Monumetric is a premium ad network for bloggers wanting to monetize their websites with display advertisements and make passive income. It’s the very first ad network I partnered with as a new blogger and I learned so much from my experience working with them.
In this Monumetric review, I’m pulling back the curtain on my experience with this ad network and spilling the tea on everything you want to know about Monumetric.
How much money can you make with Monumetric payouts? How does Monumetric vs Mediavine compare? How does Monumtric vs Adsense compare? What about the Monumetric requirements, income reports, or early termination fee? This, and much more.
Getting started with Monumetric
When I first started my blog I couldn't wait for the moment when I could finally start making some money from it. Id’ spent countless hours creating blog posts, promoted like hell on Pinterest, and my blog was finally starting to gain some real traction.
All the blogging gurus swore by monetizing passively. And one of the best ways to monetize a blog passively — display advertising.
I read everywhere that monetizing with display advertisements was a great way of making passive income from blogging. The problem was, all the best ad networks (Adthrive, Mediavine, Ezoic, and Monumetric) all had a minimum requirement of tens and even hundreds of thousands of monthly page viewers in order to qualify.
The only option that had no such requirement was displaying ads via Google Adsense. I’d heard, however, that the money I’d make with the Adsense payout wouldn't even be worth the trouble. As they pay pennies on the dollar compared to premium ad networks. I don't know why this is or if this is even true, as I didn't even bother to go down that road.
After much research, comparing amongst the top premium ad networks and reviewing their minimum requirements, I finally decided that Monumetric would be the right ad network for me.
What is Monumetric?
Monumetric is an ad network. In simple terms, Monumetric, like other ad networks (Adthrive, Mediavie, Ezoic), acts as a sort of middle man between advertisers and publishers/bloggers.
Because what a mess it would be if big companies needed to communicate directly with hundreds of thousands of individual bloggers to facilitate displaying ads on their websites. And vice versa, ad networks like Monumetric also make it a very easy process for publishers and bloggers to display advertisements on our websites and make money doing it.
Why Monumetric?
While many blog gurus raved about ad networks like Adthrive and Mediavine, at the time, I did not meet the minimum requirements of the aforementioned networks.
I ultimately decided to work with Monumettric, quite frankly, because it was the most reputable Ad network I could qualify for at the time (not as if there are a ton to choose from anyway). I wanted to start making money with my blog ASAP, and so, it was between Monumetric vs Ezoic (both have comparable requirements easy for new bloggers to qualify for).
I’d also heard good things about Monumetric in Blogging groups on Facebook, and so I decided to give them a try.
Monumetric Requirements
If you're a new blogger or website publisher with not too much website traffic yet, you may be looking to qualify for Monumetrics introductory program — Propel.
Propel is the perfect program for any website owner looking to focus on growing its site into a full-time business.
How To Qualify for Monumetric
- Have a WordPress Site. Sorry, Wixers and Square Spacers. Perhaps now is a good time to consider switching over to WordPress? It’s really not so bad over here (and we’re making money with ads)!
- Switching to WordPress is really very easy especially if you use a fabulous hosting company like Bluehost and their one-click WordPress installation. Bluehost even offers a service where they’ll migrate your current site over to WordPress for you.
- Have a sidebar on most pages of your website. The posts or pages on your website must have a sidebar of at least 300px wide. This allows prime real estate where many of the ads will be displayed on desktops. You can easily create a beautiful website with a sidebar like this one you're on or this one (my lifestyle blog) using Elementor.
- Have 10k monthly page views. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. If you're not at this traffic threshold just yet, check out my blogging ebook where I outline how I’ve grown my blog traffic to 10k+ monthly visitors in the first 2 months.
- 50% of your website traffic is from the USA, UK, Canada, and/or Australia. Because these are the countries where capitalism and consumerism reign king and where the big spenders are honey.
- You’ll also need to pay a $99 one time implementation fee. But worry not, because you’ll make that back in no time at all once you’re approved.
- You’ll also need to be approved by their major advertisers and agree to display a minimum of 6 ads on the pages and posts you decide to display ads. That’s right, you don’t have to display ads on every single page, you can choose which pages and posts you want ads displayed.
If you meet those requirements go ahead and head over to the Monumetric propel program page and sign up to get started!
What is the application approval process like?
Monumetrics application and approval processes are quite straightforward. Firstly, fill out the submission form on the website. Once you’ve completed this step, wait for Monumetric to review your blog content and for their advertisers to approve you. Once you're approved, you’ll then pay the $99 implementation fee. Shortly after, you'll be contacted by a member of the Monumetric support team via email where they'll advise you — you're approved!
It will take at least a few weeks for the entire process. If at any point in the process you have questions regarding the status of your application, don't hesitate to reach out to their excellent support team. They are very expeditious with their email correspondence.
My experience with Monumetric
My experience with Monumetric from the very beginning was quite good. The Monumetric support team is on it as far as answering questions and ensuring that everything on your website is set up and working properly.
But I know more than anything, you probably want to know about my experience with Monumetric regarding the money honey. How much money was I making with them? What were the payouts like? What kind of RPM rate does Monumetric offer? And so, let’s get right to it!
Monumetric Payout and Earnings
When my Monumetric dashboard was first activated I was able to see my website traffic being recorded, earning however took some time to display. I reached out to the support team who informed me that everything just the setup was not yet finished and to give it some time.
Even after you’re approved and have a dashboard setup, keep in mind it takes a few days to see how much money you’re earning each day.
