Here’s How Much My Travel Blog Made Its First Month on Mediavine Journey

September was a big month for Pale Ale Travel. Symbolically at least. I’ve held off monetizing the blog via a traditional ad network over the years as it wasn’t worth the pennies I’d be making. 

However, in early 2024, Pale Ale Travel finally crossed a threshold traffic-wise (or at least we did) where it made sense to begin monetizing it. So I applied to Mediavine’s ‘Journey’ – an ad management solution for growing websites that didn’t quite qualify for their primary ad network solution (50,000 sessions). 

Well..the first month’s earnings are in. Here’s a little bit about Mediavine Journey and its requirements and what my travel blog (Pale Ale Travel) earned in its first month. 

Pale Ale Travel Tip: While waiting for approval from Mediavine Journey, I launched a newsletter that sends weekly travel destinations straight to your inbox. I also built out a secondary blog that tackles European destinations and blogging tips. You can find it here.

Mediavine Journey Requirements

Rolled out in March 2024, Mediavine Journey is a new self-service ad network and management tool for websites that don’t quite meet their flagship program’s requirements of 50,000 sessions per month. 

Frankly, I suspect this was rolled out due to the number of successive Google algorithm updates that started decimating website traffic across the board, meaning that ad networks like Mediavine were losing out on money from companies buying ads. 

Whatever the case, I’m not complaining, as Mediavine Journey allows smaller websites (like my own) to begin earning some extra skrilla on an ad network that isn’t AdSense once they reach 10,000 sessions per month. 

Several Key Terms to Know

The key term here is ‘sessions per month’. There’s nuance to the definition of ‘session’ that separates it from what might immediately jump to the front of your mind as the key metric ad networks would use – pageviews. 

A ‘session’ simply refers to a single visit to your website by a user. During that time on your website, a user may view multiple pages, interact with certain content of your site, or perform actions like submitting personal information to a contact form. While multiple actions are performed and multiple pages may be viewed, this is treated as one session.

A ‘pageview’ refers to the total number of times individual web pages are viewed. For example, if a user visits your site and clicks through to three different articles, this will count as three pageviews. 

Ad networks and those buying ads typically focus on ‘sessions’ as their key metric as it (a) reflects the true number of unique visitors to your site, (b) is more predictable (as there’s no telling how many pages a user may click through during their session). 

Applying to Mediavine Journey

Applying to Mediavine Journey can be done in less than 5 minutes. 

Simply head over to the dedicated Mediavine Journey website, submit your website details, and install their ‘Grow’ plug-in on your website to track and verify the integrity and actual number of visitors to your site. 

You need to have the plug-in installed and running for at least 30 days so that Mediavine can get a ‘true picture’ of your website’s performance. 

However, that doesn’t mean that you’ll be approved right at the 30-day mark. 

One important point of note: I was worried that I wouldn’t be accepted to Mediavine Journey as, for some reason, I kept getting rejected by Google Adsense, and Mediavine’s website states that you ‘must be in good standing with Google Adsense’. 

Keep in mind that just means if you’ve used AdSense before, you won’t be accepted if you’ve had your account terminated. 

There is no requirement that you have to first apply and get accepted to Google AdSense before being eligible for Mediavine Journey (or Mediavine). 

How Long It Took Pale Ale Travel For Mediavine Journey Approval

As I had hit north of 13,000 sessions per month and roughly 15,000 pageviews per month in April of 2024, I decided to apply to Mediavine Journey on April 24th. I wanted to give myself some wiggle room in case I was hit by an algorithm update or traffic began to drop.

Well, my gut was right and traffic did drop somewhat significantly. But, I also had taken a bit of a hiatus from publishing on Pale Ale Travel as I was preparing for a 3-month trip to Europe and had several more pressing things to figure out. 

I thought because I had considerably more than 10,000 sessions that it would be smooth sailing and approved somewhat expeditiously. I was wrong about that. 

I kept reading online how all these sites were accepted after one to two months, so I (naively) mentally prepared for that. After the second month passed and I still hadn’t heard anything, I had almost completely written off being accepted and just assumed that a rejection was coming – so I decided to launch a newsletter. 

It wasn’t until September 4th, nearly 5 months after I first lodged my application that I was accepted and received the above email from Mediavine. 

Getting everything set up and the ads running was relatively painless, taking less than 20 minutes to do. If a bozo like me can do it, I have faith you can. 

My First Month’s Earnings on Mediavine Journey

That’s right. Between September 4th and October 3rd, I had just over 9,000 pageviews on Pale Ale Travel, and just under 8,000 sessions, I earned a total of $29.23, with an average RPM of $3.68. 

RPM means ‘revenue per mille’ and is the dollar amount I earn per thousand impressions (aka any time an ad is shown on my website). CPM isn’t entirely related to me, as it is the pricing model and metric that a company spends on ads per thousand impressions. 

