Forum Moderators: martinibuster
We talked about the number of reasons I'm currently staying with Yahoo (mainly $$$), and what it would take for me to switch back to Adsense (again, $$$).
I also got confirmation of something I had only thought was true. Apparently with Smart Pricing, if you have multiple sites, and one of them performs badly, it will lower your earnings not only for that 1 site, but for all sites in the account.
Anyone else get a call?
ONCE AGAIN - This is just a RHETORICAL REMARK merely for highlighting my point... I'm NOT saying that people should actually block Yahoo traffic, as we ALL KNOW that the more traffic you receive, the more chance for AdSense revenue generation.
HOWEVER... I have noticed that Yahoo visitors that I receive are LESS APT to click on AdSense Adss, thereby they are less likely to convert for advertisers... and thereby impact negatively on my eCPM. When I stopped receiving Yahoo traffic to these certain pages, my eCPM shot up dramatically. These are MY observations from MY websites - mostly tech related stuff.
So, it MAY be wise to simply remove AdSense from poorly converting pages, no matter what the cause. Others have been preaching this technique for quite some time now.
By eliminating only a relatively few pages of content from displaying AdSense, it is possible to increase your AdSense earnings across many websites...
DISCLAIMER for incrediBILL: "Your actual mileage may vary"
My top two sites, 74.6% of total clicks, show the following:
CTR 4.2% with an Average USD 8.67
ALL the other sites combined, 100+, and these have 25.4% of the top two sites clicks show:
CTR 9.4% with an Average USD 22.07
Now ask me why I am constructing more satellite sites! Those sites contribute more than 30% of earnings and increasing weekly whereas at the beginning of the year they were less than 10%.
I will admit now that some of those satellite sites are still earning nothing, I mean zilch 0%, however it takes some time to instigate a policy and then for it to carry through and then for it to generate an income.
OptiRex Health Warning: Your Experience May Differ:-)
From my experience, I used to have a low quality web site with lots of traffic and as soon as i removed adsense i saw a change in my earnings on my other site. But still, this may be by chance or any other reason but it is not proven until adsense makes a statment about this.
I would say be cautios before making any changes and just give it a try that is the best way i think.
A few clarifications.
1) I wasn't typing up my 2nd response while on the phone.. I was typing, and while in the middle of it, they called me back, so I paused, talked for nearly 30 minutes, then continued. :)
2) I have no interest in fabricating anything, was just sharing the new info I learned.
3) I'm a strong believer in what I learned today from the adsense rep.. My site is designed in such a way that it generates lots of clicks, but many of those clicks could be classified as accidental. That was also the reason that at one point Adsense emailed me and asked me to change my ad layout, or else be possibly kickded from the program.. I followed suit obviously. This is also why I know my site was suffering from smartpricing. I did such a good job at getting clicks, that my conversion rate was poor in Adsense's eyes. The Adsense rep suggested that I make my ads less blended so that my conversion rate would increase, and as a result, my earning (from smartpricing) would also increase. These should also make it clear that your Clickthrough Rate and sheer number of clicks mean very little, it's the conversions per click that you're wanting to boost, and the only way to really do that is to be sure that people are clicking on the ads because they really want to.
If I find out anything else, I'll share it.. nothing I've shared was said to be confidential by the Adsense guy, and he didn't act like they were any secret either.
And for those that just think I'm making this up.. who cares, go read some other thread. :)
Kurt
When the Adsense guy called me today, he was calling to get me to "try out" adsense.. He wasn't even aware that I had been an Adsense publisher. But I still wouldn't be suprised if I got in his to-call list because I used to be an Adsense publisher and since switched to Yahoo ads. It seemed his primary reason for calling was to get me to switch from YPN ads to Adsense ads.. which is understandable.
He also suggested that even while I run Yahoo ads, I should send a small amount of traffic to Adsense so that smartpricing can continue to adjust and I can continue to see if I'm using the most profitable program in YPN. I may just do that, and in doing so I may make the adsense ads a lot less blended so that my conversion rate goes up with them.
DISCLAIMER for incrediBILL: "Your actual mileage may vary"
Touche!
Do you actually have stats that track the source of the visitor to the click thru to back up your claims about Yahoo? It would be interesting to see actual tracked stats comparing total Yahoo visitors vs Google visitors and the percentage of click thrus for each over an extended period of time.