After a couple of days, I again had some questions about my Monumetric account and dashboard that I reached out to their support team regarding.
1. The last couple days my RPM has fluctuated between .20 cents and .90 cents per 1k page views / per day. My expectations of Monumetric are somewhere between $7-20+ per 1k page views / per day. The current numbers are a bit underwhelming, and nowhere close to my expectations. I'm hoping you could lend some clarification on this discrepancy.
2. I want to be a fantastic publisher with Monumetric and provide as much value for advertisers as possible. It would help to understand the following. How RPM is calculated? How can I optimize best the success for advertisers and revenue for my blog?
In response …
At Monumetric, the definition of an RPM is revenue per 1,000 pageviews. This is the clearest way to understand how ads earn money from the traffic visiting your site.
Be careful to not attribute another's definition of this term to Monumetric's definition. Ad networks define RPM differently which can make things pretty confusing.
Adsense, for example, uses RPM to track the revenue you make from 1,000 ads purchased on your site while some other ad networks use RPM to tell you how much you make per 1,000 sessions.
We like to see an average RPM of between $4-$6. The ramping up period is 30-60 days and after this, we can really get a pretty accurate picture of how the ads are going to perform on your site and what we are going to be looking at revenue-wise. If after this point, you just aren't seeing those RPM numbers at what you would like, we can take a look at your ad strategy and work to boost your RPM!
Thereafter I jumped on a phone call with the Monumetric team, were a gracious team member broke everything down for me. As it turns out the calculation of the RPM or how much money you will make with your blog has many aspects to consider. This, in addition to the fact that I was very new with them, resulted in my disappointingly low payout numbers.
But I stuck it out with Monumetric for some time.
Clear of the 60-day introductory period, while I do see a slight improvement in the RPM, the numbers are still not what I was anticipating with Monumetric.
Monumetric…
I have an update for you. We have included some additional ads for you and you should be on your way to greater earnings, however, there is a small caveat at this time.
With the addition of more ads, you will see increased earnings, but maybe not as much as we normally would because online advertising is not immune to what's happening with other businesses in regards to COVID-19. The country is heading toward a recession, so companies/brands aren't spending money as they normally would.
Typically advertising is one of the first budgets to get cut in order to keep employees employed and the business afloat. This is not going to be a typical year for ad spend or seasonality so it's harder for us to predict quarterly trends. Starting in mid-March CPMs across the industry have fallen off as advertisers have been adjusting their spending. This is leading to fewer impressions being purchased and therefore lower RPMs.When CPMs drop RPM drops.
(Ads/PV * CPM = RPM)
The best way to increase performance in these uncertain times is to add more ad units! Right now impressions just aren't that valuable, so adding more possible impressions seems like the best way to go to increase revenue at this time. This is exactly what we've done for you!
The good news is we fully expect a recovery from this. We are staying optimistic and know as conditions begin to improve and stabilize, advertisers will loosen their wallets again and start to bid higher. It will likely start with one player bidding a little more and the others will quickly follow suit. While we can't predict exactly when this will be, we know, if we hang in there, it will happen.
Monumetric Earnings and Payout
I had heard from other bloggers how much they were making via their ad networks. And again to be fair there are many things to consider with regards to how much money you will make with display ad revue through an Ad network (including Adthrive, Mediavine, and Ezoic). Considerations such as where your traffic is coming from (Google vs direct vs Pinterest), how long people are staying on your pages, how much they are scrolling, and much more.
But the payout numbers I was seeing in my Monumetric dashboard was really quite low for what I expected.
[Sidenote] FYI, another way of earning money with Monumetric is via their affiliate program. Monumetric offers a 2% commission on the referred publisher's 12 month's worth of earnings, however, the referral commission is only offered to current publishers. If you are not affiliated with Monumetric, you aren't eligible for the referral bonus.
Why did I decide to leave Monumetric?
Although I had an overall good experience working with Monumetric and I think they are a great start for new bloggers, once my blog grew to the 50,000 sessions required by Mediavine, I decided to make the switch.
Leaving Monumetric was a very easy process. I simply wrote them an email advising that I’d be switching to another ad network.
In the Monumetric Terms and Conditions, they ask that you provide a 30-day notice before you remove your ads or accept an early termination fee. If you remove the ads before the 30-day notice ends, a $.20 eCPM fee from your last 60 days’ performance will be applied to the payments still owed to you. (As long as you stay compliant with the notice, your payments will continue to be paid to you in full as stated in the payments section of the Console.)
If our ads remain on your site for longer than 72 hours after the 30-day notice period is over, your site will remain active and require another 30-day notice before the ads can be removed.
To remove your ads, it's as simple as removing the Monumetric Plugin from your WP admin account.
Once I was approved with Mediavine, I accepted to sacrifice the Monumetric early termination fee. I’m definitely glad I did because what I now earn with Mediavine I've more than made up for.
Conclusion of Monumetric Review
I had a good experience with Monumetric overall and I’m certainly happy that I was able to make any money as a new blogger with them.
Since switching over to Mediavine, however, I can not deny the fact that this switch doubled my ad revue earnings.
I can not speak to their higher tiers of Monumetric such as the Ascend or Stratos program and if their payouts are perhaps more comparable to Mediavine as I have no experience with them. Monumetric is a great ad network for bloggers who meet the 10k monthly viewers and are still growing their website traffic.
If you're considering Monumetric, I hope you found this guide helpful to make the right decision for you. Learn more about the strategies I used to grow my blog traffic and replace my full-time in my blogging ebook.
