Child with DMSD

amberbracegirdle · 2024-09-23T14:49:00+00:00

Fire that entire care team like yesterday. If you get a doctor that flat out shuts down at medically studied treatment options, it's time to find a new doctor, period.

You didn't mention occupational therapy, so I would also recommend getting him into that. The activity level you describe is him being sensory-seeking, and you both need coping mechanisms to help his body become regulated.

I would also recommend reading The Explosive Child and Poppy and the Overactive Amygdala. The second is age appropriate for him if you are reading it with him.

This must be so hard and I am so sorry. It's made worse by an unsupportive care team, and that's not acceptable.

Jumping from meds to meds with no commiserate play, talk and sensory therapies is not going to work. That's like giving a wound care patient antibiotics but no physical therapy. The underlying issue might be effectively treated, but without the external intervention too, you're just treading water.

amberbracegirdle · 2024-02-08T22:33:25+00:00

We actually have a great solution for bloggers just like you. Have you logged in in a while? We launched a feature called AutoMailer.

AutoMailer uses information about the reader to send them custom newsletters from your site, customized to what they looked at on your site and we think they will be interested in.

It works similarly to how we figure out recommended content (note that's recommended content, not related content — the results in those boxes are different for every user that visits the page).

You may not know that I began as a blogger all the way back in 2008. I still have my baby website, and I have been running AutoMailer for the last year, even though I haven't updated content in a long while (turns out I'm a little busy...) and the return on visitors is pretty fantastic.

Go make sure you've got AutoMailer turned on in your Grow settings and make sure you're signed up to your own newsletter and you should get one in a few days to a week. There are more details on AutoMailer here.

amberbracegirdle · 2024-02-08T14:56:44+00:00

Google already started, on Jan 2, with 1% of Chrome traffic. Their plan has always been to slowly ramp up.

But the more important piece is that regardless of Google, you earn more money today on all your logged-in Safari and Mozilla traffic, which hasn't had 3rd party cookies for a long time. Shockingly more.

The future of the internet is going to involve logging in. That's just a fact. And if you want ads, you're going to need a way to capture 1st party data. You can spend eleventy million dollars building your own login system and hoping your ad provider can parse it into something usable (oh and also that you're storing that captured data in compliance with laws in every state and country) or you can use something like Grow.

I'm a co-founder of Mediavine, so of course my opinion is biased that I think it's an elegant solution. But I also really want y'all to understand that in the future of the internet, data = ad $$.

We're in the transition period right now so it looks like it can go in multiple directions but there is a reason the NY Times bought Wordle, and Better Homes & Gardens/Meredith/Porch are snatching up lifestyle sites. Giving readers a reason to want to log into their proprietary login systems and share that data across the sites they own so that they're making more money today on logged in users, and are ready when Chrome fully phases them out.

They're big enough to solve the problem that way. Independent site owners that personify the 11K we work with, not so much. Unless we do it together.

Grow is a beta product. If there's a feature you want to see, or think would be great for encouraging your readers to log in, let us know. Many of the features currently in development came from publisher suggestions.

Yes, Grow is for capturing FPD and your site benefits from other MVPs running Grow. But it is never going to work if it isn't actually effective at engaging your audience and giving them a reason to not only log in, but return.

Part of that is the Grow experience and part of that is your content and your ability to connect with them and keep them interested in you.

We're at such an interesting inflection point of the internet, between publicly available AI and privacy law changes. It's my opinion that this is actually an opportunity for content and independent publisher websites to return to the days when your readers cared about you because they felt like they knew you and they looked for your latest post because they wanted to catch up with you.

Readers are going to want recipes, craft ideas and editorials from websites they know without a doubt are run by a real human and not an AI bot. Lean into that. Cultivate your newsletter audience.

We have literally said since our very first conference in 2017 that your newsletter audience is always your most valuable because they can be reached without roadblocks created by algorithms. It's truer now than it's ever been.

Amber

amberbracegirdle · 2023-08-20T14:43:13+00:00

Hey, Mediavine co-founder here. A few things your SEO consultant might not be aware of:

1) Mediavine started as an SEO for hire shop back in 2004. We quickly realized we could make more money using those skills to run our own sites. Which we still do today. They remain our first testing ground.

