Over the last decade, I’ve had a front-row seat to Ezoic’s evolution, and the transformation has been remarkable. Working inside the company, I’ve watched the technology mature, the products expand, and the support system grow into something that genuinely empowers publishers. I know some people’s experience with Ezoic dates back to an earlier chapter—before many of today’s improvements existed. If that’s you, this post is an invitation to take another look. A lot has changed, and the Ezoic you remember isn’t the Ezoic of today.
What is Ezoic?
Ezoic is a fully managed programmatic ad solution. Their tools provide an easy, scalable way to earn revenue from programmatic ads. Whether you are a content creator, affiliate site or shopify store – there is value in generating extra income for any digital assset.
What’s Changed at Ezoic?
Since most people reading this know what Ezoic is, this post will explore how Ezoic has evolved.
Ad Integration: From DNS to JavaScript
Ezoic used to require website owners to change DNS in order to integrate ads. This was the loudest complaint among customers, rightfully so. It was notorious for crashing sites, conflicting with site features, and slowing down performance.
Fortunately, Ezoic recognized this and now offers ad integration through a simple piece of lightweight JavaScript. It’s fast and leaves minimal room for error. Integrating ads through JavaScript is what every other ad network was already doing so it’s familiar ground.
The other benefit of integrating ads through JavaScript is it allows publishers complete control, for those that want it. While Ezoic does offer a form of ‘auto’ ad placement via JavaScript, you have the option to turn this off and manually place the ads yourself. That way, control over ad placement, size and number of ads per page is no longer dictated by Ezoic but chosen by the publisher.
Ad Quality: A More Superior Experience
Ezoic has always been a Google Premiere Partner providing clients direct access to Google Ad Manager and Google Ad Exchange. While a step above AdSense, Ezoic fell behind competitors who invested heavily into relationships with other advertisers and demand sources.
This is no longer the case. Ezoic has a full blown revenue operations team vetting and securing relationships with advertisers like Amazon. In fact, Ezoic didn’t even have a partnership with The Trade Desk until January 2025. The investment that Ezoic has made in advertising demand is a huge upgrade. The quality of advertising content/creatives is superior and RPMs with Ezoic ads are higher than they have ever been. Please don’t take it from me though. Go explore the most recent threads happening on X, Reddit, etc.
1st Party Data: A Future Trend
One area where Ezoic has stood out is how quickly it adapts to major changes in digital advertising — especially the shift away from third-party cookies. Today, browsers like Safari and Firefox already block these cookies by default, making it harder for advertisers to track users across websites and serve targeted ads. For publishers, this shift has had a real impact: less targeting ability means lower ad competition and, ultimately, lower RPMs.
Rather than waiting for revenue to decline further, Ezoic moved early to build a solution centered on first-party data through its ezID technology.
First-party data is information collected directly by a website — things like email addresses from newsletter signups, user login data, or subscription details. Because this data comes straight from the site owner (with user consent), it is more reliable, privacy-friendly, and far more valuable to advertisers. When advertisers can target users using first-party data, they’re willing to pay significantly more for those impressions.
The difference is measurable. As the graph below shows, RPM and EPMV are substantially higher on traffic where first-party data is available compared to traffic without it.
For publishers, this makes having the right ad partner more important than ever. An ad network that understands how to properly collect, protect, and activate first-party data isn’t just helpful — it’s essential for maintaining strong monetization in a cookieless world. Without a comprehensive first-party data strategy, you’re leaving real revenue on the table.
A Change in the Ezoic Customer Loyalty Program
This is a big one. For a long time, Ezoic customers previously had to pay out of pocket on monthly or annual terms to unlock premium ad rates over longer periods. It was confusing to objectively see how much more you were earning through this program.
Today, Ezoic has a much more friendly program built for retention and customer loyalty. Rather than paying out of pocket for higher rates and long term commitments, you simply commit to a longer term without any fees or changes in revenue share. For each year that customers commit to Ezoic, they earn a quarterly bonus based on earnings.
- 1 Year Agreement: 1.5% Quarterly Bonus
- 2 Year Agreement: 3% Quarterly Bonus
- 3 Year Agreement: 6% Quarterly Bonus
*Example. Let’s say you earn $10,000/month with Ezoic. After signing a 3 year agreement, you receive a quarterly $600 bonus, or $2,400/year.
Here’s a snapshot of what it looks like inside an Ezoic account.
