to do this post.
I am only with Monumetric, not google adsense. As I understand it, Monumetric will sometimes display other ads from other companies. But I do not have an accoutn with google, only Monumetric.
mehmet says
Hi Claire, how many days did it take them to accept you?
throughthefibrofog says
It was about two months from when I applied to being accepted and the process starting to place the ads.
Melanie says
Wow really good useful information. I’m new to the blogging and this just helped me a ton. Thank you.
throughthefibrofog says
So glad it's helpful Melanie!