FYI, based on one of my wife's web sites which at the moment gets almost 100% of it's traffic from MSN, they seem to click thru at a real decent rate.
I also get more traffic from Yhaoo and msn on the middle site and those clicks remain fairly high so I am guessing the folks sent from those engines are converting better than other traffic.
Just a guess.
I've posted in the past that based on my experience in banning MFA sites that smart pricing took about three weeks to catch up. It seems that there is some semi-official admission that it takes a while to adjust itself.
Many people here have speculated that smart pricings's valuation may indeed be based on the account and not the site or page - again based on their statistics. Google seem to be semi-admitting this too. My personal feeling is that it probably takes into account all of the sites as part of the algorythm, along with many other factors (including if there is an 'R' in the month), but doesn't place a major weighting on it.
What I find incredible is that it seems the only way to get very basic information out of Google is to have a very large account that the webmaster moves to the competition! Then they might talk to you.
I can understand that Google would be loth to publish a lot of information on how smart pricing works - especially as it's bound to be in a constant development. I don't think it's reasonable for them to keep us as in the dark as they do though. Whilst the algorythm may change, the basic criteria of what factors weigh heaviest probably doesn't change that much.
Google may feel that people would "Game the system" if they published any information. That's a fair point, but I feel the big problem have with people gaming the system is to a large part down to the fact that Google won't kick off the people they KNOW are gaming the system! Why ask us to report them if they then let them stay?
The other thing to keep in mind here is WHY Google introduced smart pricing in the first place. To offer advertisers a discount against the MFA sites, click traps and other garbage sites that don't convert.
Smart pricing is unpopular, and lets face it - doesn't actually work very well. If it bases it's decision on conversion tracking data is uncertain, as many advsertisers apparently don't use conversion tracking. Therefore it's purely guesswork on Google's part.
There would be much less need for smart pricing if Google got it's act together and cleaned out the sites that smart pricing was introduced to offer discounts against in the first place. If they concentrated on the problem, and not the percieved solution, then Random Pricing(TM) would play a much smaller part in our lives.
[edited by: david_uk at 6:28 am (utc) on Oct. 26, 2005]
Apparently with Smart Pricing, if you have multiple sites, and one of them performs badly, it will lower your earnings not only for that 1 site, but for all sites in the account.
In my experience, I don't see that happening. On one site of mine, let's call it Site A, a couple of months ago I changed my Adense ad layout and my income went up 400% from what it had been. Yet the income on the other sites in my account did not go up.
If the performance of Site A had really been dragging down the earnings of the other sites, then when Site A improved, the other sites should have increased in earnings as well. But they did not.
But, this is hotting up. When there is something this big there is always an intervention by ASA. It would be strange indeed if this occasion is any different.
In my experience, I don't see that happening. On one site of mine, let's call it Site A, a couple of months ago I changed my Adense ad layout and my income went up 400% from what it had been. Yet the income on the other sites in my account did not go up.
That doesn't necessarily mean anything. You may have made a change that affected CTR. But your ROI percent may have stayed exactly the same. If percentage wise those clicks did not turn into more sales, your income won't go up on the other sites.
If you want to verify it, do url channels, follow them very closely, make sure you have several sites, then delete the ads on one site at a time and see if the income changes on the other sites.
It's been about 2 months and the link and banner ads just have not performed.
I'm going to remove them, but my question is:
Does a page/channel suffer the same or a similar negative effect from non-performing multiple ads, as the OP described for non-performing sites affecting the entire account?
1. high traffic - low ctr - mid epc
2. mid traffic - mid ctr - mid epc
3. low traffic - high ctr - low epc
now the question: which one should i abandon? :)
to the people who advise to kill ads from pages that don't "perform" well:
what do you mean with that at all? why the heck should ctr or epc have something to do with conversion?
ctr only means, how many people click on your ads. you certainly can't draw any conclusions on how likely those few/many who have clicked buy something then.
although epc should correlate positively with conversion, it is big time keyword/topic based.
i thought that there is no way for us publishers to measure conversion. i am confused..
My niche products are expensive and both retail and trade buyers can take months deciding precisely which product they require therefore, in my case, this cookie mularky is a nonsense.
moTi asks perfectly valid questions and all I would say is, don't change a thing since the next algo update/alteration may wipe out exactly what you perceived to be an improvement.