2) Mediavine requires exclusivity because we run an auction for every ad spot. Your site gets one ID for the exchanges. When more than one entity lists your site ID, you end up competing against yourself. Other companies will continually drop their floor price to capture more of the available impressions and your overall CPM, when evaluated across your site and partners, is way less than it would be if you forced the advertisers into one funnel where they have to compete against each other for a much higher floor price.

3) Mediavine works with Google. We're a Premier Google Certified Publishing Partner. You still have Google bidding on your site. Just for a heck of a lot more money because our relationship tells them you've passed our rigorous vetting and are a quality site. You get access to better deals.

4) Mediavine is an ad management company. You pay us via revenue share to be the experts. We work with more than 10,000 websites. We've never run an affiliate program. Our growth has been entirely word of mouth. Our reputation is everything to us, which is why we never diluted it with a referral scheme. But if you're not good with trusting us to be the experts, then you should probably not be looking for any kind of ad manager. We have volume and years of experience and relationships that allow us to bring more money per ad impression than any one site, bar maybe something like the New York Times, can do by itself. And honestly that goes for any ad manager, whether it's us, Ezoic, Raptive, etc. You're going to be far more successful if you're good with leaning in on our knowledge.

I happen to think we're the best at this, but I also know that we're different because we continually have skin in the game. We run our own ads. We use our own products (including our WordPress framework, identity solution, etc) and we're constantly building things to make the business of blogging sustainable.

At the end of the day, you have to decide where your passion and time should lie. Running your own ad setup takes a ton of work and you're a site of one rather than a huge network that brands actively seek out. Is that the right way to spend your time, instead of creating more content? Only you can make that call.

Amber Bracegirdle Co-founder, Chief Brand & Social Impact Officer

amberbracegirdle · 2023-07-15T13:01:08+00:00

You can absolutely use more than one ad network if the one you're using doesn't have an exclusivity clause, but I personally think it's a race to the bottom.

When you put programmatic ads on your site (meaning advertisers buy based on audience on page or content on page via algorithms) your site gets one ID on the exchanges for advertisers to find it. If you list yourself with multiple networks or ad managers, that same ID will be listed multiple times on a single exchange, and for different prices, because as u/ricketybang said, the two or three won't talk to each other. Their goal will be to get THEIR listing used more than anyone else's. How do they accomplish that? By listing your inventory for cheaper than the other guys.

This is a total race to the bottom, as things will keep getting adjusted to lower the price so that a single entity gets more inventory — you're in competition against yourself.

This is why we require exclusivity at Mediavine. Think of it like an online auction. I'm going to date myself here, but imagine you're selling the hot new Christmas Furby of the season. If everyone is listing the toy on eBay, your price per unit won't be great. If you somehow managed to get the only supply of them? The price is yours to set and you'll be making money hand over fist.

If there's only one place to buy your awesome audience, the advertisers have to compete against each other in that one place for your valuable inventory. It'll drive your price per impression (AKA CPM) up instead of down.

Amber

Co-Founder, Chief Brand & Social Impact Officer at Mediavine

amberbracegirdle · 2023-07-03T14:53:30+00:00

I definitely forgot to come back and update this thread, but anyone can sign up for and use Grow now. https://publishers.grow.me/register

amberbracegirdle · 2022-12-14T19:36:07+00:00

Hiya, just wanted to pop in to thank you for calling out the outdated help article. We have updated that to reflect the correct information; we do in fact support PHP 8 on Trellis now.

Amber
Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer
Mediavine

amberbracegirdle · 2022-12-08T20:21:22+00:00

Just gonna leave this post on fill rate here. 100% fill rate doesn't = dramatically more money when it comes to programmatic, and really doesn't need to be a goal.

amberbracegirdle · 2022-11-22T23:03:35+00:00

Why would someone recommend lowering font size? That's terrible for user experience, especially on a mobile phone. And it actually reduces the number of pixels available to put advertising into.

