When it comes to creating a money making blog, having a solid advertising backbone is often a key to success.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of bloggers who make a killing with affiliate marketing, selling courses, or offering sponsored posts.
However, for novice and experienced bloggers alike, there is generally a time and place where hosting ads on your blog makes sense financially.
I’ve had advertisements on This Online World for quite some time now, and while I’ve bounced between Adsense and Media.net in the past, I’m happy to have finally found an advertising solution that is working.
And by working, I mean increasing monthly advertising revenue by roughly 400%.
Yup, you heard me: 400%.
This spike in income is a result of my switch to Monumetric, an ad management platform for publishers that is helping websites of almost any size with their monetization needs.
So, if you’re looking to learn more about Monumetric and how to make money with a blog, this is the review for you!
Table of Contents
What Is Monumetric?
Monumetric, formerly known as The Blogger Network, was originally founded in 2012.
As mentioned, Monumetric is an advertisement management platform that is designed to help publishers (i.e. bloggers) effectively monetize their website with display advertisements.
Monumetric has 2 goals, as outlined on their website: to help publishers reach their revenue goals and to provide the best possible user experience at the same time.
These are certainly lofty goals, but to understand what these goals even mean, it’s important to understand a bit about managed ad platforms in general.
Monumetric vs. Adsense – Managed Advertising Services –
I’m going to compare Monumetric to Adsense briefly to help highlight the difference between the most common display advertising platform on earth and something that is, well, a little more premium.
I’m also going to explain a bit about how the advertisement ecosystem works in general.
Let’s say you visit an informational website about vacuum cleaners that has ads on it.
When you hit the landing page, all of the advertisers who want to advertise on websites related to vacuum cleaners enter a bidding war to show their ads to you…maybe Dyson is marketing heavily and floods the page with ads, or maybe a few manufacturers share the units.
Or, alternatively, maybe vacuum advertisers are all outbid by companies that are running remarketing campaigns (i.e. the creepy ads that follow you around the internet based on your browsing history), and all you see are ads for products/services from the websites you previously visited.
Point is this: the highest paid advertisers show their ads, and this is how the bidding system works, generally.
Now, if you host Adsense ads on your blog, you will only show ads from people advertising with Google.
In contrast, with a managed ad service like Monumetric, you can show ads from a variety of networks because Monumetric uses a private ad marketplace and header bidding to ensure your ads are always shown by the advertisers that pay the most.
This is the critical difference with a managed ad platform: you get more competition, a variety of ad exchanges involved, and a support team that works behind the scenes to maximize your revenue per pageview.
Additionally, services like Monumetric work with publishers to do things like:
- Optimize ad unit placement.
- Help with setup and reporting.
- Work behind the scenes to secure new advertising partners, which can lead to better rates.
- Deal with any technical issues or problems.
In contrast, with a self-service platform like Adsense, you basically have to slap some ad units wherever you think they’ll make money and pray to god you’re not going to break your website in the process.
Not ideal.
Monumetric Requirements
Since Monumetric is a managed ad platform, which comes with some perks, there are requirements to join the program.
Monumetric splits their services into 4 tiers:
- Propel: 10,000 monthly pageview minimum. For beginner publishers.
- Ascend: 80,000 to 500,000 monthly pageviews. Get a customized-ad strategy for your website.
- Stratos: 500,000 to 1 million monthly pageviews. This unlocks access to an ad ops team.
- Apollo: 10 million+ monthly pageviews. At this point, you’re working super closely with Monumetric’s ad team.
Most publishers will probably find themselves in the Propel-Ascend range, but it is nice to see that Monumetric can (and does) provide support for websites of all sizes.
Additionally, Monumetric also has some ‘soft’ requirements, or at least this is what I gathered from the onboarding process.
When I was applying to join Monumetric, my account manager asked for screenshots of the last 30 days of Google Analytics data and a geo-traffic report.
Essentially, this means Monumetric (like every other ad network) is looking for publishers that have a decent amount of organic traffic and have users from premium countries, such as the United States, Canada, or the U.K.