If you are a current Ezoic customer that hasn’t been offered this program yet, I recommend reaching out to your Account Manager as not all customers have been fully transtioned yet.
Expansion into Video
For years, Ezoic’s floating video player has helped publishers generate premium CPMs by monetizing highly engaged visitors with out-of-view, non-intrusive video placements. In 2025, those video CPMs have climbed even higher as advertiser demand for quality video inventory continues to surge.
But the bigger advancement isn’t just about revenue — it’s about control and SEO value. Publishers can now embed the Ezoic video player directly within their content using their own videos. This means your videos live on your site, improve time-on-page, enhance user engagement signals, and contribute positively to search rankings instead of pushing that value to third-party platforms.
Building on this momentum, Ezoic launched open.video, a supplemental video distribution platform similar to YouTube — but with a critical difference: creators maintain true ownership. Unlike traditional platforms where channels can be restricted or removed at any time, open.video allows video content creators to own their audience, subscriber data, and video assets outright, removing the risk of sudden deplatforming.
It’s a new development at Ezoic but I’m excited to see where this goes.
Other Important Things to Know about Ezoic
This review of Ezoic would not be complete without a better understanding of who is eligible to work with Ezoic and how the platform supports you.
Stance on AI
Some networks have strict policies against AI generated content. Ezoic follows Google’s policies against low value content. This means you can use AI tools to assit with content but the content must be original and add value for users.
Ezoic is also more likely to work with you to improve your site’s content instead of deplatforming your domain without notice.
Payment Terms
Simple, straightforward Net30 payment cycles. This is really important for businesses that have to pay staff or reinvest in growth.
Quality vs Quantity
While some networks have strict minimum visitor thresholds, Ezoic is more focused on quality vs quantity. Factors to consider before applying to Ezoic:
- Is my content unique and original?
- Do I have a clear About Page describing the purpose of the site?
- Are navigation elements clear and without broken links?
- Are traffic sources high quality?
World Class Analytics
Ezoic has always been known for best in class Analytics. This hasn’t changed. Ezoic utilizes a clean user interface to produce earnings reports by landing page, category, author and more. This is critical for any creator content strategy.
For advanced users, you can export all reports via an API. If you love data, Ezoc is the place for you.
Extra Services
For those of you seeking a partner beyond ads, Ezoic provides complete white glove service to customers earning over $100k annually. This includes a dedicated Slack Support channel along with ongoing account optimization. What might suprise you is that Ezoic also offers compliementary SEO Audits for these top tier clients. After all, traffic is the driver behind revenue.
How Does Ezoic Compare to Mediavine and Raptive?
At the end of the day, a few ad networks are the measuring stick. I’ve always said that
Ezoic, Raptive and Mediavine are the Big Three. After that, ad performance with other providers typically experience a drop off (Top 10 Ad Networks).
From my persective, both Raptive and Mediavine have both done an excellent job positioning a narrative that their respective platforms are more ‘premium’ or the valhalla for ads. This narrative is strengthened by their stricter visitor thresholds. After all, people seek what they think they can’t have.
However, when it comes down to actual performance; the variance between each network is neglible.
I have the luxury of being exposed to this information. Below is a site’s RPMs in the finance niche that moved from Raptive to Ezoic to Mediavine all within a 3 year period.
| Year | Ad Partner | Average RPM |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Raptive | $59 |
| 2024 | Ezoic | $57 |
| 2025 | Mediavine | $54 |
When it comes down to it, the grass isn’t always greener. One advantage Ezoic has is they allow your AdSense inventory to compete with Ezoic demand. While not a factor for many sites, AdSense performs very well for sites with low engagement and high click-through. I’ve seen other ad networks struggle to compete against these type of sites on AdSense whereas Ezoic does not.
Do you Trust my Review of Ezoic?
My review of Ezoic is based on experience with my personal sites and experience helping customers use Ezoic. Disclaimer: I am an Ezoic employee. While you are entitled to believe I have a bias, I’ve literally compared thousands of websites over a decade. I’ve witnessed firsthand how sites perform on Ezoic vs any other ad network. Mediavine, Raptive, AdSense, Freestar, Publift, Playwire, Monumetric..shall I go on?
I guess what I’m saying is you don’t have to use Ezoic but if you do, you’ll be pleasantly suprised by what’s new and improved.
Follow me on X for more updates or email me directly gbechtold@ezoic.com