If one is already making good money from the programme then what's the point of trying to tweak (aka by Google as gaming maybe) the site so much that it takes one's attention away from the real objective of promoting the sites better and adding more valid content.
This is what I am doing and leaving the core mega sites alone and developing the niche areas to focus relevant information for the visitor and thereby click on the quality ads.
So far on the sites which have been completed this way the stats are showing as follows:
5.5% CTR and USD 12.33 eCPM - 2 weeks old site
8.9% CTR and USD 19.55 eCPM - 2 months old site
8.0% CTR and USD 18.23 eCPM - 10 months old site
11.2% CTR and USD 26.64 eCPM - 10 months old site
20.0% CTR and USD 44.50 eCPM - 18 months old site
28.8% CTR and USD 69.03 eCPM - 5 years old site
Surely that is the better way forward and, as you can see in my case, the older the site the better the return.
Must go, loads more sites to do...:-)
wow, you must be earning thousands daily.
I can wish...the figures look great however I'm not in the 100,000 page impressions a day range...then I would be earning thousands per day! I do earn in the low thousands per month though:-)
It's all relative to one's niche sector, I don't encroach on any other trade, I stick solely to my niche and, as stated, developing specialised sites within that niche and as you can see the results are breaking away from my core mega site CTRs and eCPMs.
Hrm is it the PR7 site with 100k visitors a day or is it the PR6 site with 20k visitors a day. I am not going to play whack a mole with my network here. So this is the main reason they only want you to have one account?
Looks like I will NOT be adding adsense to the rest of my network now, I wouldnt want to get "smart priced" again lol.
Just a few points to add.
Firstly, because Google has revealed so little about "Smart Pricing", they have clearly left themselves open to it being discussed. Contrary to an earlier poster who basically implied that "smart pricing" is Google's business - it is our business and should be openly discussed by publishers.
Secondly, if this "smart pricing" situation is correct, many of us should be requesting individual accounts for our websites (particularly if they are of a reasonable size).
Thirdly, I am hopeful that the phone call that kurtpdx received is indicative of an improved communications policy on Google's part. I suspect the changing competitive environment will change their approach.
Fourthly, thanks to kurtpdx for starting this thread. It started a lively discussion. One of the best recently.
Don't think that I am trying to bash Google. I just think there are areas where they could improve. Overall, I think they have been fair to the web publishing community. Many of us would certainly not be where we are today without them.
now the question: which one should i abandon? :)
None of them. Instead, for each topic area (definition: set of pages displaying roughly the same ads), remove AdSense from those pages with the worst CTR. Replace the AdSense ads with your own "ads" that, if clicked on, lead to better-performing pages.
why the heck should ctr or epc have something to do with conversion?
Why should CTR have something to do with conversion? Have you ever been an advertiser? If there's a page where only 1 out of 1,000 visitors click on an ad, and another page where 1 out of 10 visitors click on the exact same ad, you really think that is highly unlikely to indicate anything about how qualified the traffic is between those two pages? For a great many (the vast majority?) AdWords ads, Google has no direct conversion data from the advertiser. It would therefore be quite puzzling if CTR played no role in their Smart Pricing algorithm.
It would therefore be quite puzzling if CTR played no role in their Smart Pricing algorithm.
Just a thought.
What if a site were simply geared towards offering, images, comparison and technical information between specific types of products with no possible sale whatsoever from the publishing site but obviously from the advertisers?
Certainly a possible sale may be tracked from the original ad however what if that takes several months to complete? How would Google or the advertiser know unless the advertiser asked EVERY purchaser how they originally discovered them?
Or am I guilty of over-complicating things?
None of them. Instead, for each topic area (definition: set of pages displaying roughly the same ads), remove AdSense from those pages with the worst CTR. Replace the AdSense ads with your own "ads" that, if clicked on, lead to better-performing pages.
if it was so easy. theoretically you may be right, but this is very site dependent. you can't always send your users around from page to page in order to possibly meet your expectations. you first have to analyze why a specific page has higher ctr. that could be landing page issues, low traffic on that page etc.
