Ezoic Faces Major Layoffs After Admitting Over-Hiring Mistake
Amidst economic uncertainty, Ezoic abruptly reveals the layoff of 28% of its workforce, keeping employees on their feet until the day's end, while concurrently announcing a strategic pivot.
Justin Gluska
Updated July 28, 2023
Reading Time: 2 minutes
In an unexpected turn of events, Ezoic, a website advertising company that has received criticism for questionable ad placements, comparatively low RPMs, and contributing to slower site speeds, is facing a substantial shift.
CEO Dwayne Lafleur recently communicated the tough decision of a significant workforce reduction to the team through an email on Monday. This comes just a few days after they completely cut their affiliate program.
The company, which had managed to ride the wave of increased online activity during the pandemic, is now grappling with a host of global economic changes, including an upsurge in inflation and a notable decrease in ad rates. Despite a period of relative success (a 62% increase in employees last year), Ezoic ran into a completely different situation over the last 6 months.
The admission of over-hiring is a significant point in Lafleur's address. The company had evidently anticipated continuing the growth trend of the previous years and had increased their team size accordingly. However this backfired & now resulted in a 28% reduction of their current staff.
Throughout this, Lafleur maintains an optimistic outlook. He claims that Ezoic's unique market position and technology-focused approach will allow them to effectively handle the downturn. The company is refocusing its growth strategy, intending to invest in technology and services that will benefit their publishers and maintain their industry position, despite the critical feedback they've received to date.
Ezoic is proposing transitional support and a severance package for all the affected employees, but they didn't even get notified about their status until hours after the announcement post.
According to Lafleur, Ezoic still remains financially. He seems pretty confident in the company's future trajectory, highlighting the rising number of publishers choosing Ezoic as their partner and the company's continued global reach, although the Twitter SEO community seems to disagree.
Given Ezoic's history, this development signals a crucial moment for the company. Their commitment to empowering content creators, although admirable in theory, has been questioned due to the performance issues linked with their service. They were kind of the building block from AdSense to Mediavine/Raptive and this might push them even lower on that scale.
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