This isn’t explicitly stated anywhere I can find, but other ad networks like Mediavine have the same standards and it just makes sense for everyone involved: organic traffic + premuim countries = more money and happy advertisers.
The 10,000 monthly minimum is undeniably the best part about Monumetric.
If you’re at this traffic level and with Adsense or Ezoic, do your revenue and website a favor and make the switch ASAP.
The Onboarding Process
This is how my on-boarding process unfolded:
- I applied to join Monumetric through their website.
- I received an email from my account manager the next day.
- My website was submitted to their advertisers for approval. This process can take 1-2 weeks.
- In the meantime, I scheduled a call with my account manager to discuss goals, strategies, and ad unit placement.
- I provided a few screenshots to help speed up the process, and I created a second user for my WordPress back-end to allow the Monumetric Team to start the setup process once I was approved.
In 1-2 weeks, I was beginning to make money with Monumetric ads.
2 absolutely vital things I want to point out here.
The call you have with your account manager is critical.
In this call, you can and should outline what sort of vision you have for your blog. I explicitly stated I did not want video advertisements, and I also elected to go with a fairly aggressive advertisement layout on both mobile and desktop.
I’ll get to this ‘aggressive’ layout later and the pros and cons, but do some reading/thinking and picture the sort of layout you want. Monumetric is very good at compromising, but they are also ad experts and give great advice. I’m very happy with the layout ideas they gave me, and things have been going well so far.
Note: publishers in the Propel Program have to pay a $99 setup fee. This is absolutely worth it in my opinion since your earnings will most likely make up for it/cover the cost entirely in your first month with Monumetric ads. This fee is paid during the on-boarding process.
Monumetric RPM Performance – Impact On Revenue
To get an idea of how Monumetric has impacted my blog earnings, take a look at the spike in income I’ve seen since implementing them:
As I explain in my post The Road To A $500/Month Blog, the switch to Monumetric has really helped take me to the next step compared to when I had Adsense on my blog.
Adsense had a much lower RPM for me, and I also didn’t have the greatest layout or a support team to work on optimization.
And, most importantly, Monumetric uses a pay-per-view (PPV) system.
Adsense publishers are paid anytime a user clicks an ad unit. In contrast, Monumetric pays per view, and this is important for 2 reasons:
- With Monumetric, you can generate revenue on every website visitor, not just clickers.
- You can expect more stable revenue with a PPV model, assuming your monthly page views are consistent.
Adsense revenue was all over the place.
In contrast, I’m now earning a stable $7-$15/day with Monumetric ads and I can factor this in to decision making (like paying for a website redesign, which is currently in progress).
Alright, so what about site speed?
Impact On Website Speed
Anytime you add something to your website, it will impact performance in some way.
Ad units can be especially demanding on your website, and the fact that you have to serve more stuff to your viewers inevitably slows things down a tad and changes the reading experience.
However, the internet is full of ads, so it isn’t like this is a new concept for readers, and if done correctly, ads shouldn’t negatively impact user experience.
This is where I, along with the Monumetric team, messed up.
I elected to go with an aggressive ad unit placement that had in-content/sidebar ads, and I also wanted to units to refresh periodically.
After running this system for a few weeks, I started to get emails and comments along these lines:
My site was becoming slow and painful to read, and when ad units were refreshing, things just bounced all over the damn place. I apologize to anyone who had to go through that mess of a website.
Thankfully, after emailing the Monumetric Support team with my concerns, the refresh issues were fixed and everything seems fine (I think? Let me know if not).
Now, this brings me to my next (and perhaps most important) point: the Monumetric Support Team.
Publisher Support – My Favorite Aspect Of Monumetric
When you become a Monumetric Publisher, you gain access to a support team that is always an email away from being able to assist you.
I’ve emailed the support team many times since becoming a publisher with requests to change my ad layout, panic attacks over site speed, and a myriad of other questions.
All of my concerns have been appropriately answered within 12 hours or so, and the quality of support is very good.
It did suck to have ads bouncing all over the place, and I don’t really know how that was allowed to happen, but the support staff is great at answering concerns and fixing problems quickly.
