We have researched, tested, and re-tested our ad placements to make sure that they are performing at peak levels, have high viewability, and aren't obnoxious to your readers.

In order to make all of that work, we offer data-based recommendations that are pointed at how readers are actually navigating and interacting with your site. These recommendations are a mixture of best practices that result in better readability, viewability, time on site, pages per session, and of course, increased ad revenue.

Most readers are on mobile devices, so they experience your content in one long, scrollable column. In-content ads are placed based on Coalition for Better Ads Standards (CBA), which take into account the length of your content and the width of the device, and then deliver in-content ads based on percentages.

Longer content does allow more available spaces for ad placements (ad slots), and it also allows us to space them out so that you are creating a better user experience. On desktop, longer content allows more time on site for the Sticky Sidebar Ad to remain in view and refresh.

It will always pay off to structure your content into short 1-2 sentence paragraphs, interspersed with images relevant to the content. Readers are visual, and this experience makes for easier reading on all devices.

Making sure that you've written enough words to thoroughly answer questions in your posts gives more for search engines to go on. We recommend no less than 300 words per post, not including the text inside a recipe or how-to card.

Even though desktop traffic is a small percentage of traffic for most websites, making sure that traffic is properly monetized is important.

Mediavine offers just two placements in the sidebar. The most profitable of the two is the Sticky Sidebar Ad. This ad is placed at the bottom of the sidebar and it "sticks" in view as the reader scrolls, and refreshes every 30 seconds.

Advertisers love it, and pay well for it.

Reducing the content in your sidebar will increase Sticky Sidebar ad revenue, but it also creates more opportunities for your readers to engage in a meaningful way.

Sidebars offering too much content and too many choices will typically result in your reader not making any choices at all. So outside of ad revenue, you want to be VERY deliberate about what you are placing in the sidebar so that you can guide your reader to the next place.

Use Page-Level Data

Page-Level Data is a powerful tool that offers a ton of useful information to help guide your optimization efforts. Metrics like Impressions per Page, CPM, and Viewability can help narrow down which posts are performing well and which posts are in need of optimization.

Once your ads have been live for a week, Site Health Checks will populate in your Mediavine Dashboard. These Health Checks will surface opportunities to optimize content to increase both In-Content and Sticky Sidebar ad performance.