1. Understand Where Users Spend Time on your Site
To best optimize your site with Ezoic for monetization, it's necessary to spend some time finding out what a typical user's journey is like on your site. You can find your top landing pages in Google Analytics by going to Site Content > Landing Pages. You should then check your placeholder setup on those top landing pages by device. You can also do this in Ezoic's Analytics under Content > Landing Pages once there is data showing up for your site:
2. Use LOTS of Placeholders
Insert as many placeholders as you possibly can where there is the content to support it. Depending on content length, most publishers see the best results with at least 15 placeholders per page. The system will not show an ad in every placeholder, it depends on the preference of each individual user. Think of a placeholder as a place where an ad can potentially go, rather than a normal ad tag. Here is more information on how they work.
We encourage you to enable placeholders to auto-detect "similar pages" within the Ezoic Chrome Extension, and then deactivate the extension and browse landing pages with a different layout, theme, or setup to check that these placeholders have transferred across to other pages in the correct positions. If, when you have first inserted the placeholder, you find it does not transfer across correctly, try removing certain sizes or aligning the placeholder differently with the Chrome Extension:
3. Use Placeholders of Every Position Type
You should insert a placeholder of every position type on each of your pages where there is content to support it. These should go in the following descending order down the page: top of page, under page title, under first paragraph, under second paragraph, bottom of page, in-content 1, in-content 2 etc. You should also add top of page sidebar, mid sidebar, and sidebar bottom where applicable. In the Chrome Extension, each "Position Type" is shown as a different colored placeholder - which can be useful when you are checking the setup!
Below is an example of how they will appear when listed in the Ezoic Ads app in your dashboard:
4. Select Multiple Ad Sizes
Try to select as many ad sizes as will fit in each Ad Placeholder location. The system will find the best size to show for each scenario. Below is how to select the sizes when adding placeholders manually in the app in your dashboard:
We recommend using the Chrome Extension to add placeholders (rather than doing this manually within the dashboard) as it's easier and faster to use. Here's some more info on how to use the Chrome Extension.
Below is how to select sizes within the Ad Tester Chrome Extension and enable these for different devices:
If the device icon is green, that means this size is enabled for this placeholder on that device.
5. Placeholders Above The Fold
Depending upon your layout and what content you have at the top of your pages, be careful with Top of Page and Under Page Title placeholders so that you don't enable sizes such as "netboard," which could push content below the fold.
6. Use a range of placeholder types
Anchor ads are ads that stick to the bottom of the screen even when the visitor scrolls down the page. They can provide a great user experience and can significantly increase your revenue for mobile devices. Enable anchor ads by device type by clicking on Ezoic Ads in your dashboard > Ad Types > toggle the sliding switch on. You can click each device image to turn the ad on or off by device:
Native ads and link units can work well on some websites. We recommend creating and placing 1-2 native placeholders on each page. Doing this can increase your revenue by 10 - 25% depending on the site. Native ads can be enabled through Ezoic Ads in your dashboard > Ad Types >Native Ads > toggle the sliding switch on. You can also choose the rating of the native ads to be PG or PG-13:
Then activate the Chrome Extension on your site, and under "Create," click the drop-down menu where it says "Automatically Detect," and select "Native" or "Link," then click "Select Location":
You will need to create a native placeholder in order for native ads to show. Turning native ads on in the dashboard will not show them on the site if a native ad placeholder doesn't exist.
Sticky sidebar ads are like standard sidebar ads, but they will float down the page and stay on the screen as the visitor scrolls (similar to an anchor ad). They can be enabled by going to Ezoic Ads > toggling on the sliding switch:
Then you will need to create a "Sidebar Floating" placeholder by using the Chrome Extension on your site. After choosing the location where you'd like the placeholder to show, select "Sidebar Floating" for "Where on the page is this placeholder?":
7. Mobile Placeholders
It is likely that many people are visiting your website on mobile devices, so you should make sure mobile sizes are enabled for a good amount of placeholder locations.
Here's how to do this with the Chrome Extension:
Make sure there are also sizes selected for mobile devices:
If the mobile phone icon is green, that means this size is enabled for this placeholder on mobile.
8. Be Patient
Testing thousands or millions of ad combinations takes time. Don't fret about daily fluctuation. Testing requires long-term commitment and patience, but the benefits are often astronomical. Depending on your site's size, we recommend giving testing at least 3-6 months to see the full benefits.
9. Deleting placeholders
Try not to delete placeholders after adding them as the system will have already started collecting data about your individual users and generating revenue from different ad combinations. It would be like removing a playing card from a pack - you don't know for whom and in what situation this card would have proved valuable. If you need to disable a placeholder for a certain page or directory, please use the Ad Restrictions section of the dashboard. More information can be found here: How can I disable ads on a page?