Our CEO and co-founder, Eric Hochberger, wrote an excellent article about exclusivity and how it benefits you as a publisher HERE.
What exclusivity means
We require our publishers to give full control of their programmatic advertising to Mediavine.
You can still ...
Run affiliate ads - diversified revenue sources are important!
Take on sponsored and brand work (Learn how to block ads on a sponsored post here.)
Serve directly sold inventory (Mediavine Direct will even help you get paid competitively!)
If you are interested in implementing something on your website but aren't sure if it violates exclusivity, email us at publishers@mediavine.com and we will take a look.
What violates exclusivity
Anything that requires additional lines added to your ads.txt file violates exclusivity.
Ads.txt lines are only required for programmatic inventory.
If the ads you want to serve are NOT programmatic (and so are not a conflict), you don't need an ads.txt line.
Some lines in an ads.txt file will specify that they are DIRECT and others will specify that they are RESELLER, but either instance would allow DSPs to buy through them, which would allow any sort of inventory to serve in the ad slots you have allotted.
Examples of common conflicts that serve programmatic ads are...
Disqus Basic Plan is ad supported
Taboola or Rev Content (require ads.txt lines to be added)
"Testing" other programmatic ads while running Mediavine
How exclusivity benefits you
Exclusivity with Mediavine means that advertisers spend more on every ad served. Higher CPMs = a higher paycheck and a higher overall RPM.
When you run multiple programmatic auctions (which is what's happening when you add extra ads.txt lines), advertisers can take the cheaper route and go around Mediavine's auction. This means they can reach your reader for less. Over time this degrades the value of your inventory, and can erode the trust of advertisers that are seeing your site-wide Mediavine performance metrics to decide how to spend.
In the end, it earns you less.
HOW DO WE KNOW THIS WORKS?
Mediavine was the first truly exclusive ad management company. We implemented exclusive advertising on our Owned and Operated properties in 2015, and have offered exclusive ads to Mediavine publishers ever since.
CPMs are higher when you work with Mediavine because advertisers will pay more for exclusive, highly viewable ads. Exclusivity increases performance so it's great for their return on investment, and it's great for your bottom line.
That means you can run fewer ads and make more money. 🎉