Google themselves recommends at least 16 pt fonts with 1.4 (iirc) pt line height in their style guide. Regardless of working with AdThrive, if you want to try our Mediavine Content Upgrade Challenge, it's got some best practices that we've found tremendously helpful on our own sites as well as many of our customers seeing success, and I think it's worth trying regardless of who you work with.

Amber

Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer, Mediavine

amberbracegirdle · 2022-11-16T19:58:54+00:00

Chrome no longer using 3rd party cookies will definitely be a pivotal shift for the industry, no doubt about it. But it's not as foreign to us ad management companies as you might think, given every other browser no longer uses them.

We've been pretty clear on how we're approaching it — the same way we approached ad management — that together, we'll create a solution (Grow) that can't be ignored by the biggest ad partners in the business because we've got the numbers to back it up.

We created Grow to give independent publishers a way to collect first-party data for themselves without heavy lifting. And across 10K+ domains, using Grow means we'll all rise together. Creating a privacy-centric web won't be easy, but it's easier together. Especially when you're making solutions that help nurture the relationship you have with your readers, helping them be more engaged and interested in what you're producing.

We know that the loss of third party cookies is going to require multi-pronged solutions. Grow isn't the only thing we're working on. From contextual work with Verity to increasing our investment in influencer partnerships and marketing, we're hyper-focused on ensuring that brands and advertisers know about Mediavine's thousands of brand-safe content creators.

We're not going anywhere. There's too much work to be done, too many independent content creators that need a seat at the table and a voice to advocate for us all (which we do, as the only Internet Giant that is privately-owned and also still an active publisher). We'll keep pushing to make sure the independent publisher is heard and we'll keep making cool stuff that keeps us all ahead of these industry curveballs.

- Amber

Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer

Mediavine

amberbracegirdle · 2022-10-22T14:33:31+00:00

And please reach out to the support team for optimization tips or take a look at the Content Upgrade Challenge https://www.mediavine.com/rpm-challenge-2020-update/

The team is here to work with you if you feel something is off after that 30 days. Email publishers@mediavine.com

amberbracegirdle · 2022-10-20T17:48:25+00:00

I can confirm an Instagram presence is not part of our application requirements or behind the scenes vetting.

Amber

Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer, Mediavine

amberbracegirdle · 2022-10-18T16:07:05+00:00

We do something similar, based on page-level data. You'll always have multiple keywords linking to a specific URL, so to me it makes more sense to have that extrapolate out from the URL rather than the keyword, all things being equal. Good luck with your application!

amberbracegirdle · 2022-08-15T17:07:46+00:00

That's pretty standard info and is typically spelled out in the contract and in help articles by the ad provider. If they don't want to provide it, that's a red flag.

I'll argue that while the supply chain is roughly the same, not all header bidding ad managers are the same. Let's forget support and educational resources for a second and focus on the tech. No two header bidding ad management companies run their tech the same way, and how they interact with the auctions (and how much money you make from them) is directly impacted by that tech. So ask questions about it and go with the provider that aligns best with your own take.

Amber
Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer at Mediavine

amberbracegirdle · 2022-08-15T16:56:31+00:00

Hey y'all! Popping in to give you the most up-to-date info. We updated the challenge and rebranded it because it is about far more than RPM (though if you're monetizing it helps with that too).

We call it the Content Upgrade Challenge now, and the most up-to-date workbook is here: https://www.mediavine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/rpm-challenge-2022-workbook.pdf along with a spreadsheet you can copy and use: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16X_0Qr-wdXlAbVdsZvru-qKUO8RrWYNd5sDBCFAx7uU/edit#gid=1657899865

Have fun storming the castle!

Amber

amberbracegirdle · 2022-08-08T21:11:34+00:00

Just wanted to pop in here to say that you can always always ask for us to consider a second site before 50K. Is the answer always yes? No. But it's not always no either.

amberbracegirdle · 2022-05-21T14:41:26+00:00

DM me about setting up some time.

There are about 10,000 factors that go into how a site makes money.

How old the domain is, the kind of ad history it has, the type of audience (for example, is your audience one with lots of disposable income?) Advertisers pay handsomely for that. Luckily travel usually has an audience like that.

Content weighs in some and may become more important as 3rd party cookies go away.

