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What can I do to make blog better - RPM crazy low

Julie Borne

A few months ago I made the switch in my blog from Adsense to journey, and I truly am unsure if I have everything set up 100% correctly to really maximize this.

I feel like my site is still not user friendly, and I'm not sure if it is et up easily for ads to be best utilized.

My RPM is currently only around $1.16 and I feel like that is VERY LOW, based on what it could be. To add, it has been more that 30 days, I am past the onboarding process and things I have not gotten better.

I get about 20k-15k page views per month on the blog, and i know that can grow drastically...but i feel like i am just not sure what direction to go.

Can you help me understand what I need to do to optimize my site for ads and make it more user friendly, as well as how to set up a better theme, if that is something that is needed.

I also read to not use page builders, and I would like to understand what that means as well. I want to make sure purchasing a theme and making it user friendly won't mess up my ads.

https://blogjuliesdesignsandsigns.com

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Comments

3 comments

Date Votes
  • Support
    • Journey Support Team
    Edited

    Hey Julie Borne - I can jump in here! 

    RPM - 

    I took a look at your dashboard and I see that your RPM is at $11.50. Your CPM is $1.19 which is actually not bad at all! 

    Despite those acronyms being so close these acronyms operate very differently. You can read more about RPM and CPM here. 

    But basically, CPM is giving you an idea of how much advertisers are spending per 1,000 ad impressions. Your site RPM is just the calculation of your earnings (that you've already made) divided by your traffic to give you an idea of how that traffic performed. 

    If you're looking for ideas on how to optimize, we have this article here that could be helpful. 

    One thing I would suggest when looking at your site is to maybe bump your mobile font up to 20px. On my phone, it's on the smaller side so it gets kinda squished. I wouldn't recommend going past 20px though (that's what you have on desktop), but this would be a little more user-friendly on mobile and allow our script a better chance to optimize ad placements. 

    Also, I'm not sure how much desktop traffic you have (I'd recommend checking Google Analytics to see!) but if you have a decent amount of desktop traffic, a short sidebar would be a great way to add a sidebar ad in a non-intrusive way. 

    You also have the option to control Ad Density on your site now! You can read more about those settings here. 

    Pagebuilders - 

    We go more into detail about that here but Page Builders often lead to a more awkward structure on a website which can throw off ad targeting. Our script targets ads by choosing unique selectors in your theme's HTML markup, and page builders use repetitive class names that can make it hard to find a unique combination.

    Not to mention they tend to be pretty slow site speed wise. 

    If you're thinking of changing themes I always recommend making sure you are focusing on a fast, responsive design that is most friendly to mobile readers. (Since most readers are on a mobile device these days.) I know I touched on font size a minute ago but themes with a font size between 18-20px and a line height between 1.6-1.8 is also good for readability. (Your current theme is checks both these boxes on desktop.) 
     

     

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  • Julie Borne

    Yes, you are right, I put in the wrong word, I meant CPM. Really, that is the one that matters since that is the amount you actually get paid. Well, that is very disappointing that $1.19 is a good number. I was really expecting it to increase after the 30 days of onboarding. There is nothing I can do on my end to increase this?? Does it increase if you get to 50k monthly session and more to Mediavine??? Just trying to figure out what the future of this blog looks like, I don't want to be at $1 per 1000 views forever

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  • Support
    • Journey Support Team
    Edited

    Hey Julie Borne - 

    CPM is a tough metric as it's not quite as simple as making some changes or gaining more traffic. This is the measurement of ad value and is heavily dependent on the content, keywords, and the traffic landing on that post.

    CPM is set by the advertisers, based on your individual breakdown of readers. This isn't something that Mediavine, Journey, or anyone, can change.

    The first thing I'd do to diagnose a lower CPM post would be to check Google Analytics for the traffic breakdown to that post. I often see posts with lower CPMs have a lower ratio of US traffic.

    If it still has a solid amount of US traffic, you'd want to dig into SEO and keywords. 

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Journey is Self Supported

Our support staff is monitoring this forum everyday for bugs related to ad delivery, the display and functionality of the Journey dashboard, and any bugs related to the onboarding process. We are typically unable to assist with non-bug related issues like RPM performance expectations, issues setting up the ads.txt file, and questions already answered by our existing help docs. Read here for a more detailed breakdown of how Journey is self-supported and our recommendations for how to find answers to common issues.

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