eCPM Dip from Oct. to Feb.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[wfernley]

My eCPM for the month of Oct. was $9 and now for the month of Feb. it has gone down to $5. I have over double the traffic but not that much higher earnings.

Has anyone else experienced this? Does Google take more of a cut the higher traffic you get?

[moTi]

same experience here. but it's not googles' cut, it's the more traffic, the less qualified. in my area, i meanwhile blame it also on the massive amount of free ad space released by new adsensers who have slept till mid last year. seasonal fluctuations could be another point.

[FrostyMug]

i experienced an exact reversal of your situation. My ecpm now is in the range of about 9-12, where it was lingering around 5-6 just months ago. The time when it went up drastically was around November of last year. the unique visitor count has been a steady 10-20% increase month over month due to more content and optimization. The site is at least 6 years old, but was moved to a brand new purchased domain and expanded ten-fold about a year ago where i basically had to start from nothing in the serps.

[whbiz]

My eCPM went down when I lost Google traffic for about 3 months with Jagger last year beginning end-Sept to December. Maybe those who bookmarked my site and Yahoo traffic converted less and clicked less on the ads. When I got back my Google traffic, eCPM went to the previous levels, even higher.

[europeforvisitors]

My February eCPM is down about 3.7% from October. February's eCPM was down 6% from January's, possibly because of the new separate bidding for search and content ads. However--and more significantly--it's up 22.6% from February of last year.

[hunderdown]

wfernley, eCPM is not a real number. It's a derived number, based directly on click-through rate and average click value. You didn't say anything about them. Which went down? Both? How much?

[wfernley]

CTR is just a bit lower in FEB than Oct. The CPC is a bit lower as well. I got 0.32 in Oct. and now I get 0.29 per click. I didn't think those little differences could make such a big impact on my eCPM.

[hunderdown]

I didn't think those little differences could make such a big impact on my eCPM.

But they do, don't they?

5% CTR and a 30 cent EPC means an eCPM of $15.00.

4% CTR and a 25 cent EPC means an eCPM of $10.00.

Lose one percent of your CTR (which more accurately is a 20% drop) and 5 cents off your EPC, and there you go--your eCPM drops by a third.

eCPM is useful for comparison purposes but if you want to see what visitors are doing, look at CTR and EPC.

[wfernley]

What is the EPM?

[wfernley]

Sorry, I mean EPC.

[Vlad]

Earnings Per Click (EPC)

[wfernley]

Great thanks :)

[badongo]

I am seeing similar things.

Starting Feb 23rd ECPM started going down hard.
On march 2nd and 3rd it was a brutal slaughter

Our eCPM is down 75% from Feb 23rd with the same amount of impressions and clicks (my ctr was actually up by .04% yesterday and hit a record)

[wfernley]

I think advertisers are starting to realize they dont have to pay $2 a click for their ad. Yes it may not appear at the top but they still get some traffic. I think that is why EPC is going down for everyone.

[G_Smitty]

My eCPM is actually higher than normal.

[europeforvisitors]

I think advertisers are starting to realize they dont have to pay $2 a click for their ad. Yes it may not appear at the top but they still get some traffic.

In another thread, someone pointed out that advertisers have had the ability to bid separately for search and content ads since some time in January, so that could be a factor (at least for those who have complained about dropping EPC/eCPM).

It would be a mistake to assume that PPC bids are trending downwards in general, however. In fact, there was recently a thread in the Supporters Forum in which most of the participants indicated that the trend was toward higher bids.

[wfernley]

Well I hope your right! I want a higher CPC ;)

I will be able to compare my results to last years in a couple months. I have only been using Adwords for just over 10 months now.