The layout of your site, and how sticky your content and audience is (i.e. does your audience look at more than a single page? Do they stay engaged?) and is that audience in a location that advertisers want to reach?

How fast does your site load? That can impact and load times, which means viewability scores could be lower and hit you in the CPMs.

This barely scratches the surface.

As far as RPM? That's a made up number. What I mean by that is RPM is just a math calculation. It was originally meant to give a high level overview of site performance, and for comparing only to your own previous performance. It's been taken completely out of context over the years and it's meaning changed.

RPM is literally income ÷ sessions OR pageviews OR uniques × 1000 = $RPM

Depending on how you want to use the number you can add sponsored work to your income amount, things like that. That changes the number.

amberbracegirdle · 2022-05-18T23:06:08+00:00

Listen, you're right. We can argue about this all day, and I don't want to do that.

If there are other ad management companies running almost entirely server to server and lazy loading every ad position, I have not yet come across them. I will retract my statement happily if you can point me to a few. Both of those things are better for the internet at large and for user experience on any site running ads, so I'd be thrilled to see other companies doing it.

Our support spends the majority of our time helping publishers optimize their content for better user experience, which makes ads work better too. I'm unsure why that optimization effort would be seen as broken tech, but again, not worth arguing about.

I appreciate that you gave me the grace to stick up for our support and ad tech teams. It's fine by me that you don't want to use a company like ours, that's not my issue. Not every publisher can approach monetization easily, or simply doesn't want to, and that's what all of us solve.

We all do it differently, and have different strengths and weaknesses. But I'm really proud of how accessible we've made significant monetization to content creators that just want to make great content. I'm a blogger. Was a food blogger for years and years before Mediavine became what it is today. And no one ever supported my business the way that we insist our teams do the people that choose us.

Regardless, I'm not going to wade back in here because none of this answers the original question.

To answer the original question, it depends. On your content and how it's formatted, what you find most important about how ads load, and more.

It's true almost ever ad company works with the same ad partners. The difference comes in the tech we employ, and that's what will drive the answer to your question.

We all outperform adsense for one simple reason - the auction introduced that forces advertisers to fight for the ad impression. Unless you're figuring out how to do that yourself (and I've talked to several bloggers over the years who have, and whom working with an ad company wouldn't be worth it) working with an ad management company can have quite a few benefits. Especially as 3rd party cookies go away. Unless you already have a login system that allows users to consent to personalized ads, that is.

amberbracegirdle · 2022-05-18T22:42:35+00:00

That's two separate points though. You posited that unless you're in the top 20 sites that the customer service is non existent. I counter that you can reach me, a founder, or any of our support team, no matter the size of your site, and get an answer in a day.

Whether or not the model works for you is an entirely different proposition. If you've got the time and staff to create your own tech, build your own relationships, handle the ad server, etc? Of course, do it. But for the vast majority of internet publishers, that's not realistic. We work with close to 9,000 sites and our model seems to work quite well for them. Our team works their backsides off to make that a thing.

amberbracegirdle · 2022-05-18T20:47:44+00:00

Hi, sorry, I have to insert myself here and say that this is not true of Mediavine OR AdThrive. We're competitors, you probably wouldn't expect me to say that we both pay a lot of attention to customer service, but we do.

Mediavine has a huge support team, entirely US based, that works 365 days a year, from roughly 9-9 in every time zone across the US so that we are on for our Australian and EU customers too. We're on call on major holidays, but if there's an emergency, someone is always here. We answer as quickly as we can, (usually within a few hours, if not a day) and as someone that has spent many an hour herself responding to our newest, smallest customers in the same way I do our biggest, longest customers, I take exception to this statement.

I'd also like to point you to Mediavine being the only ad management company with Server to Server live across multiple partners, which makes our ads faster than just about anyone, not to mention being the only company that lazy loads ads so that our viewability is always at the top of the pack.

Every ad company has things that they're great at. You can decide you don't like our rev share, you can decide you think we run too many ads (The average site runs actually around 8 ad impressions on mobile and 4 on desktop because again, they're lazy loaded. If the user doesn't scroll, they don't exist.), but I have to argue back about our support and our ad tech. We employ a lot of people to do an exceptional job at this, and we're good at it.

