Debunking the myth of "cap"

We broke our record -- made $700 in one day

[John Carpenter]

Some people believe the myth of "cap" saying that the more traffic you get, the less you (are allowed to) earn. Yesterday, we had 450% increase in traffic (about 18,000 unique visitors in one day) when compared to the average of the last 4 months. I thought for the sake of these people I'd share what impact that traffic spike had on our AS stats.

Earnings: 7 times the average ($700 in one day)
Impressions: 4 times the average
CTR: Twice the average
eCPM: 3 times the average

Note that the figures are just approximate (heavily rounded).

[turbohost]

Hi John,

Congratulations ... you are heading to more than 20.000$ per month! Nice! Hope you can stabilize this situation ...

Turbo

[Hobbs]

Hi John,
a- eCPM 25 jumping to eCPM 38 is not a quantum leap.
b- making $100 from 4,000 visitors is the achievement.
c- getting more than 4 times your average traffic and still managing good ctr and maintain or grow eCPM via good targeting is another achievement.

Two questions come to mind:
1- How did you do it (b & c)
2- Can you maintain it in the future or it was a fluke

fluke= those clicks paying same or even less, but very few of them generating 10 times your EPC.

Whatever you're doing John, keep it up.

[John Carpenter]

Can you maintain it in the future or it was a fluke

The traffic was a spike (nonetheless, we estimate it could be our average in one or two years). The goal of my post was just to help burry the myth of "cap" (the goal was not to announce that we are now going to make $20,000 monthly).

How did you do it (b & c)

Well, to be honest, we have not done anything about the site in the past months.

If you are wondering about the traffic, we've never done any SEO, never bought traffic, never have done link exchange, or things like that. I've already said it several times here, I believe the key to a sustainable success is to create a site people/media will talk about. If people stop talking about your site, then you will benefit from returning visitors (60% of our visitors bookmarked our site). If you achieve this, you don't have to worry about next Google index update.

[drall]

We have noticed over time with massive increases the system will bring you down, had you have sustained such a increase for about a week or so I will put money down that you would have been in for a big suprise.

[John Carpenter]

We have noticed over time with massive increases the system will bring you down, had you have sustained such a increase for about a week or so I will put money down that you would have been in for a big suprise.

Actually, we experienced substantial traffic growth several months ago. Traffic doubled and earnings doubled. Traffic has remained the same since then (i.e. doubled). In contrast to your experience, earnings have remained the same as well (i.e. doubled). There has been no decline.

[drall]

Im speaking in figures of $500.00 a day turning into $5000.00 a day. I see almost no changes at the 100-300 bucks a day range meaning that earning scale normally up to a certain point then start retreating in the face of larger numbers, I have seen this behaviour across many sites of ours.

I am fairly convinced this is due to such a large influx in traffic in adwords for certain keywords that the nature of the bidding system lowers payout but as with all things I will never have the proof.

We also have a fair amount of traffic for many of our sites, 1 mil users plus a month so it is quite possible we are maxing out total budgets for given verticals.

[Jafo]

I know all this talk about earning hundreds of dollars a day should inspire me, but sometimes, I just hate you guys. :)

[europeforvisitors]

I am fairly convinced this is due to such a large influx in traffic in adwords for certain keywords that the nature of the bidding system lowers payout but as with all things I will never have the proof.

It's more likely that a huge increase ($500 to $5,000 a day, to use your example) does one or both of the following:

1) It alters the ratio between supply and demand;

2) It causes you to exhaust your maximum allotment of ads for any given advertiser. (It would be reasonable for Google to spread ads around instead of letting one site suck up an individual advertiser's daily budget, not out of fairness to publishers but to minimize risk for advertisers.)

[ronburk]

Im speaking in figures of $500.00 a day turning into $5000.00 a day.

Riiiiight. No chance that the Google algorithm overpays when there's a huge increase in traffic until it figures out that a big percentage of the influx is unqualified visitors who aren't converting worth a hill of beans.

[Hobbs]

>The traffic was a spike
>we've never done any SEO, never bought traffic

Do you know where your traffic is coming from?

>60% of our visitors bookmarked our site

You must be setting a new industry standard.
Personally I think you are either in a niche heaven and in it alone, or your numbers are highly exaggerated, but then again I can only guess..
25 - 38 eCPM
60% bookmarks
Unknown spikes quadruple traffic doubling ctr and tripling eCPM!

Come on John, "Debunking the myth" needs more than an unexplained anomaly.

[Hobbs]

Jafo:

sometimes, I just hate you guys

lol

it's healthy Jafo, don't fight it or feel guilty.

