davewray - 6:30 am on Oct 14, 2003 (gmt 0)

Another possible answer to the "mysterious" drop in EPC is that the big advertisers are perhaps opting out of having their ads shown on content based sites and are instead just showing them with the Google SERP's. Why do I say this? Well, it is likely that a BIG advertiser is aware of how well their ads are doing and where they are doing well. If their ads are NOT doing well on Adsense sites then they opt out. Small fry advertisers, on the other hand, may not be as "up" with things and may not realise that they are getting worse ROI on Adsense sites. Smaller advertisers tend to have smaller bids than larger advertisers too..thus more "cheap" ads are being shown and therefore your EPC is lower...Just an opinion here :)

Dave