“Should I Hold Out for Mediavine?”
An Honest Assessment of Mediavine Requirements (2023)

Maybe you pressed publish that first time without realizing what was next. If you’re like me, you just wanted to start a blog, share your perspective on the world, and maybe get some niche-dependent perks on the side. (A lifetime of travel is one great one for me as a travel blogger!)

But there is so. much. more. to being a blogger than just writing and hitting publish. You’ve got to figure out how to get traffic (I recommend SEO and email), and then, if you want to earn money, you’ve got to figure that part out too (I recommend affiliate marketing, display advertising, and selling products and services).

Today I want to talk about part of your “monetization strategy,” getting all fancy in the business terms. I’ve been blogging for a decade, have made lots of mistakes, have learned and gotten better, and then made new and different mistakes in growing my business. One thing that has allowed me to keep going so long is my relationship with Mediavine, an ad network you’ve probably heard of if you’re reading this post.

As your blog grows and you consider how to make money from it, you’ve probably looked at different ad networks and are curious what the right strategy should be: Put ads on your site from day one? Step up the ladder of ad networks as you qualify? Or hold out for a good ad network like Mediavine?

Below I’ll share the latest Mediavine requirements as of 2023, and my thoughts on them. I’ll end with a suggestion for what you could do with your site at different traffic levels, and leave the ball in your court. Ready to figure out the next step in your plan?

Mediavine Requirements in 2023

As of writing this in early May 2023, here are the requirements as stated on the Mediavine website:

50,000 sessions in the previous 30 days (per Google Analytics)
Good standing with Google AdSense
Original content in ANY niche as a lifestyle publisher
Long-form, engaging content

Mediavine

As you can see, the only quantitative factor you have any control over is that traffic number: 50,000 sessions in the past 30 days. Depending on where you’re currently at, that could seem like Mount Everest.

In the rest of this post, I’ll focus on that specific part of Mediavine requirements to help you get a sense of what you can do and whether it’s worth holding out for Mediavine.

Is 50,000 Sessions a Fair Requirement?

Mediavine wasn’t always this way. Anyone used to be able to apply with 25,000 monthly sessions, and –once that first site was approved – could apply with additional sites at 10,000 monthly sessions. But in June 2020, the heart of the pandemic when travel bloggers’ businesses were being slaughtered, Mediavine raised its requirements: now, every site must meet 50,000 monthly sessions, even if you already have a site on Mediavine. (There are exceptions to this if you earn more than a certain amount on one of your sites.)

I know friends who were almost at 25k sessions before June 2020, and who still aren’t in Mediavine due to these new requirements. I’m still salty about it; good bloggers and site owners are stuck out in the cold waiting for Mediavine.

What prompted me to sit down and write this post was the realization that even I would struggle to meet Mediavine’s requirements in a reasonable amount of time.

For context, here are all of my main sites right now, when I started them, when I hit 50k sessions in a month (if I did – many of them have not yet!), and how old the site was when that happened.

Site	Started	When I Hit 50k Sessions	Site Age at that Point
Valerie & Valise	October 2013	March 2019	65 Months
Space Tourism Guide	November 2017	January 2019	14 Months
Discover Sausalito	January 2020	Still haven’t…	40+ Months…
Follow the Butterflies	April 2020	Still haven’t…	36+ Months…
London On My Mind	January 2021	Still haven’t…	28+ Months…
Great Plains Travel Guide	March 2021	Still haven’t…	26+ Months…
Jordan Traveler	May 2021	Still haven’t…	24+ Months…
Eat Like Bourdain	June 2021	March 2023	22 Months

I have some of these sites on Mediavine now because I hit their “Pro” level and it allows me to bring on sites at the lower/original 25,000 monthly session level – but it was humbling, and a little bit infuriating, to realize that I’d still be waiting if they didn’t allow that process for loyal and high-earning publishers like me.

Now, as my friend (and Site School community member) Ashley pointed out, a lot of my sites are in the travel industry and, ya know, a pandemic would slow their growth… but even then – people have been traveling in earnest for at least the last 12+ months and still some of my sites are below the 50k minimum threshold.