Plus, if you are a publisher in a higher tier, you get even more love and attention (each tier gets one level higher in terms of their personalized Ad-Ops service team).
Again, you will not get this type of support with a self-serve ad platform, so keep this in mind if you are on the fence!
Payment Schedule
The Monumetric dashboard makes it quite easy to track your daily revenue and payment schedule:
However, be aware that Monumetric pays in net 60 terms.
This means that after you earn revenue for one month, you will have to wait an additional 60 days for that revenue to be paid to you (assuming it clears, which is should, unless you’re doing some fraudulent stuff…very naughty).
Monumetric currently pays through PayPal if you are not a resident of the United States, while U.S. residents can use direct deposit. Payments are also processed within the first 10 business days of a month.
Monumetric Pros, Cons & Alternatives
It wouldn’t be a fair review if I didn’t go over both sides of the story, as well as some Monumetric alternatives.
The Pros
- Revenue Potential – I saw a 400% increase in revenue from making the switch, and from the feedback I’ve seen, many other bloggers experience the same thing when moving from a self-service platform to a managed ad service.
- Stable Earnings – this is thanks to PPV.
- Great Support Team.
- Ongoing Optimization.
- Low Barrier To Entry – 10,000 monthly pageviews (not sessions) can get you in.
- Low Commission Sharing – Monumetric only takes 15-30% commission on your revenue (this is taken before the numbers you see on your dashboard).
- A Decent Referral Program – Earn 2% of the revenue generated by any publisher you refer for 12 months.
The Cons
- Next-Day Reporting – Unlike Adsense, you don’t see your revenue until the next day. I don’t really care about this, and this shouldn’t be a big deal for most publishers, but keep this in mind.
- Net 60 – Unlike Adsense which pays in net 30 terms, Monumetric pays in net 60. However, this is fairly common in the managed ad universe.
- Setup Fee – Smaller publishers need to factor in the $99 to their earnings.
Now, I left out information about the onboarding process because while I had a stellar experience, it seems many people are not having the same luck:
I’ve seen a few threads like this, and here is what I’ll say.
I get the vibe that Monumetric is a growing, excited tech company with a lot of potential and exciting ideas, but that they are probably swamped with work.
I don’t know if they are short-staffed or undergoing some changes, but it definitely seems like many publishers have to wait a while to get in the program. Again, keep in mind that advertisers also need to approved publishers, so the delay might not be entirely on Monumetric’s end.
Whatever the case, all the changes I’ve seen over the last 2 months have been great…we got a better reporting dashboard, a referral program, and access to blogging training videos and tips. It’s all good stuff so far!
I’m loving my experience with Monumetric so far, and I definitely think it is worth giving them a try!
Edit: 12/04/2019 – one of my friends who runs the blog A Purple Life has shared her unfortunate story of Monumetric onboarding with me.
As you can see from her message, it seems like the Monumetric team didn’t follow what was outlined in her strategy call, and ads were also pushed live on the incorrect date.
A few of her other messages outlined more problems: delayed communication, poor publisher support, and an overall rough onboarding procedure.
My friend’s experience has been completely different than mine, and it’s really unfortunate. I’ve had an amazing experience with Monumetric ads, but you need to proceed with some caution.
Don’t expect a smooth ride, fast setup time, or a flawless launch. Monumetric seems like a young company with a lot of potential in my eyes. However, they certainly haven’t given everyone top-notch service and have a ways to go in the custom service department based on what I’ve heard.
Monumetric’s New Interstitial Ads & Video Ads
I wanted to write another quick update for this review since there’s been some changes recently that should help boost your Monumetric RPM.
Most notabl, Monumetric now lets publishers enable interstitial ads.
Interstitial ads are ads that take up the whole screen and appear between content or activities on a website.
For example, if you enable this feature, a reader can get served a full-screen ad if they click to another post or category on your blog.
Interstitial ads pay very well because of their commanding nature, and if you run a website with a lot of traffic/a news style website, this feature should be great news. Just keep in mind, it does impact reader experience so make the change with caution and monitor feedback.
Another feature that will help your Monumetric earnings is the new video feature.
