Have you ever scrolled through a blog post on your site and counted your ads 1-2-3-4-5 as you scroll? Did you think "WHOA. Am I running too many ads? Or not enough?"

Did you know that counting your Mediavine ads as you scroll through a blog post is actually NOT an accurate way to know how many ads you're serving? 😮

Mediavine ads serve differently than the ads from any other ad manager, so counting ads on a page works a little differently here. This article will help you to find the answers you are looking for!

Impressions and ad slots are two different things.

You can find the number of impressions (the actual number of ads) that you have served in two places in your Mediavine dashboard.

AD UNIT BREAKDOWN

In the Ad Units section of your dashboard you can see the total number of impressions for each ad unit as well as the number of impressions site-wide.

PRO TIP: Divide total impressions by total pageviews and you will know the average number of ads you serve per page site-wide.

TOP PAGES INFORMATION

Readers use all of the different posts and pages on your site differently, so if you look at the number of impressions served PER PAGE in the Top Pages section of the dashboard, you'll see how the actual number of ads you are serving varies from page to page.

With your Mediavine ads, Impressions per Page includes:

Pages with a high number of impressions are usually well-optimized, engaging, and probably have a higher time on site.

If you scroll through a blog post and count the ads you see 1-2-3-4-5, you are not counting ads, you are counting AD SLOTS.

At Mediavine we tailor every user's experience to their behavior. Ads are only served where your readers actually are. So if your reader uses a Table of Contents link to jump around the post, or a Jump-To Recipe button, most ad slots that they skip effectively don't exist. It's why Mediavine ads are 200%+ faster , and it's also why CPMs (the amount that advertisers are spending per 1000 impressions) at Mediavine are higher. Higher CPMs mean you can make more money with fewer ads.

If you use the ?test=houseads or ?test=placeholders query at the end of a URL to force your ad placements, you are counting AD SLOTS.

Ad slots that are in view can refresh, and again, with Mediavine ads, we only load those ad slots in and fill them with an impression as the reader navigates the page.

Dashboard data will always be the best way to know just how many ads you are serving AND!!! Remember that while sometimes bloggers count ads, your readers really never do.

Watch metrics like time on site, pages per session, and be sure that ads are where your readers actually linger on the page.

Need help? Email publishers@mediavine.com.