[John Carpenter]

>60% of our visitors bookmarked our site

You must be setting a new industry standard.

I don't agree that we are "setting a new industry standard". 60% is not that big. If 99% of our visitors bookmarked our site, I'd call that an achievement.

Personally I think you are either in a niche heaven and in it alone

Yes, maybe you're right.

25 - 38 eCPM

Our average eCPM is much lower than that. Yesterday it was close though.

quadruple traffic doubling ctr and tripling eCPM!

Which is why I believe there is no "artificial limit", at least not for regular publishers (and, IMO, e.g. $5000 daily isn't regular but Premium).

[dibbern2]

I used to subscribe to the cap theory, but now I agree, there is no cap.

Our goal is to increase avg/day by a set amount each month, and while it takes much work, its a very attainable goal.

I don't see how this would be possible if there was a cap in place.

[whbiz]

I never subscribed to the cap theory. In end-December, our ad page views increased by 200%. Simultaneous to that is 100-175% increase in eCPM. We maintained the high traffic, and eCPM and revenues has remained its high level. There are even days when our daily eCPM would exceed $50 (average hovers a little below $50). Now if only we could get close to 100,000+ daily impressions that others have. With the kind of eCPM I am getting, I'd really really be happy.

[Hobbs]

I never subscribed to the cap theory

And who does?
If there is a limit to your earnings there is no point in trying to experiment & improve, almost all the big guys here had to start smaller.
There is also common sense and consistent, reasonable, believable growth in impressions, ctr and eCPM.
Finally there has to be an earnings acceleration threshold that Google sets beyond which any publisher would need to be manually reviewed to protect advertisers from fraud.

[europeforvisitors]

And who does?

The "cap" hypothesis often comes up in this forum, and some members (I'm not one of them) are convinced that it's true.

[wmuser]

The "cap" shouldnt be true for a long time period for for short time period Google,for security reason may set teh cap for your website based on average daily earnings so teh one dont mess upo things,for example if youa re making $100 a day rarely you will amke $500 another day

[dollarshort]

I never even suspected a cap, another looney theory like smart pricing.

[Zygoot]

I never even suspected a cap, another looney theory like smart pricing.

Smart pricing is not a looney theory..

[europeforvisitors]

Smart pricing is not a looney theory..

But a lot of people have loony ideas about smart pricing. :-)

[alika]

Tempuse, I assure you, $700 per day is doable. It all depends on the type of website, topics and customers you have. There's nothing fishy about it. Some do it because they have massive traffic, while some do it because they have really high CPMs. A site with only 20,000 ad impressions can reach $700 per day or more if they have CPMs of $45 or higher. Some sites have this type of numbers.

[G_Smitty]

I do about $400 - $600 a day with 16000 - 20000 page views.

[incrediBILL]

Some people believe the myth of "cap" saying that the more traffic you get, the less you (are allowed to) earn.

I've never believed there was any cap as my site daily does $100 for roughtly reaching X page impressions, then hits $200 for 2x pages impressions, so on and so forth.

Anyone that's ever run an AdWords campaign on the content network sees smart pricing in action and anyone in AdSense that has never run an ad campaign should try one before running off on a paranoia bender.

[dollarshort]

Yes, there is smart pricing but its has nothing to do with adsense. It is a feature in adwords.

[morpheus83]

I would really love to know how you position your ads.

[europeforvisitors]

Yes, there is smart pricing but its has nothing to do with adsense. It is a feature in adwords.

On the contrary: Smart pricing can have a direct impact on a publishers' earnings by reducing EPC (earnings per click).

Lower cost to advertiser = lower revenue to publisher.

[John Carpenter]

I would really love to know how you position your ads.

Inside the left and right borders. Some pages also have an ad unit at the bottom. Nothing special. The actual page content is in the middle of the page. We've never inserted ad units into the content (between paragraphs) even though we know it could increase CTR substantially. Many visitors would probably find it distracting or annoying.

The visitor experience has always been more important to us than the money. We sometimes experiment, but never with the visitor experience.

[OptiRex]

I've never believed there was any cap as my site daily does $100 for roughtly reaching X page impressions, then hits $200 for 2x pages impressions, so on and so forth.

Precisely my experience in more than two years with Adsense.

Nicely explained iBill.

[walkman]

>> The goal of my post was just to help burry the myth of "cap"

hate to say this, but one day is not enough to do so. You could've just as easy gotten 50% less traffic, yet earned five times more in that one day. The point is that one day is far from enough to bury "myths"