What Is Mediavine Journey? Discover the New Ad Solution for Growing Blogs

As a blogger, you’re probably familiar with the struggle of finding the perfect balance between creating great content and making money to sustain your blog.

Meet Journey by Mediavine—a new ad management solution designed specifically for growing sites and independent publishers like you.

This self-service platform is part of Mediavine’s award-winning ad management ecosystem, and offers powerful ad placements and a seamless user experience to help smaller publishers boost their blog income and get rewarded for their hard work.

If you’re looking to maximize ad revenue while you grow or even just get some help increasing your monthly sessions, Mediavine Journey could be the key to unlocking your blog’s full potential. 🚀

This illustration shows a woman working on a laptop, surrounded by icons related to financial growth, blogging, and online engagement. Charts with upward arrows, dollar signs, and coins emphasize monetization and success, while browser windows and hearts highlight content creation and audience interaction. The background is colorful and abstract, with leaves and swirls adding a creative and dynamic feel to the scene. The overall theme is focused on blogging and earning through online platforms.

See What's Inside

How Mediavine Journey Works: A Closer Look

Journey by Mediavine, perhaps more commonly referred to as Mediavine Journey, is designed to help growing blogs who don’t yet meet Mediavine’s minimum criteria for their standard ad network, monetize through a simple, streamlined process.

It all starts with installing the Grow plugin, which enables you to build audience engagement and track authenticated traffic.

After running Grow for 30 days, Mediavine evaluates your site’s performance, focusing on key metrics like page speed, traffic quality, and user experience.

When your site meets the requirements, you’ll be invited to begin running Journey ads, using Mediavine’s first-party data and best-in-class ad technology to optimize your revenue.

Journey by Mediavine helps bloggers make money from their sites even if they don’t have tons of readers yet by using smart tools to place ads that fit well with your blog’s look and feel.

Journey is great for bloggers who want to grow their income but don’t yet meet the minimum requirements of premium ad networks.

As Mediavine CEO Eric Hochberger says:

Journey opens doors for newer publishers to access our cutting-edge ad tech and start building sustainable businesses.

This illustration depicts two potted plants, one smaller and one larger, symbolizing growth. The larger plant has leaves and coins with dollar signs, representing financial success and growth in revenue. Behind the plants is a webpage layout, suggesting the connection between website or blog development and monetization. The image emphasizes the concept of growing income through digital content creation.

Who Is Mediavine?

Mediavine is a full-service ad management company that was founded by bloggers, for bloggers. Their mission is to help publishers of all sizes build successful businesses through powerful ad management solutions and a Creator First Culture.

With cutting-edge ad technology, Mediavine supports smaller website owners, travel bloggers, and really, bloggers in most niches, to provide access to first-party data tools, top ad exchanges, and best-in-class technology.

Mediavine’s commitment to content creators is evident and it is reflected in their hands-on approach and the robust support offered to their Mediavine publishers.

The Vision Behind Journey by Mediavine

So what brought on the launch of Journey when MV could have just as easily continued focusing on their already successful Mediavine ad network (widely regarded as the #1 ad network for bloggers who’ve met the significant milestone of 50,00 monthly sessions).

Well, Mediavine’s vision for Journey is centered around empowering smaller publishers and growing blogs.

The goal is to create a sustainable path for bloggers to generate ad revenue—even if they don’t have massive audiences yet.

By offering Mediavine’s cutting-edge ad technology to Journey publishers via a self-service solution, Mediavine aims to democratize digital advertising and provide newer publishers with access to the same high-quality tools and ad partners that larger sites use.

This vision is rooted in helping bloggers and content creators turn their passion into a profitable and sustainable business. With this, Mediavine is making their commitment to creators clear in helping new sites grow and thrive.

This image features a colorful rocket labeled "Journey by Mediavine" launching into the sky, symbolizing growth and progress. Surrounding the rocket are icons representing financial success, such as dollar signs, webpage windows, and a cloud with a rising graph. The background has a gradient of vibrant colors, adding a dynamic feel to the image. The overall theme emphasizes boosting income and growth through digital content and monetization strategies. The website "www.latoyarachelle.com" is displayed at the bottom.

