Finding the Right Balance Between Revenue and Reader Experience

Kathy Berget is the creator and owner of Beyond the Chicken Coop, a recipe site for home cooks focused on cooking from-scratch. A certified Master Gardener and Apprentice Beekeeper, Kathy develops every recipe herself using ingredients grown and raised on her family farm. The site reflects her values—care, intention, and respect for both the process and the people following along.

Those same values guide how Kathy thinks about monetization.

Rooted in a Hands-On Approach

From the beginning, Kathy took a very hands-on role in managing her site’s ads. She was mindful of how advertising affected her readers and wanted to be sure the experience never felt overwhelming or distracting.

To strike that balance, she adjusted ad volume seasonally—running more ads in Q4, then scaling back in Q1. While this approach helped support revenue during high-traffic periods, it also added another responsibility to an already full plate.

Between developing new recipes, maintaining her farm, and running the day-to-day operations of her site, ad management became one more thing demanding time and attention.

Juggling One Too Many Tasks

Manually adjusting ad levels worked—but it wasn’t sustainable. Keeping ads optimized while staying focused on content and farm life required additional monitoring and decision-making. Kathy began looking for a solution that would allow her to step back from micromanaging ads without sacrificing revenue or the experience she’d worked so hard to build for her audience.

Letting Optimization Take the Lead

When Mediavine introduced Optimized Ad Experience (OAE), Kathy saw an opportunity to simplify her workflow. Instead of adjusting ad volume herself, OAE would automatically optimize ads based on performance—allowing her to trust the system to do what it was designed to do.

Most importantly, it aligned with her priorities: improving efficiency without compromising reader satisfaction. Kathy opted in, handing off ad balancing to an automated process that could respond dynamically, rather than seasonally.

A Better Outcome for Everyone

After enabling Optimized Ad Experience, Beyond the Chicken Coop began seeing positive results on multiple fronts:

• 17% increase in revenue
  
• 10% decrease in in-content ad impressions per session
  

Revenue trended upward, while readers experienced fewer ad interruptions—a win on both sides.

“Overall revenue has trended upward, and knowing that ads are being optimized without becoming overly intrusive gives me a real sense of peace. I honestly don’t think most readers notice a change, which is a good thing. In my experience, readers tend to notice ads only when they become irritating. I receive very few negative comments about ads on my site, which tells me the overall experience is working well.”

— Kathy Berget, Beyond the Chicken Coop

Looking Ahead

By opting into Mediavine’s Optimized Ad Experience, Kathy was able to free up valuable time, reduce ad clutter, and create a more sustainable monetization strategy—without losing sight of her readers.

For publishers who care deeply about both their content and their community, Kathy’s experience shows that optimization doesn’t have to come at the expense of user experience.

Ready to improve your own site? Follow Kathy’s lead and opt-in to Mediavine’s Optimized Ad Experience.