Monumetric is still rolling this out to different publishers, but you can now upload video content to your blog and have ads play within the video! Pretty awesome!
Monumetric Vs Mediavine
People generally make the Mediavine vs. Monumetric comparison since these are two managed ad services with some of the lowest monthly session requirements.
However, I wanted to update this Monumetric review because things have changed pretty significantly here.
Firstly, I have left Monuemtric for Mediavine because I wanted to try a new ad network out. The change has been phenomenal for my revenue:
Mediavine is basically doubling my advertising revenue per month, and the onboarding experience has also been stellar.
Additionally, I find Mediavine ads perform better, and I haven’t had any issues with ads causing my pages to bounce or lead to an unpleasant experience for readers.
However, Mediavine now has more strict requirements for publishers.
Mediavine used to take 25,000 monthly sessions to apply, alongside having a quality site. It now takes 50,000 monthly sessions.
You can read more about these changes in my Mediavine review. However, the bottom line is that Monumetric is now the best choice for smaller publishers.
Reaching 50,000 sessions takes time, and I even know publishers who are at that amount but have stuck with Monumetric.
My Overall Experience With Monumetric – Final Thoughts
If you’re just starting out and are growing your blog, aim for Monumetric. The revenue boost you can get has the potential to transform your website, and it’s a great alternative to Adsense or Ezoic.
Whatever route you take, I think there are an overwhelming number of benefits to using a managed ad platform instead of something like Adsense or Media.net.
I suggest you take some time to research your options, but also remember to let things play out.
If you pick a network, give them 60-90 days to see how performance shakes out, and try not to be like me and have an aneurysm the second an ad unit breaks.
Just note: if you want to leave Monumetric for another ad program, you must give them 30 days notice. After that, you can take their ads down and integrate a new provider on your website and incur 0 fees. You will still be paid out your remaining ad balance and referral earnings as well.
I hope you have found this review of Monumetric to be useful!
If you want to signup for Monumetric with my code, I would really appreciate the support.
If you’re planning on starting your own blog, I also recommend using SiteGround web hosting to get started. I use SiteGround on every website I launch, and I absolutely love their performance and customer support.
You can also watch one of my latest videos on the exact methods I use to make money blogging!
Catch you guys in the next one.Monumetric Review - Quick Facts
Name: Monumetric
Description: Monumetric is a full-service ads partner that helps publishers monetize their website. With lenient requirements, strong ad performance, and solid publisher support, Monumetric used to be my ad network of choice before This Online World grew and switched to Mediavine.
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Onboarding
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Publisher Support
Tom is a full-time blogger and freelance writer with a passion for side hustling, passive income, and the gig economy. His work has appeared on dozens of personal finance websites like Money Crashers, The College Investor, Investor Junkie, and more. This Online World is all about providing people with honest ways to make and save more money by using technology. To learn more about Tom, read his About Page!
If you’re interested in freelance writing services or want to partner with This Online World, please use our contact page to get in touch!
Kingsley Felix says
Hi,
Do you still use them? I applied recently with one of my site and i already passed internal review.
Also how is the performance and earnings?
I also use ezoic for one other site.
Tom Blake says
Hi there! I currently use Monumetric and I really enjoy the performance so far! I’ve seen far better RPMs than AdSense, and after I had a call with my account manager and talked to their support team the implementation of ads went really smoothly. I definitely recommend following through with them and implementing ads on their website.
One tip I have though is to tell them to make sure ads maintain the same size when they refresh, especially if they are in-post. My ads used to refresh and be reserved as any ad size, and it made the page jump around a tad and was a bad reading experience.
Kingsley Felix says
Thanks for the tips
Kingsley Felix says
I have been approved but they are now requiring the payment of $99 first and i don’t have control of where and how the ads will display
Tom Blake says
Hi Kingsley. The $99 fee is normal for accounts at the first tier of Monumetric’s service. I had to pay my $99 fee, although it was subtracted from the first 30 days of my earnings. Are they making you pay up front?
