首頁 » Blog » Journey by mediavine review (with low tier 1 traffic)

Journey by mediavine review (with low tier 1 traffic)

by taiwanderjessica
Journey by mediavine review (with low tier 1 traffic)

This journey by mediavine review is based on my Mandarin blog with 85% traffic are from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan. TLDR: I am happy with the results!

Hi, this is Jessica. I’m a professional translator and travel blogger based in Taiwan, where I was born and raised. So far, I’ve had the opportunity to explore 33 countries. In 2023, I embarked on a round-the-world cruise called Peace Boat and flew in business class using my Asia Miles round-the-world ticket. Inspired by these experiences, I decided to start a blog to share my adventures. And now, you’re reading my second blog post, written in English!

What is Journey by Mediavine?

mediavine.

I began using Journey by Mediavine in July 2024, and it’s been four months now. I’m quite satisfied with the platform so far. While my travel blog (with all articles in Mandarin) is primarily focused on the Taiwanese market, I’ve found Journey by Mediavine to be a valuable tool.

Launched by Mediavine in March 2024, Journey by Mediavine is an ad network specifically designed for growing websites. Before discovering Journey by Mediavine, I was unaware of the many other ad networks besides Google Adsense, as most of them require tier 1 traffic and are therefore not widely discussed in the Mandarin blogosphere.

The threshold for joining Journey by Mediavine is 10,000 sessions per month, which is roughly equivalent to 12,000 page views. One of the most appealing aspects of this platform is that it doesn’t have any North American traffic restrictions. Additionally, while writing this blog post, I discovered that Journey by Mediavine also welcomes non-English websites, which solidified my decision to join.

For those interested in applying, you can find more information in the official article for international users: Journey and International Publishers.

Grow: an Audience Engagement Tool

Grow (This is an affiliated link) is an audience engagement tool. To apply for Journey by Mediavine, you need to first create a Grow account, install the Grow plugin on your website, and let it collect data for at least 30 days.

If Journey doesn’t find suitable ads for your readers, Grow ads might be displayed. This can be confusing for new Journey users.

Disclaimer: my review was published before the affiliate program of journey by mediavine was launched.

Journey by mediavine  GROW
Journey by mediavine  GROW

Grow also recommends related articles at the bottom of your pages. I like the layout, but haven’t noticed a significant increase in views per user.

My Journey by Mediavine Experience

Journey by mediavine

I applied on June 27th and installed Grow the same day. To my surprise, my application was approved within 20 days on July 17th. My website data for those 21 days showed 34,700 page views (PV) and 26,000 sessions. Extrapolating to 30 days, that’s roughly 49,500 PV and 37,000 sessions.

By the time I applied, my website had been running for 7 months with 100 articles, focusing on cruise travel, lounge reviews, airline reviews, hotel reviews, and day trip tips (all in Mandarin). My articles are about 2,000 words long in Mandarin , translating to roughly 1,200 words in English.

I know some people wait months for approval, so my smooth process surprised me. Approval time might not directly depend on traffic volume; there are discussions about this on Reddit.

Install Grow for your site and start your journey!

A Mandarin Blogger’s RPM Journey

 Journey by Mediavine

Before Journey, I used Google Adsense for over 6 months with an average RPM (revenue per thousand impressions) just above 1.5. This is likely because most of my readers are from Asia, where RPMs tend to be lower. While other Mandarin blogs reported similar figures, my Adsense RPM actually dropped below 1.5 in the last three months. Interestingly, my first month’s RPM was 2! (for example, Carol from carolblog.tw, whose 4-year-old blog now with 300,000 monthly visitors had an RPM below 1.5 in its first year).

The Elusive Journey RPM

It seems that Journey by Mediavine restricts sharing specific backend data. However, Sheknowsseo analyzed data from 210 Journey users in June, primarily US blogs. Their average RPM was a significant 23! Some websites even report seeing their RPM jump from 5 with other networks to 25 with Journey.

A Taiwan blogger’s point of view

As a Mandarin travel blogger with a majority of my traffic coming from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan, I’m likely one of the first to share my experience with Journey by Mediavine on a non-English blog. While Taiwan makes up a significant portion of my traffic, it’s not even listed as a “country” in any table that could be found online, it might be in Tier 2.

I did some calculation and when I applied in June, I had like 5.8% tier 1 traffic, 77% from Taiwan and 89% from TW, HK and JP. Now I have about 8.6% tier 1 traffic, 65% from Taiwan and 83.3% from TW, HK and JP.

A Rise in Earnings

Since joining Journey by Mediavine on July 17th, my earnings have surged. My daily income surpassed Google Adsense within a month, even though my page views in June, August, and September remained relatively consistent. The only notable change was a 10% increase in sessions during these months.

