Charity Ads is an innovative feature by Ezoic intended to enhance website optimization while simultaneously supporting various nonprofit organizations. Charity Ads are displayed when there are no advertisers bidding higher than what the Ezoic system requires. Instead of collapsing the ad space or serving a lower-bid programmatic ad, an ad impression for a charity is shown.
Accepting lower bids might initially seem like a viable option as it allows the website to earn some revenue. However, over time, this approach can significantly reduce the average CPM (Cost Per Mille) and EPMV (Earnings Per Thousand Visitors). By continuously accepting lower bids, it signals advertisers that they can keep bidding lower on your inventory, which is detrimental to revenue optimization in the long term.
Ezoic’s approach also involves optimizing the bid floors on your website through its header bidding platform. This strategy helps increase your ad revenues by raising the average CPM and EPMV.
Previously, Ezoic would collapse the page space when advertisers didn't meet the bid demand. This collapsing action, known as "cumulative layout shift" (CLS), was identified as an issue in Google's Core Web Vitals (CWV) update. To mitigate the CLS issue and avoid lowering CPM, Ezoic now serves charity ads in place of lower-bid advertisements, which in turn helps maintain a higher core web vital score for CLS.
Charity Ads are activated by default for all publishers to support these benefits. These ads prevent space collapse on the page, thereby potentially improving search rankings by enhancing the CWV score for CLS. Publishers who prefer not to use this feature can disable it through the Ezoic dashboard under Ezoic Ads > Ad Campaign. However, disabling this feature may cause ad spaces to collapse, negatively affecting search rankings.
Overall, the purpose of Charity Ads is to positively impact your CPM, improve CWV scores, enhance search rankings, and contribute to charitable causes.