Mediavine Journey vs Monumetric – Which is Better?

Upfront Site Metrics and Demographics

As always, it is important to highlight site demographics in comparisons like these, as things like audience location, primary language, and other details can greatly impact your ad earnings.

The Grape Pursuit is primarily read in English (approx 95% of the time), and >80% of readers were from the USA, with another 8-10% from other English-speaking countries. 2/3 of the site traffic was on mobile, and >80% of the traffic originated from search engines.

So while our site is heavily favored in English-speaking markets, we do have a bit of traffic outside of the USA, which could potentially lower our earnings potential compared to, say, my Pittsburgh blog, which is nearly 100% USA-based. Still, solid readership all around, and our traffic ranged from approximately 12,500 to 20,000 page views per month throughout most of our tests.

Monumetric Was a First Mover

I first put Monumetric on my wine blog in roughly 2022, as it was one of the few premium ad networks with a tier for 10,000 page views per month of traffic. As it essentially had a first-mover advantage, I was thrilled to have ads on my site at approximately $10 RPM, all while not slowing my site speed down.

The dashboard on Monumetric was, admittedly, fairly sparse at the time. But as I was making just over $100 per month with no additional effort, I didn't have a strong opinion here- that was truly a nice wine budget for me.

One of the bigger issues I had with Monumetric was that I had to reach out to my rep to turn off ad segments I didn't want (like above-the-fold ads). Over time, I also noticed that new ad types seemed to be turned on automatically without me knowing about them, which left a bit of an unpleasant taste in my mouth overall. Thankfully, these all could be turned off with a timely email to my account rep all the same.

I would have let Monumetric ride on my site longer; however, as 2023 came this particular site was hit in the famous algorithm updates and traffic began to decline (I should note, I do not believe ads were a factor in this traffic change at all). At a certain point, I did not feel like it was worth it to continue to keep ads on the site when I wasn't really making that great of revenue, and I turned Monumetric ads off to wait for a hopeful recovery at a later date.

In mid-2024, a future algorithm update restored my traffic to similar levels to when I was on Monumetric, and I joined Mediavine Journey to see how that ad network performed instead.

Mediavine Journey is Similar, But Feels Better

Similarly to Monumetric, Mediavine Journey required 10,000 sessions to enter; however, my acceptance into the network came at far, far lower figures as my traffic started to rebound. So if you have lower traffic than their published sessions, apply anyway- I've heard acceptance stories from many bloggers in this regard.

Shortly after installing ads on my site, my RPMs jumped to approximately $10 and held consistently from there- also without impacting my site speed. While it would be easy to say that the earnings rates were comparable to Monumetric's, there are two caveats that may not make the figures hard to compare.

• Global ad rates had decreased significantly from 2022 to 2024. Many sites are down 20%, 30%, or even 50% in RPMs from just a few years ago. Comparing RPMs between the two periods of time is rather difficult as a result. Had Journey existed in 2022, I would not be surprised if my RPMs would've been higher than they are now.
• My ad settings for Mediavine Journey are unique in that I am showing fewer ads than their default through use of <div> tag placements which appear to be limiting the total number of ads shown (read more about that in our Mediavine Journey review). Ironically, ads on my site ended up looking very similar to my placements on Monumetric after optimizing their settings; however, had I ran with Journey's defaults, I would also expect my RPMs to be higher simply from showing more ads.

Both of these suggest that Mediavine Journey may be able to earn more revenue when it is all said and done. I just can't say that definitively in this regard due to some of these overarching issues.

Ignoring all of that, perhaps the biggest downside to Journey is that its dashboard is even more limited than Monumetric's. The only tools you have are really one ad density setting, and that's it. If anyone has a primary site on Mediavine's classic product, you'll feel this one is missing, well, everything, and that is a real shame.

If you value control over ads, Monumetric definitely has more going for it despite some drawbacks I experienced.

Mediavine Journey Gets a Slight Edge Overall

Ultimately, Mediavine's Journey and Monumetric feel like very similar products for those in the 10,000 pageview per month traffic area.

Both of my tests amounted to roughly $10 RPM in earnings, with a few caveats that may suggest Mediavine's earnings could possibly trend higher due to an obscure coding situation I have on my site (but, again, I cannot definitively prove it). Both services put a significant number of ads on your site and can feel a bit excessive in their own ways, with Monumetric having slightly better control options overall.

That said, as a fan of Mediavine and a long-time user of their original ad product on several other websites, there is something to be said about the service that I am biased toward. These are minor details like the look of the display ads, backend customer service, and the like- all completely subjective on my end. Throw on that getting into Mediavine's main site product is my long-term goal and, well, I'm happy to be on Journey as a stopgap.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't finish this by reiterating that these two services are incredibly similar, and I experienced pros and cons on each. Give both a try if you like, but for now I'll keep Journey enabled on my site for display ads as my preference.

Have you tried Monumetric and Journey? How did they compare? Comment below to share your experiences!