Rollercoasterider... I hope things go well with Ezoic. I do have some professional experience with them. Like every company of this type, all they truly seem to care is maximizing the profit regardless of means (and I get, it brings bread and butter for them). For some websites/owners it is all ok, for others it can be kiss of death. So my professional advice (and that is coming from place of 20+ years with digital advertizing) is to proceed carefully.
As you so well identified there are two isses at work: ad location and ad contents.
Ad location is something you and Ezoic should work together to find the optimal solution. And that is pretty much what Ezoic is specialized in doing... That said, they don't know your audience the level you do. So talk to your account manager (contact) at Ezoic, and make him/her understand the differences between casual/new visitors and return visitors, as well as your personal wishes. If you don't interact with them, they will run a number of pointless A/B-tests (from agressive to less-agressive) that are guaranteed to annoy regular users to extremes.
What you and Ezoic cannot control much is ad contents. Fortunately that is something each of us can manage on personal level. For example if the ads Ezoic is serving are coming from Google Ads Network (as they oftentimes are), one-time visit at
https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated will allow Google to know what kind of ads you are interested of. It will make the ads "less annoying" and more targeted to each's personal interests. This in turn will likely mean each of us will click the ads more often, and that way would provide more revenue/money to keep this place up and running. Maybe this is something that should be added to "welcoming package" everyone on the forum receives from the OldPilot - just a thought.
Alvin
At time of BD.... Me: 43, XW: 41
Kids: G19,G18,G14,G12,S5
Together - 20½ Years, Married 19 Years
BD ("I don't love you"): Feb 2019,
BD2 ("I don't want to fix this marriage."), Mar 2020
D filed May 2020, D finalized Dec 2020
I have moved on, and am in new relationship.
Lessons from Stoicism and REBT helped me to exit the chaos zone and become a better person.
"Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. - Epictetus"