Ezoic: An Honest Review for Bloggers and Publishers in the Philippines

If you’re a blogger or publisher, you might have been checking your competitors’ websites all this time, something I’ve been doing too, and might have noticed that ‘EZOIC’ label right below one of the display ads. 

Your competitors must be Ezoic partner publishers who run Ezoic ads and who might be earning way higher than with Google AdSense ads alone.

Quick Take — Ezoic is no doubt a potential alternative to Google AdSense because it offers a higher ad EPMV (earnings) and better Core Web Vitals (page experience) with its AI-powered technology and comprehensive site performance optimization solutions, but it also requires serious work and patience in terms of onboarding, integration, and configuration.

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Upon checking some popular websites in the Philippines and in the same niche as mine, I found out that almost all of them are already running Ezoic ads — Grit.ph, FilipiKnow.net, and DailyPik.com.

Three weeks ago or earlier before my Holy Week trip to the province, I also jumped on the bandwagon, started rolling Ezoic ads on this blog, and got clear answers to my questions, particularly to whether Ezoic really pays higher than Google AdSense alone.

Now, I see a daily uptick in my blog’s EPMV (earnings per thousand visitors), but for a three-week observation time, this hasn’t matched yet the usual earnings I make with Google AdSense. It started at as low as $0.57, and now, it is hitting a $1.47 EPMV. 

I just don’t panic. Ezoic says that the normal pattern of site optimization for ads is 12+ weeks (around 3 months) on average, but other publishers see amazing results in as early as 6 weeks. With the pageviews my site gets, I am confident that I’ll be able to hit a $5 EPMV mark the soonest.

Ezoic — Site and Ad Optimization Platform

Ezoic is an end-to-end website optimization technology solutions platform founded in 2010 that helps tens of thousands of bloggers and publishers around the globe to improve their ad revenue, traffic, search engine optimization (SEO), website speed, infrastructure, and regulatory compliance, among others.

Ezoic uses machine learning. It lauds itself as the first in the industry to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into its products and services. With its AI technology, it cuts the guesswork, learns about the website layouts and visitor behaviors, and then tests the best possible and highly optimized ad placements and ad types.

It is also a Google Certified Publishing Partner, meaning it is an accredited service provider with business operations built around helping other digital publishers access and succeed with Google brands such as Google AdSense and Google Ad Manager, and is thus committed to a healthy digital ads ecosystem.

Ezoic Versus Google AdSense

While Ezoic delivers ads from Google AdSense and DoubleClick Ad Exchange to its partner publishers, it is considered by many as a Google AdSense alternative.

In quick contrast, here are the key differences between Ezoic and Google AdSense:

• Ezoic is, for the most part, a site optimization platform that offers AI-driven and other powerful tools for optimized ad placements and Core Web Vitals improvement. Google AdSense, on the other hand, is an ad delivery network that places ads served by Google Ads (another platform where advertisers bid for advertising spaces) on publishers’ websites and other digital content.
• Bloggers and publishers may directly apply for Google AdSense to monetize content and display Google ads on their websites or use other third-party ad management platforms or intermediaries such as Ezoic, Mediavine, and Publift.
• Both Google AdSense and Ezoic do not require a minimum number of visitors or pageviews to get approved, but Ezoic requires an ‘Access Now’ course for websites with less than 10K monthly visits.
• Ezoic focuses on ad management and site optimization, while Google AdSense on audience-targeted ad displays.
• Google AdSense integration requires a simple code to add to the header.php of the site, while Ezoic integration comes more complicated which involves changing name serves, CDN configurations, or WordPress plugin installation. With this, it is common for publishers to encounter issues during the onboarding process.
• Both Ezoic and Google AdSense offer publishers control over ad placements and ad types, but Ezoic provides more optimization tools. Google AdSense also has auto ads. Ezoic has an AI ad tester.
• Ezoic ad testing usually leads to 10+ ad displays per page but remains compliant with existing advertising policies, and this is just something that publishers do not do with Google AdSense.
• Ezoic pays based on ad impressions (EPMV), while Google AdSense pays based on both user clicks (CPC) and ad impressions (RPM, although very small unless from Tier 1 countries, and the Philippines falls under Tier 2).
• Ezoic makes a cut of 10% from publishers’ revenues for Ezoic Standard, while Google AdSense gets a 32% revenue share. Ezoic also offers the Ezoic Premium program with subscription fees.
• Google AdSense requires a $100 revenue threshold for publishers’ payout. Ezoic comes with a lower payment threshold of $20. Ezoic also offers more payout channels for a net 30-day schedule.
• Ezoic and Google AdSense can be utilized at the same time, along with other header-bidding ad networks with the Ezoic Mediation feature. Ezoic can also display native ads such as from Taboola and Outbrain.
• Ezoic provides publishers with knowledge-based and ticket-based support and even assigns onboarding specialists. Google AdSense doesn’t.
• Ezoic tends to be more lenient than Google AdSense when it comes to policy violations. It normally sends a written notice asking publishers to rectify the issues.