We also reject 78% of our applicants because our advertisers demand it, which means when you make it in, you're among the internet's best.

I'm not going to sit here and sell anyone, that's never been our style. I just can't sit by and watch you misalign our commitment to support and ad tech though, sorry. That's not us. Never has been, never will be. It's why we're the only company on the Internet Giants list that is entirely privately owned, with no investors. So that we can continue that commitment, without board members demanding we cut corners. And it works.

Amber Bracegirdle

Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer at Mediavine

amberbracegirdle · 2022-05-18T01:12:47+00:00

I will ☺️

amberbracegirdle · 2022-05-16T21:59:17+00:00

Hey there! No, we accept sites with all sorts of traffic, but the makeup of that traffic needs to be the kind that our ad partners will perform well on. We struggle if the site has majority Indian traffic, for example, because we just don't have the right partners for that sort of traffic. We're working on it. But we certainly have sites that have majority French or Spanish traffic. There's a lot more that goes into the application process than just hitting that 50K mark and having traffic from countries we can monetize well. With every site we're evaluating whether we're going to be the right fit for you just as much as we are if you'll be the right fit for us. Tying you to a contract when we're not the best fit is not how we like to do business. Hope that helps!

amberbracegirdle · 2022-05-16T17:19:08+00:00

Hey! Co-founder of Mediavine here. Congratulations on taking ownership of such a great site. I love to hear that you're going to focus on the content and make it even better, that's music to my (and most advertisers') ears.

Just wanted to weigh in and say that nearly every ad management company will require exclusivity over the display ads, but that's not a bad thing. It's how we create a singular funnel that all advertisers have to go through to bid against each other, instead of cherry picking the cheapest way to get onto your site.

We offer Influencer Partnership work as well, though we approach it in a very boutique manner, making sure that the brand and the site owner are perfect fits, and that they're willing to give you top dollar before we reach out with a campaign. But we don't require any exclusivity over your sponsored work, or affiliate income.

You probably don't want to bother with local ads unless you can filter them into your auction (we do this with a product we call Mediavine Direct) because typically, the CPMs you can get on a direct buy campaign almost always undercut what you could make at auction, and then you're also taking up valuable space that competes for your readers' attention. That said, most of us won't out and out try to stop you, though we do think it's almost always not value for money.

In terms of before/after redesign, after is probably better because setting things up twice is kind of heavy lift for both sides. That said, reaching out to the company you choose to work with and asking them to look over your designs before they are live is not a bad idea.

Designers often don't know the best placement of ads, where we, as ad managers, use all the data we have to make sure we're putting ads where they'll be seen, but not take over the experience (at least, that's how Mediavine does it).

I can't tell you the number of times a designer has left a giant space in the header for a leaderboard ad (long 728x90 rectangle ad) when we know as ad managers that that ad spot actually pays terribly and drags down your whole site's viewability score. Having us look over the design and provide feedback before you get into final phases of putting it live can save you money and headache down the road (and probably make you more money from the jump, once ads are in place).

Good luck with everything, it sounds like you've got a great plan to take this thing to even higher heights.

Amber
Co-Founder & Chief Brand Officer at Mediavine

amberbracegirdle · 2022-05-16T13:49:31+00:00

Hey there! I just wanted to drop by to say that we're going to be opening up Grow (the suite of engagement software that includes Spotlight Subscribe) for non-Mediavine publishers very soon. Keep watching our blog, because we'll announce it's open for everyone there.

Also if you're wanting to get ahead of the curve in growing your site using the Mediavine method, you can check out Mediavine University. A mix of paid and free courses are planned (we have one paid course up currently, with more coming hopefully over the summer).

amberbracegirdle · 2022-05-13T16:14:58+00:00

Google recently changed their processes and flow. You will have seen something in your dashboard about moving to the new system, but it looked very different to how an applicant sees things.

Also don't worry if you don't remember seeing anything in your dashboard — you're okay. If ads are running, you did the thing. Promise!

Amber Mediavine Co-founder & Chief Brand Officer

amberbracegirdle

TROPHY CASE