Extremly low RPM - help please?

Hey everyone,

I’m reaching out because I’m really struggling to understand what’s going on with my monetization. I recently joined Mediavine Journey, and my RPMs for German traffic are extremely low — averaging just $1.17. Meanwhile, I see others reporting $6–$8 RPMs for Germany, and some food bloggers even hitting $15–$25.

I’ve had around 180,000 impressions and 30,000 sessions, but I’ve only earned about $30, which just doesn’t seem right.

On top of that, many of my visitors are still being shown the Grow replacement ad instead of actual monetized ads, which makes me think something is misconfigured — but I’ve followed the steps as best as I can.

Another major issue I’m seeing is that my traffic numbers between Google Analytics, Jetpack, and Mediavine’s dashboard differ drastically — sometimes by 50% or more. I’m not sure which numbers to trust or how that’s affecting my earnings.

I’m honestly starting to wonder if I made the wrong move joining Mediavine Journey. I know other companies seem to pay more for similar traffic, so I’d love to know if anyone here had a similar experience, or if I’ve possibly overlooked something during setup.

Any advice or guidance would be truly appreciated and I hope that someone will actually read this and answer as support is not much helpfull with posts...

Thanks so much,
Toni