In August, my Journey by Mediavine income was 1.8 times my June earnings. By September, it had increased to 2.5 times. My October’s monthly earning is almost 4X. I believe ad placement becomes more optimized after a couple of months, so I recommend observing for at least two months.

Tripled Earnings simply by switching to journey by mediavine

I’ve continued writing articles as usual but switched to Journey by Mediavine. Once the system stabilized and learned my readers’ preferences, my ad revenue tripled without requiring me to write three times the amount of content. This experience has been very satisfying, and I’m optimistic about future earnings.

Journey by Mediavine Payment Through Tipalti

Journey by Mediavine uses Tipalti for payments, offering various international payment methods. I personally prefer PayPal but haven’t initiated a payment yet. The payment threshold is $200 for international ACH and $100 for other methods.

Incompatible with Google Adsense

If you want to use Journey by Mediavine, you must deactivate Google Adsense. I deactivated Google Adsense on the same day I joined Journey by Mediavine. However, you can continue using Google Adsense while you’ve installed Grow and waiting for approval.

Payment Details and Comparison with Adsense

Journey by Mediavine uses a NET 65 payment schedule. This means your July earnings will be available for collection on October 5th, and your August earnings on November 5th. I only recently noticed the payment button appearing in the backend starting in October and I’ve received my July and August earning in my paypal account.

While Google Adsense offers some control over ad density, their ads can often be intrusive with various formats. I find it hard to disable full-screen ads when browsing blogs and it’s such a pain in the ass.. Thankfully, Journey by Mediavine’s ads are much more visually appealing. It’s possible to control ad density on journey by mediavine but I haven’t felt the need to change it from the default setting.

Application Notes for bloggers 

To allow Grow to crawl your website data, you’ll need to adjust your Google Analytics background settings to the New York timezone. This may cause a half-day delay in data reporting as Taiwan is in GMT+8 time zone. I lost half a day of data when I made this adjustment in June.

Another point to note: during the application process, there was no option for “Taiwan” as the main traffic source. I chose “Hong Kong” and contacted customer service, but they didn’t seem to understand the issue. This situation repeated with a few different representatives, and it ultimately wasn’t resolved. Luckily, I was still able to place ads on my site, so I decided to move forward. For reference, I use A2hosting ( this is an affiliate link) located in Singapore.

adtxt-out-of-date.

Once your ad placement is confirmed, follow the instructions to upload your ad.txt file yourself. I’ve encountered a few instances where an alert showed a missing ad.txt again and again, requiring me to upload it again. While I’m not sure why it occasionally disappears, it’s not a complex process, especially considering I learned WordPress blogging on my own.

ads-restored.

Grow updates ads.txt from time to time, so if the they made the update and you haven’t updated, yours will be out of date, so you have to download the new ads.txt and upload it again, and it will be fine.

Essential Requirements for using journey by mediavine

Privacy Policy and Domain Age

Before you can place ads, your website must have a privacy policy page. This is a straightforward requirement that can be easily fulfilled by following online guides. Additionally, Journey by Mediavine stipulates that your website domain must be at least four months old.

Adherence to Google Adsense Rules

Your website must comply with Google Adsense’s policies to be eligible for Journey by Mediavine. Ensure that your site hasn’t been flagged for any violations.

Grow’s Subscription Feature

grow-subscribe.

While I initially found it annoying and was unsure about where the email list went, I was happy to see the subscription list and load it to my kit(was converket) email list. You can export the CSV file and import it into your preferred email marketing system. This allows for seamless integration with your existing tools.

I’ve since reactivated Grow’s subscription feature and adjusted the subscription density settings. The subscription pop-up might be a bit intrusive when there are no ads, but now I think it’s worth using it since people do subscribe to it for no reason. 

Conclusion: A Positive Experience with Journey by Mediavine

After using Journey by Mediavine for four months, I’ve been impressed with the results. The ads are visually appealing, and my ad revenue has increased by 4 times. Mediavine has a strong reputation among bloggers as a desirable ad network, and Journey by Mediavine is no exception. As one of the few non-English users of Journey by Mediavine, I highly recommend it to bloggers looking to monetize their content in 2024.

Install Grow for your site and start your journey!

I am using A2 hosting for both of my sites. (This is an affiliated link)

My mandarin version of this review can be found here.

Please check out one of my first blog post about Nikko, Japan

STARLUX Airlines Economy Class: A330neo Taipei to Da Nang Review

Hotel review: A Serene Stay at Kojoen: Snow and Stunning Scenery of Nikko

Discover Nikko’s Winter Magic: A Day Trip from Tokyo to a Snowy World Heritage Site

Leave a Comment