EPMV, or Earnings per 1000 visitors, is a factor that takes into account all aspects of your website that can affect your revenue. It's a true reflection of the value your visitors get from your site as it takes into account how long they are on the site for, how many pages they visit, whether they are new or returning visitors etc, and of course the monetary value you get from each visitor!  You can read more about the way EPMV is calculated here: What is EPMV?

When you see changes in your EPMV there can be many reasons as to why this has occurred. To help you discover the reason behind any EPMV changes we have put together this handy guide. We also recommend that you check out this interactive article for additional insights into how you can improve your EPMV.

The first step is to check that your site is fully integrated with Ezoic, Ad Tester is switched on and that Ads are being shown on your website. You can find out how to do this here: Why Aren't Ads Showing Up On My Site?

What date is the drop in EPMV on? Advertisers spend more on ads at the end of the month - when the majority of people get paid and are looking to spend their wages. Drops at the beginning of months and particularly the start of financial quarters (Jan 1st, Apr 1st, July 1st, Oct 1st) can be steep!  For some sites, over 40% of their annual revenue can be earned in the fourth financial quarter, between October and December due to Black Friday and the Holidays - January is typically the lowest paying month of the year. Of course, the occasional global pandemic can play havoc with ad rates, as we've seen this year.  

Next take a look at the Ad Revenue Index: https://adrevenueindex.ezoic.com/ 

Is the change that you are seeing to your EPMV happening just for you or globally? This can be seen particularly in October to January where advertisers spend more on ads in the lead up to the holidays and then stop abruptly when the January sales starts. If you've been monetizing your site for more than a year or so you'll be able to see these patterns repeat themselves year on year. 

The next steps are to run through the following checks. We recommend that you make notes and take any relevant screen grabs and place them in a word document as you go.

1. What changes have you made to your Ezoic dashboard in the week before you see the change in your EPMV? Some examples of changes that can have big impacts are:

'EzoicAds' Tab:

1. Have you recently deleted any Ad Placeholders? - You can check this through the Ad Placeholders list by clicking on the downward arrow and then clicking on the ‘Deleted’ tab.









2. Have you recently turned off AI Placeholders? - What are A.I. Placeholders?




3. Have you recently turned off Anchor Ads? - How Do I Turn Native Ads or Anchor Ads On or Off?




4. Have you recently made additions to the Disable Ads by Page App? - What Is Ezoic's Disable Ads by Page App?




5. Have you recently configured the Max Ads per Page App? - What Is The Max Ads Per Page App?




6. Have you recently configured the Ad Restrictions App? - What Is The Ad Restrictions App?




7. Have you recently made additions to the Advertiser Blocker App? - What Is The Advertiser Blocker App?




8. Have you recently configured the Ad Categories App? - What Is The Ad Categories App?




9. Have you recently made any changes to Ads.txt? - Everything You Need To Know About Ads.txt

'Content' Tab:

1. Have you recently made additions to the Script Removal App? - How Do I Use The Script Removal App?




2. Have you recently made additions to the Excluded Pages App? - What Is The Excluded Pages App?
   

'Settings' Tab:

1. Have you changed the volume of traffic coming through Ezoic?




2. Have you made changes to the Optimization goals settings?

2. What changes / improvements / additions to the look of your site have you made recently?

1. Have you changed theme? This can remove ad placeholders from your site, meaning that your site will not earn the optimal revenue.


2. Have you updated or uploaded a new blog post? It may be that AdWords is flagging the page as having Objectionable Content. When a page has Objectionable Content, AdWords prevents ads from being shown. You can check this under the ‘EzoicAds' tab, then going to Ad Restrictions and finally Objectionable Content. Alternatively, this is also under the 'Content' tab.

3. What changes have you made to your marketing or SEO recently?

1. Have you stopped or started paid advertising?


2. Have you changed the way you are sending traffic to your site through social media?

4. Has your traffic profile changed? Each country has a different value to advertisers, and changes in EPMV can be down to an influx of traffic from a country that advertisers want to pay less to put adverts in front of. To check this, navigate to your Big Data Analytics and then click on 'Audience' > 'Location' and enter the date range that you would like to look at that contains the EPMV drop and compare it to the same time period in the previous month:

Still not sure why your EPMV has changed? Please create a ticket and send over the information that you have collected during your investigations and our Publisher Success team will take a look at this for you and get back to you within 2 - 3 business days.