Have you ever scrolled through a blog post on your site and counted your ads 1-2-3-4-5 as you scroll? Did you think "WHOA. Am I running too many ads? Or not enough?"
Did you know that counting your Journey by Mediavine ads as you scroll through a blog post is actually NOT an accurate way to know how many ads you're serving? 😮
Journey ads serve differently than the ads from any other ad manager, so counting ads on a page works a little differently here. This article will help you to find the answers you are looking for!
Impressions and ad slots are two different things.
Impressions are how you are paid when you are earning from display ads.
IMPRESSIONS * CPM / 1000 = REVENUE
PRO TIP: Divide total impressions by total pageviews and you will know the average number of ads you serve per page site-wide.
You can keep an eye on impressions in a few different ways.
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Every reader is going to see ads a little bit differently.
You, as the site owner, are going to see ads very differently.
Readers use all of the different posts and pages on your site differently, so if you look at the number of impressions served PER PAGE in the Top Pages section of the dashboard, you'll see how the actual number of ads you are serving varies from page to page.
With your Mediavine ads, Impressions per Page include:
- Every in-content ad served on desktop, tablet, or mobile
- Every adhesion ad served on desktop, tablet, or mobile
- Sidebar ads
- Universal Player ads
- Recipe card / DIY card / List post ads
- All of the refreshes (many units refresh every 30 seconds when they are in view; each refresh is an impression)
Pages with a high number of impressions are usually well-optimized, engaging, and probably have a higher time on site.
Ad Slots are just places where ads CAN appear.
If you scroll through a blog post and count the ads you see 1-2-3-4-5, you are not counting ads, you are counting AD SLOTS.
At Journey, we tailor every user's experience to their behavior. Ads are only served where your readers actually are. So if your reader uses a Table of Contents link to jump around the post, or a Jump-To Recipe button, most ad slots they skip effectively don't exist.
If you use the ?test=houseads or ?test=placeholders query at the end of a URL to force your ad placements, you are counting AD SLOTS.
Ad slots that are in view can refresh, and again, with Journey ads, we only load those ad slots in and fill them with an impression as the reader navigates the page.
Dashboard data will always be the best way to know just how many ads you are serving AND!!! Remember that while sometimes bloggers count ads, your readers really never do.
Watch metrics like time on site, pages per session, and be sure that ads are where your readers actually linger on the page.