Ezoic Onboarding and Optimization Tools

Ezoic offers a pretty intuitive platform that comes with various optimization tools and configurations that may easily be turned on and off. 

• Onboarding and Integration. There are three ways how to integrate your website with Ezoic — cloud integration by replacing your current name servers with Ezoic name servers, cloud integration via CloudFlare CDN, or a WordPress plugin (slower than cloud integrations). I had my website integrated by changing the name servers, and it was fast and easy because Ezoic has a specialized guide for SiteGround-hosted websites. 
• Google Ad Manager MCM Delegation. It is required for publishers to delegate a third party like Ezoic to manage an ad inventory through Google Ad Manager Multiple Customer Management (MCM) so a Google Ad Manager account is just important.
• Google AdSense Domain Approval and Mediation. Google AdSense domain approval (for existing Google AdSense accounts) and mediation link setup are also required to start running ads and allow Google AdSense ad bids, but these took me two weeks or more of waiting. 
• Ad Placeholders Setup. Ezoic requires at least 10 initial ad locations or placeholders which may be identified and set up in three ways — through a WordPress plugin, Ezoic’s Google Chrome Extension, or manually adding an HTML code. Among these three, the easiest and what I also did was install the Google Chrome extension and manage the placeholder settings. 
• Leap. It is a seemingly comprehensive site optimization tool that improves the functionality of the website, particularly the Core Web Vitals, by finding the causes of decreased performance and by providing automated solutions including site speed optimization and best cache configurations. 
• Flickify and Humix. Flickify is an article-to-video converting tool, while Humix is a video management suite that displays videos on other sites for revenue. Both of these tools provide increased revenue potential.
• NicheIQ. It is a specialized suite of search engine optimization (SEO) tools that helps websites and pages to perform better in search engines through keyword research, competitor analysis, and other topic investigative works.
• Big Data Analytics. It gives publishers access to data and information reports needed to fully understand how visitor behaviors, content engagements, SEOs, and other factors directly affect ad revenues. With these reports, publishers can scale data-driven decisions to increase traffic, revenue, and overall website growth.

Ezoic Earnings Potential

While there is no clear-cut answer as to how much a website will earn from Ezoic ad displays, EMPV (earnings per thousand visits) is a metric used by Ezoic and partner publishers to quantify, track, forecast, and improve ad earnings. 

It is usually compared to Google AdSense RPM (page revenue per thousand impressions) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions); however, the latter is much of a metric for advertisers, not publishers.

Some articles say that the current ad CPM rates in the Philippines, a Tier 2 country, range between $0.10 to $0.25, and these still depend on many factors such as ad formats, device types, targeting, and others.

EMPV, a more inclusive earnings metric, is calculated by using the formula: total earnings divided by (visitors / 1,000). 

In reality, Ezoic earnings are affected by many factors such as the number of visits, the number of ads shown during each user session, the bounce rate of each landing page, pages viewed per visit, upstream traffic source, time of day, type of ad (display, native, inline, etc.), RTB bidding parameters of ad, viewport size, the connection speed of the user, seasonality and just tons of many other factors.

While many Ezoic reviews published online are motivated by hidden or explicit agenda of earning referral commissions, i.e., a whopping 3% on lifetime Ezoic earnings of referred websites, the increased revenue testimonials are just enticing.

• Ask Eustache, an affiliate marketing blog, says it makes $20 EMPV on average.
• One Hour Professor says Ezoic helps him earn $12,000+ per month.
• Radical FIRE observes an Ezoic EPMV increase from $13.50 to $28.15 (109%) and an ad revenue increase six times or 629%.
• Digital Nomad Wannabe also sees an increase in blog earnings by 508%.
• Living Off Cloud also makes a good testimonial with a 300% increase in ad revenues.