And have you had a call with an account rep or spoken with anyone regrading your ads? This is a disturbing change if they are now not letting low level publishers have a say in their ad placements. My experience was approval –> call with account manager to discuss strategy –> implementation. Sorry to hear this has been frustrating.
Kingsley Felix says
Hi,
Thanks for the support, it was hell i almost asked for a refund after making payment but they keep delaying because they start from the TOP to BOTTOM after a week of fighting i was allowed to make the placement myself.
So far i am pleased with it, i have submitted second site for review. How are your earnings so far? hope their performance is still good?
Tom Blake says
Hey Kingsley, thanks for coming back with an update! I am sorry to hear the process was so rough, I suspect their team is still swamped like I found when I saw people in various FB groups complaining about the wait times.
I actually contacted my account manager and he informed me they have changed the $99 fee for all publishers in the Propel program (they now pay upfront as you did) so that is a notable change. I’ve updated the review to reflect that now, so great catch!
I’m glad you like Monumetric though! My earnings are still solid. I have almost a $15 session RPM which is much higher than I ever experienced with Adsense so I’m quite happy! Plus performance has been rather steady. That is awesome you have submitted a second website as well! I hope the process goes better on this one š
Sage says
Hi Tom,
I’ve been reading your blog posts for a while. I’m always surprised you aren’t as successful as I think you deserve! I mean, you do write quality stuff and your writing is really great – super engaging. Don’t get me wrong: you’re doing great but for the value and quality you offer, I think you deserve a lot more.
After being turned down by Mediavine (a big blow!), I went for Monumetric. Thank you for the post!
For anyone who wants to try too, my experience has been quite different in that I wasn’t asked for a phone call conversation nor $99 upfront payment. From applying through their website to going live, it took 13 days. So, it’s much faster than expected. All this was done 3 days ago.
Just a quick question, did your earnings grow over time or did you see a spike right away compared to AdSense earnings?
Tom Blake says
Hi Sage,
Thanks so much for reading and the very kind words! I’m so happy to hear you’ve been following This Online World for a while now; I’m humbled actually. I’m really happy you enjoy my posts; I’ve definitely made plenty of blogging mistakes along the way but hopefully we both continue to grow our websites!
That’s awesome to hear you got Monumetric ads up and running so quickly. Your site looks great! š Weird you didn’t get a phone call but perhaps they are phasing that out to deal with the increased demand. Your ad layout looks nice though so I think the support team did a nice job!
My earnings did spike right away compared to Adsense earnings and stayed relatively high for the first 20-30 days. My RPM did drop after I did my redesign and opted for a less aggressive ad refreshing rate/layout than before, and since then it has been remarkably steady. I think it normally takes around 30-45 days at least for all the performance to settle down. I wouldn’t read too much into the early days, but I’d be shocked if they didn’t perform better than Adsense in the long run. Hope this helps š
Kingsley Felix says
Am guessing your pageview was above 60K reason you did not pay the fee…. The entire process took less than a week for me too but where we had issue is implementation of the script
Judy Watson says
I have applied for monumetric and it’s been over 2 weeks with no update. How long does it usually take for you to get approved?
Tom Blake says
Hi Judy. 2-3 weeks is unfortunately pretty standard for many managed ad platforms, especially if they are swamped with applications.
Congrats on applying to Monumetric however! That is a great step in earning more from your blog š best of luck on the application, hopefully they get back to you shortly.
Sabrina Wang says
Great review Tom! I just sent in my application and I’ve also heard that their approval process can take forever, I’m wondering if that’s because they might put you lower on the priority list if your page views are just at the 10K mark. Do you mind sharing how many page views per month you had when you applied? Thanks!
Tom Blake says
That is incredible Sabrina, congrats on applying to Monumetric! š Your theory might be the case. I know I had approximately 15-18k monthly pageviews when I applied. I think the holiday season is also the busiest time of the year for most advertisers so things could be a bit swamped. Fingers crossed everything goes smoothly!
Reverse The Crush says
Thanks for the review, Tom. It’s awesome to see your blog income growing. Thanks for continuing to share your detailed, helpful posts about blogging.
Tom Blake says
So glad you liked it man! š I really appreciate you reading. It’s been awesome seeing your blog/dividend progress as well. Looking forward to an awesome 2020 for the both of us!
