Mediavine gives every site a hidden grade. Almost nobody knows where to find theirs.
You get approved by Journey by Mediavine. You open the new dashboard. Then the first RPMs land.
$2. $3. Maybe $4.
And the panic starts. "Is my traffic bad?" "Should I go back to Ezoic?" "Did I get a bad deal?"
Most new publishers quit Journey in the first month because of numbers like these.
Before you do anything, check one word in Journey's settings file. It takes two minutes, and it explains most of what you're seeing.
The word is floorTier
For every ad on your page, Journey sets the lowest bid it will accept. That's the floor.
It starts from a base price, then multiplies it by things like:
→ the visitor's country
→ their device
→ your blog's category
→ the time of day
→ your site's tier
That last one is the grade. Journey sets it automatically, most likely from what buyers have been paying per ad on your site.
Journey doesn't document this field anywhere. Everything here comes from reading its public code.
Here's what your tier is NOT:
→ It's not your RPM.
→ It's not a penalty.
→ It's not a cap. Higher bids still win.
→ It's not something you can change in the dashboard.
The grades we've seen
very_low, low, medium_low and more!
Every new site we've checked starts at very_low. That includes SagelyChic, our public case study. You'll see its grade in a second.
One of our blogs moved from very_low to low after about two and a half months. Its RPM now touches $10. Our bet is that medium_low pushes it toward $20.
And some sites skip the bottom rung. We've seen blogs with 7K+ monthly traffic and a premium design start above very_low.
Which tells you it's automated. Journey looks at your site and your traffic, and grades it. No human is picking on you.
How to find your tier (SagelyChic example)
Here's the exact check on SagelyChic, step by step.
Step 1: Open your ads.txt
Go to yoursite.com/ads.txt. It redirects to an address like adstxt.journeymv.com/sites/YOUR-ID/ads.txt.
Copy that long ID.
Step 2: Open your settings file and search for floorTier
Go to scripts.journeymv.com/tags/YOUR-ID.js. This is the public settings file Journey loads on your site.
Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) and type floorTier. The word after it is your grade.
SagelyChic shows very_low. Exactly what you'd expect from a new site.
Shortcut: open your page source (Ctrl+U), search for mv-script-wrapper, and open the link on that line. It may start with scripts.journeymv.com or scripts.scriptwrapper.com. Both show the same file.
How to move up a tier
You can't click a button for this. But you can feed the system what it rewards.
1. Send more quality traffic.
Visitors from the US, UK, Canada and Australia earn the most per ad. Check yours in GA4 → Demographics → Country.
Pinterest is the easiest way we know to send that traffic, and audience-first niche picking is how we get it. It's the first thing PIN POWER walks you through.
2. Make your blog look premium.
A clean, fast, trustworthy blog gets better buyers. A cheap template with a broken layout gets the leftovers. This is one of the few levers you fully control.
3. Give it time.
60 to 90 days. The first weeks are the cheapest while buyers learn your site. Ours took about two and a half months to move.
4. Fix the two silent RPM killers.
While the settings file is open, search for privacy_policy_link. Make sure it points to your own site.
Then check your cache plugin. If it has a "delay JavaScript" option, exclude the ad script. Otherwise ads can wait for the visitor's first tap, and you lose impressions.
5. Track CPM week by week, from the day your ads went live.
The "Last 30 days" view mixes in days before your ads started, so it lies to you early on.
6. Change one thing at a time.
Otherwise you'll never know what worked.
Start a simple log
On the 1st of every month, write down four things:
→ the date
→ your tier
→ your CPM
→ your RPM
When your tier moves up, you'll see it in your own notes, along with the CPM jump that came with it.
Everything that moves the tier (the niche, the traffic, the site build, the ad network standards) is inside PIN POWER, step by step.
Want a blog Mediavine grades higher from day one?
Design is the part most bloggers get wrong, and it's the part we can fix fastest.
Our team builds niche blogs to Mediavine and Raptive standards:
→ Custom homepage
→ Author page with author persona and images
→ Category pages and a clean menu
→ Newsletter signup form
→ About, Contact, Privacy, Terms, DMCA and Editorial pages
→ Post layout with pin images and the Pinterest save button
You buy the domain and hosting we recommend, share your WordPress login, and we build the rest.
👉 Or see everything included on the Website Design page
Rather have the whole blog built for you?
Our done-for-you service covers everything:
→ Niche research, picked for real Pinterest demand and strong ad value
→ A blog built to premium ad network standards
→ 300 articles, written, published and pinned
→ Support until your blog is monetized
It's a 4-month project, and the blog is 100% yours.
Want the price and the full breakdown?
👉 Or see the full plan on the Done-For-You page
Or learn the whole system yourself
No discount code this time. Just the course.
PIN POWER is now a community of 500 members. The best nuggets, the newest tests and the approval screenshots go into the private group first. Some of them never leave it.
THAT’S A WRAP
Before you go: Here’s How We Can Help You!
Pin Power: Pin Power teaches you Pinterest marketing for FREE Organic Traffic with advanced strategies, step-by-step process, and proven workflows. (no prior experience needed!).
100% DFY Pinterest Management: We Build The System. You Collect The Traffic. Content, Pins, Strategy, Everything Managed.
See you again next time with more helpful and exclusive content! Bilal and Kashif Out! 👦