How to Get Started with Mediavine Journey

Getting started with Mediavine Journey is straightforward. Here are the steps to follow:

Install the Grow Plugin: The first step is to install the Grow plugin on your site. This helps engage readers and track authenticated traffic.
Run Grow for 30 Days: Mediavine will evaluate your site’s performance after you’ve run Grow for at least 30 days. They’ll check metrics like page speed, traffic quality, and user experience to ensure your site meets their standards.
Wait for Evaluation: Mediavine’s team will review your site based on your monthly sessions and overall performance. While they state that “around 10,000 monthly sessions” are required, some bloggers have been approved with lower traffic, so it’s worth applying even if you’re not quite at that threshold.
Join Journey: Once approved, you’ll be able to run Journey ads and start monetizing your blog with Mediavine’s advanced ad tools.

Sign up for Mediavine Journey here

Watch this video on YouTube

This post contains affiliate links, which means that I may earn a small commission at no cost to you.

Tips for Maximizing Traffic and Preparing Your Site for Journey

Use the Grow Plugin to Engage Your Readers: Grow can help keep visitors on your site longer, boosting traffic and pageviews—both critical for the Journey program.
Learn SEO: Boost your traffic by improving your site’s SEO. Tools like RankIQ and Link Whisper can help you optimize your blog posts for search engines. (You can read my full RankIQ review here.)
Diversify Your Traffic Sources: Don’t rely solely on Google. Platforms like Pinterest can be powerful drivers of traffic. A solid Pinterest strategy can help you reach new audiences and increase monthly sessions.
Build an Email List: Capturing emails is a great way to engage directly with your audience and drive traffic back to your site. Email lists can be valuable for promoting new blog content or affiliate offers.
Optimize Site Speed: Since site speed is a key metric Mediavine looks at, it’s important to ensure your blog runs smoothly. Make sure you have a fast theme installed and check your Core Web Vitals and improve load times where possible.
Be Patient: Some bloggers are approved for Journey after 30 days, while others may wait a few months. Stay consistent with your content creation and grow your audience while you wait.
Prepare for a Self-Service Experience: Journey is a self-service solution, so be ready to handle the setup and troubleshooting yourself. Although there is some support, expect it to be more hands-off than Mediavine’s full-service ad network.

👩‍💻 Start a Blog in 7 Simple Steps: Quick and Easy Tutorial!

Bonus: Why the Grow Plugin Is a Must-Have for Bloggers (Even If You’re Not Trying to Join Mediavine!)

The Grow plugin is so much more that a stepping stone to Mediavine Journey—it’s a powerful tool that benefits all bloggers, whether you’re aiming for an ad network or not.

Grow enhances your site’s engagement, boosts traffic, and offers tools to help your blog thrive.

Plus, it’s free!

Here’s why every blogger should consider opening up a free Grow account and using Grow:

Boost Reader Engagement: Keep visitors on your site longer with social sharing buttons and prompts to explore more content.
Track Authenticated Traffic: Grow is a first-party data solution that helps you understand your audience better and improve targeting.
Improve SEO: Works alongside other SEO tools to increase your blog’s visibility and organic traffic.
Simplify Content Sharing: Make it easy for readers to share posts across social media.
Set the Stage for Monetization: Grow helps prepare your blog for future advertising opportunities, even if you’re not ready to join any ad networks just yet.

This image illustrates a road leading to a large dollar sign, symbolizing a path to financial success. Along the road are various icons representing money, such as stacks of coins, cash, and computer screens displaying websites. The scene emphasizes the connection between online content, digital monetization, and financial growth. The overall theme suggests a journey towards revenue generation through blogging or online platforms.

Journey Alternatives for Smaller Website Owners

While Mediavine Journey is a great option for growing blogs, there are a few other ad networks that smaller websites might consider. Here are some alternatives:

Raptive Rise: Offers a program for blogs with at least 50,000 page views that provides access to a premium network at a lower threshold than the 100,000 views required for their standard program.
Ezoic: No minimum traffic requirements. A more accessible ad platform, but it can seriously slow down site speed on some sites. Might be better suited for blogs with lower United States (U.S.) traffic.
Monumetric: An “ok” mid-level network, though no personal experience to share.
She Media: I personally would not recommend them (low RPMs, poor support, and a restrictive year-long contract). However, I do like their mission and some bloggers report being happy there.
Googl e AdSense: Widely accessible but looks and feels spammy. In addition, earnings are usually significantly lower than other ad networks.

Wrapping Up

Mediavine Journey is an amazing way for smaller bloggers to start making money while they’re still growing their sites.

I know firsthand how frustrating it can be to work hard and not see the payoff yet, but Journey changes that.

With powerful tools and a straightforward process, it helps you earn revenue even if you don’t have a large following or big traffic numbers just yet.

If you’re ready to take your blog to the next level, it’s definitely worth seeing if Journey is the right fit for you!

Until next time,

xoxo