Ezoic Honest (and Experience-Based) Review

It was late last year when I received an unsolicited email invitation from Marija of Ezoic about the advertising opportunity. I tried signing up, but it didn’t materialize because of a big Google Ad Manager account issue. 

I remembered I changed my email address for all Google accounts, and I was annoyingly notified by Google about the ‘duplicate account’ issue over and over again upon trying the Ad Manager Multiple Costumer Management (MCM) delegation. I couldn’t find any fix. Ezoic couldn’t find either. I gave up.

Ezoic Onboarding and Integration Struggles and Support. In mid-March, I found myself curious again and tried figuring out the issue. It was unexpectedly an effortless fix — I just clicked on the ‘troubleshooter’ link and voila, it worked. I had the onboarding in thirty minutes or less but was left hanging for the next 14 days by Google AdSense domain approval for Ezoic. 

On the 15th day, I already submitted a ticket about still not getting approved which Ezoic communicated directly to Google for a follow-up. I saw it cleared on that day itself same with Ezoic ads which started to get visible on the configured placeholders. 

By the way, Ezoic’s customer support is excellent. I was assigned an onboarding specialist. Ben might have been busy most of the days when I needed him, but other specialists were very responsive to my tickets. Ezoic’s Support Community is also a great place to find answers to most of my questions and get some help I need.

Apart from the 14-day hiatus, managing the Leap configurations was also a bit of a headache. I run my website with SiteGround and with its SG Optimizer which Ezoic tags as an incompatible plugin with its Leap, a speed optimization and caching tool.

In one instance, the ad displays and the comment form extended far outside the viewport. In another, all featured images appeared blurred, and captions got bigger and the same in font size as the main text. Social share buttons got compressed and no more spaces between them. 

It was a total mess, but I managed to fix these issues one after another. That was by making the Leap configurations work for my site structure by trial and error, even by shrugging off some important optimization suggestions. 

Improved Core Web Vitals with Ezoic Leap. Anyway, my site currently has a 95 Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, and CLS) score for mobile and 92 for desktop. These scores even went as high as 100 when Ezoic ads were not rolling yet or during the 14-day wait period for Google AdSense domain approval.

I have been doing the speed-check as well with PageSpeed Insights, GTMetrix, and Pingdom, and positive results are just consistent. I couldn’t have these scores with SG Optimizer and SiteGround CDN alone.

Gradual Ad EMPV Increase. I might have started with a very low $0.57 EPMV on the first day, but I am positive and confident about the increase as I see an uptick in the earnings day by day. Now, it is hitting a $1.47 EPMV mark.

In 23 days of running Ezoic ads on this site, I have earned $20.99 (although less than half of what I usually earn with Google AdSense alone on good days) with an average EMPV of $1.04 which is still way lower compared to the $10 – $40 EMPV average across all niches based on what many online articles and reviews say. I’ll be happy already even with a $5 EPMV. 

Lots of factors, known and unknown to me, contribute to the ad EPMV of my site. Ezoic’s AI-powered tool is still learning the site structure, the best places for ad placements, and the best ad types to display. 

Also, the majority of the site visitors come from the Philippines which is a Tier 2 country, but interestingly, I see a significant increase in visits from Tier 1 countries (USA, Canada, and Australia).

Equally important to note, I haven’t activated vignettes, side rails, and even floating video ads yet as I find them obtrusive and may negatively affect the user experience. But I might still reconsider activating them in the future. 

Final Thoughts

Based on my experience and in the light of this review, I can say that Ezoic is no doubt a potential alternative to Google AdSense because it offers a higher ad EPMV (earnings) and better Core Web Vitals (page experience) with its AI-powered technology and comprehensive site performance optimization solutions.

However, it also requires serious work and patience for onboarding, integration, and configuration, and this may just frustrate many publishers, especially those who may not have the skills and time to deal with the technical aspects.

Read also:

How to Add Google AdSense Ads Inside Blog Content (Between Paragraphs) Without Plugins. This article provides simple but very helpful instructions on how to add Google AdSense codes inside the text content or between paragraphs without installing any WordPress plugin.

How to Receive Google AdSense Payments by Bank Transfer [Philippines]. While Google AdSense payout via Western Union is no longer supported, this short article shares the easy-to-follow steps on how to get paid by wire or bank transfer.