Have you ever been an advertiser? If there's a page where only 1 out of 1,000 visitors click on an ad, and another page where 1 out of 10 visitors click on the exact same ad, you really think that is highly unlikely to indicate anything about how qualified the traffic is between those two pages?
exactly. that is my standpoint. there is an equal chance in converting for the 1 out of 1000 as for the 1 out of 10.
it's called preselection. on the supposition that visitors don't click accidentally, there is no reason to believe that the 1 out of 1000 performs worse.
That doesn't necessarily mean anything. You may have made a change that affected CTR. But your ROI percent may have stayed exactly the same. If percentage wise those clicks did not turn into more sales, your income won't go up on the other sites.
I'm not sure what ROI means in relation to Adsense earnings. I though ROI meant return on investment.
Perhaps I'm being dense, but under the OP's premise, I thought he said his income went up only when his conversions went up, and not when his clicks went up. So if my income went up on Site A when I changed around the ad layout, then under the premise presented in this thread then my conversions logically must have gone up as well or else my income would have stayed the same.
Yet, the other sites did not rise in income when Site A went up in income. So from my perspective I still don't see that my experience matches the OPs premise.
It's in the hands of the advertiser if the conversions are being tracked. Google has NO CLUE what is converting in many many cases.
That being said - If all AdWords Advertisers were to remove Google's ability to track conversions. This would effectively drive down the value of clicks for publishers everywhere. If NOTHING converts, then everything would be severly discounted.
I agree that CTR should NOT play ANY role in smart pricing - but their conversion tracking sucks so bad that they had to throw in another variable (IMO).
If anything, the ONLY factor of smart pricing should be conversion rate - but Google can't properly track this yet. It is blatantly obvious that smart pricing is flawed in its entirety.
I really, honestly hope that this all gets cleared up in coming months. Google shouldn't have to be secretive about their Smart Pricing algo. If they were open about conversions being the deciding factor of smart pricing - then they would be encouraging people to put on the white hat.
By leaving us in the dark for all this time, Google has actively got the entire community of AdSensers striving for the highest CTR possible (by any means possible), which is probably negatively impacting Conversion rate... but who cares right?! It's not like they can track conversions worth a hoot anyways.
***shrugs and thows hands in the air***
Google has actively got the entire community of AdSensers striving for the highest CTR possible
But of course! What does a higher CTR mean for Google? More $$$. All other things being equal, the faster they can serve up those clicks, the more money they'll earn in the same amount of time. Yes, some advertisers will set a daily limit and just hit it faster. But I'll bet a lot of others who never reach their daily limits will if CTR creeps up. And others who spend X will start spending X+ if they're getting more and more clicks (assuming conversions merit it). You'd be incredibly naive to believe that Google doesn't LOVE higher CTR!
My quote from page 2
"
In AdWords - if you are making more money for Google (high ctr), Google rewards you.
In AdSense - if you are making more money for Google (high ctr), Google rewards you.
Starting to see a pattern?
"
I think that CTR is a factor in Smart Pricing, but that it should not be. If this is the case, the program is really just on a self-destruct timer... almost literally.
The manner in which I can discern the behavioral difference between visitors to my site(s) based on their search engine origins - Yahoo, Google, MSN or other, is NOT entirely a factor of the 2 tracking mechanisms I employ...
A LONG STORY SHORT... I have 5 different web sites which are/were virtually the same content (they look a little different with cosmetic color changes). Back in 1998, I designed each with a particular search engine in mind, and the search engines' spiders did their work accordingly. For the most part it worked, except 2 of my designs "flipped-flopped" on which search engines I had designed them for (go figure).
So almost 100% traffic I receive at each of the particular sites, can be attributed to a given search engine. The few that find themselves there otherwise are statistically negligible.
Next, I have AdSense Channels made for each web site, and the various sub section of each.
THIS allows me to compare the Traffic behavior of visitors to my web site(s), by comparing the stats between the 5 sites, for any particular "Local" Directory page, say my "California" page.
After observing the traffic behavior ON MY WEB SITE(S) for going on 2 years now, Google traffic "convert" much better than traffic from any other search engine (or any other source for that matter).
Now I will agree that the color variation between the 5 sites may contribute somewhat in the "clicability" factoring, BUT the overall difference is quite pronounced as to attribute such discrepancy entirely to "background color difference" - Therefore I conclude that Google Traffic converts much better on my sites, which are semi-technical in nature... Although anyone using the Internet is exposed to this "Tech stuff" by default.
Obviously, other web sites are different and your experiences may be different than mine.