There are other factors too, like market size (Discover Sausalito will never make it) and competition (London On My Mind is in an incredibly competitive space), but on the whole, this should be your takeaway:

Be prepared for a long, likely multi-year slog to grow up to 50,000 sessions per month.

That’s not to say you can’t find a niche and build a site that grows quickly; I certainly think Space Tourism Guide did well in reaching 50k in 14 months – it was in a very low-competition niche and there were few outside factors to slow its growth. But to manage expectations, I’d say you should prepare now for it to take two years of consistent, high-value, EEAT-driven, SEO-optimized content to go from 0 to 50k.

So is the 50,000 sessions per month requirement fair?

Honestly, I don’t think Mediavine’s traffic requirement is fair.

I didn’t think so back when Mediavine made the change in mid-2020 (screwing over a lot of my travel blogger friends), and I still don’t think so now.

It might be fair to Mediavine and their bottom line, but it isn’t fair to publishers, especially when Mediavine claims to be the most publisher-friendly ad network out there.

(Honestly, they are the most publisher-friendly ad network, which is why this requirement sucks.)

Getting to 50,000 monthly sessions requires mastery of this whole blogging thing – and for your first site, that’s going to take years. Even if you’ve gotten one site into Mediavine and are trying to decide if you should wait for Mediavine on your second site, it still might take years again. (Hopefully fewer years, but still – years.) Eat Like Bourdain still took 22 months to reach that level – even after doing it twice before.

Well, then what?, you think. Tell me, Valerie…

What Should I Do Instead of Waiting for Mediavine?

Good question, dear reader. Thanks for sticking with me so far. To wrap this up, my advice depends on how much traffic you currently have (monthly, of course).

If You Have Fewer than 10,000 Sessions…

If your traffic is fewer than 10,000 monthly sessions, you need to focus on growing your traffic. Don’t worry about ads yet. You need to figure out what content resonates with your audience, how to rank (or rank better) in Google, and maybe dabble a little bit in affiliate marketing to earn something.

I’m not saying that getting to 10k is stupidly simple, but it’s not that hard. You can do it. I can help you do it. (Comment below and we’ll chat.)

As you’re in this phase of growing your site, you need to get the basics down, and earning a few pennies or even a couple of dollars a month isn’t worth it if it costs you readers or slows your site down.

If You Have Greater than 10,000 Sessions…

Now if you’ve managed to crack than 10k monthly metric, I think you should be considering ad networks that allow you in at a lower level.

I’ve not written about it but I 🤬ing hate ezoic, so I would avoid them at all costs. Adsense won’t pay you enough to justify the headache, either.

Instead, I’d look at a network like SHEMedia. Their minimum requirement is 20,000 monthly sessions, but if you demonstrate solid or growing monthly traffic, you can get in at lower numbers. (Follow the Butterflies has been on SHEMedia for over a year and has never broken 20k.)

I have an entire review of SHEMedia, and it’s not a referral/affiliate program or anything – I just believe they’re a decent alternative to help you start earning money as you continue to grow. Waiting years is unreasonable.

Final Thoughts

Let me be clear here: if you are at Mediavine traffic levels, you should absolutely be on Mediavine.

If you grow to reach Mediavine levels, you should switch your site to Mediavine as soon as you can.

Mediavine is still hands-down the best ad management network out there – they have incredible reporting and customer service, offer tons of extra tools and features, and have a strong community of loyal publishers. I’m one of them, and I move every one of my sites to Mediavine when they qualify.

But if you’re not at that level yet, you need options. You need honesty and support. I hope this post has helped you understand what to do. I don’t know if writing this and being honest might affect my relationship with Mediavine, but I’d like to think they’re open to feedback and also get: I’m not saying to use a different service than Mediavine – I’m trying to suggest what you can do until you get to the traffic levels they require. (Whether I think they’re fair or not is irrelevant – but asking the question probably kept you reading!)

Once you get there, absolutely, 100% apply to Mediavine. It’s a great community and platform that has changed my financial, professional, and personal life. Just… know you have options in the meantime.

Have any other questions about Mediavine requirements or my suggestions here? Let me know in the comments below!