Erin says
Hi! I am currently in the process of getting ads on my site by Monumetric. I have approved my layout, but I now think I will need to change things. I was hoping you would have the ads on this post, but how come I am not seeing any? I wanted to see how your layout looked and to try to learn from some of the mistakes you talked about.
Tom Blake says
Hi Erin, thanks for reading and for your question. I have actually switched from Monumetric to Mediavine recently to try out a new ad network. I was happy with Monumetric, but I want to see how my earnings compare now. Sorry I don’t have an existing ad layout as of right now. You can probably tell your account rep to use a more conservative layout/mention my site if it helps. I hope things work out alright!
Vish says
Hi sir Iām interested to join Monumetric but I see you have reverted back to adsense ads have you a bad experience with them?
Tom Blake says
Hi Vish, great question: I should probably update my Monumetric review with this info since you have asked. I have actually switched to Mediavine, another managed advertising platform that is partnered with Google. They are similar to Monumetric but I wanted to test out the difference in performance in earnings.
So far, I prefer Mediavine over Monumetric. However, Mediavine requires 25,000 monthly sessions to get in, and I think Monumetric is a solid choice for smaller bloggers (provided you outline the sort of ad strategy you want with your account manager and that you make sure they implement the ads correctly…some users have had hiccups, myself included). Hope this helps š
Sheina Mendez says
Do I have to have an Adsense-approved blog first to get approved in Monumetric? I know this is the case with Ezoic. I’m wondering if it’s the same with Monumetric. Please advise.
Tom Blake says
Hi Sheina! I believe being Adsense approved will greatly speed up your approval time and make the entire process easier. Monumetric requires publishers to be approved for ad networks, meaning they will have to vet your site and see if advertisers like it anyway. Might as well make some money with Adsense before applying to Monumetric as well š If you are not approved for Adsense I think it is unlikely to be approved for Monumetric.
BC | FrugalWheels says
Interesting – I’m not quite at this level yet anyway, but it would be nice to try an alternative to adsense. I was making some money on adsense but it’s dropped to barely anything and half the times the ads don’t show up on my site. Sounds like this platform has its issues too. That’s too bad. I’ve always heard mediavine is the best if you have the traffic to qualify, but I’m a long ways from that!
Tom Blake says
Hey FrugalWheels! Thanks for reading and the comment! š Monumetric doesn’t have 100% fill-rate either I believe and I know some bloggers complain about onboarding. I will say that no ad-management platform is perfect, although I definitely prefer Mediavine over anything else I have tried. Monumetric RPMs were still higher than Adsense ads for me and I enjoyed my time with Monumetric, and I always think it’s worth trying different ad networks!
Hopefully RPMs increase in the next quarter. 2 steps forward and 1 back and I’m sure you’ll get there eventually with how awesome your content is!
Norbert lacle says
Hi,
Currently I make 30 to 37 dollars a day with ezoic, with 220k visitors per month. I think I am not winning enough but I am a little nervous to change and try another option. Since I started with adsense and they paid me less than ezoic. (My traffic is 90% from the United States). Any help I will greatly appreciate. Thank you.
Tom Blake says
That’s truly impressive Norbert! That’s quite an awesome amount of traffic. I think Monumetric is worth it, but you can also reach out to them and ask to speak to an account rep or something; your level of traffic will definitely get their attention! Perhaps they can answer any concerns better š
Toby says
Hi there Tom,
Great read. Was the more revenue the leading factor to switching to Mediavine? Were Monumetric payments consistent with your traffic per month or did it start to drop off over the months leading to looking elsewhere?
Tom Blake says
Hey Toby, thanks so much! š I’m glad you like the post. And revenue was definitely the leading factor for making the switch. I believe Mediavine has industry-leading RPMs and their support team is awesome.
Monumetric was steady for me, and I really love the company. If you’re under 50,000 monthly sessions (new Mediavine requirements) they are absolutely the ad network I recommend, just can’t argue with the math once you have both options on the table haha. Thanks so much for reading and the comment!