Honestly, I’m proud of the amount I earned in my first month. I’ve written over 150 articles for this site without ever making a dime off of them (other than several random affiliate sales). 

It’s been about the love of the blog game. It still is. Now, there’s at least some sort of reward for the work performed. It was never about the money. But it helps at least cover the costs of paying for website hosting. 

While the amount you see above isn’t going to make me rich by any stretch of the imagination, it’s a start. And it’s motivating. I genuinely love writing content for this blog and want to continue doing so. 

Even just several dollars per day coming in allows me to dedicate more time to the blog, pushing out more consistent, quality content that I hope has allowed you to have a better trip or find a new eating or drinking haunt.

Key Takeaways From My First Month Monetized

I really didn’t know what to expect with potential earnings. Mediavine Journey only rolled out in March of 2024 so it is still considerably ‘new’ in the realm of ad management solutions and networks. 

Several things stand out to me after going through this process and when looking at the data.

Mediavine Appears Flexible With the Number of Sessions Requirements

First, the fact that I was accepted after dipping all the way down to 8,000 sessions, which is 2,000 sessions below their stated threshold, has me believing that this is a flexible number.

If your traffic is anywhere close to Mediavine, I don’t think it can hurt at all to apply to Mediavine Journey and install the Grow plug-in to begin tracking and analyzing your site.

The point is, don’t let the number ‘10,000 sessions’ scare you off. 

My RPM Started Astronomically Low

Second, I believe that my RPM is still increasing. As you can see, the first day that ads were live on my site, I earned a total of $0.06, with an RPM of $0.31. 

So, keep in mind that the first month is definitely a bit of a ‘feeler’ month, where your true earnings per 1,000 impressions will take some time to increase and then normalize. 

On September 21st, my RPM was $8.84, which makes me optimistic (or delusional) that things should settle around that figure once another month or two passes. And, the last two weeks, from the 19th of September to October 3rd, my RPM has been over $5. 

Based on my own research, I’ve found that travel blog RPMs can range anywhere from $10 to $25 (or more), depending on the ad network and quality of traffic (ex. The majority of traffic comes from Tier 1 countries like the United States). 

After the first 30 days with Journey, you can play around with the ‘ad density’ – meaning that you can show more ads on your site by toggling a button if you’d like. However, keep in mind that this also may significantly affect the user experience and ultimately do more harm than good to your site. 

Speed Issues With the Grow ‘Subscribe Form’

Third, I haven’t noticed any major speed issues with my website since the ads have gone live. I did, however, experience significant speed issues with Grow’s ‘Subscribe Form’ enabled across my website in the lead-up to my approval. This form would appear as you scrolled while reading articles, lighting up and darkening the blog article’s 

I kept it on as I wanted Mediavine to be able to collect as much information about my site as possible. Upon reflection, I’m not sure this was a requirement to have enabled the entire time and I’m sure I could have turned it off from the beginning or after the first 30 days. 

Upon removing it, my traffic did recover by 1,500 to 2,000 sessions per month. This is pure conjecture but I believe that my bounce rate decreased as the site was loading faster and less cumbersome to navigate and may have received a little bump in subsequent Google updates because of this. 

It’s Only Just the Beginning

Fourth and finally, monetization doesn’t mean that the work is done and that you’ll be living the life of Riley right away. It’s still a process and is only just the beginning. 

Consider ‘decoupling’ from an over-reliance on Google by building out alternative channels to funnel traffic to your website.

While still in its infancy, launching my newsletter has been an effective way to drive traffic to Pale Ale Travel. 

I simply do this by linking to articles on my primary site (the one you’re reading right now) in the newsletter and have found that a non-zero % of readers will click through. As I grow the newsletter, I foresee this increasing traffic as well. 

Mediavine Has Me Feeling Media-Fine

So there you have it – the total amount I earned during my first month on Mediavine Journey. 

Hopefully, this sheds a little light on the backend of the blog and what you can expect when it comes to first monetizing your website. 

I’m excited to keep ramping up content and increasing my output, so I do suspect this number will go up. At the moment, I have the most time I’ve ever had since starting the blog to dedicate myself fully to it. 

Ultimately, I’d love to reach 50,000 sessions per month and apply to join Mediavine’s flagship ad management solution, which boasts even higher RPMs and thus…dolla dolla billz y’all. 

If you have any questions about starting a traveling blog and getting things off the ground, or about Mediavine Journey, please don’t hesitate to contact me at info@palealetravel.com. 

Finally, if you would like to see more posts about starting, building, and scaling a travel blog (along with more behind-the-scenes content – ex. Income reports), please let me know in the comments!

Write well everyone,

Big Body