Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Waits while everyone runs to check...
What I want to know is how well the ad unit eCPM compares, like for like, between your Site and Contextual targetted income.
For me I'm seeing that Site targetting is giving less than 10% eCPM compared to Contextual targetting in all cases.
I have to side with vincevincevince and david_uk over EFV
Well, if we're all piling in, I'll side with EFV.
In theory, a site-targetted ad with $2 eCPM does not displace a CPC ad with $20 eCPM. It displaces PSAs or lower eCPM ads.
In practice, whether this happens seems variable, but we can't tell directly from the stats. I infer it wasn't happening on my site from the very low eCPM (1/15th of CPC eCPM) combined with the fact I could occasionally see the ads in prime time on prime pages.
I think opting out needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis. EFV is right in theory but one needs to assess whether theory is turned into practice on one's own site.
I have very low PSAs - about 0.2%, while site targeted ads are 16% of my total adviews. Again, am not buying the explanation of site targeted ads replacing PSAs or low paying ads. How could a $2 eCPM site targeted ad replace a $25 eCPM contextual ad?
The new stats tell me that my audience is very responsive to ads. Since my site does not attract millions of adviews per day, CPM ads really are not for me. Plus the fact that CPM ads are now so low - heck, I deselect ads paying anything lower than $1 CPM with Burst, why will I go for Google's $0.25 CPM? I really doubt that their system is actually doing what they claim it should do in terms of the selection of types of campaigns.
now to the million dollar question. how a publisher opt out from the site targeting ads, and allows only contextual ads to show up?
It used to be the case that they would email back telling you that Site Targetting really does make you more money. You then had to email back confirming that you did want to withdraw from the scheme.
But I wonder if Google have now realised that quite a few publishers lose money from this. Hey, perhaps the statistics report I sent them in December has had some influence on the mighty Google? :-))
In that case, withdrawing the facility would upset advertisers and those few publishers who are making money from it. By publishing this information, they can let the market find its natural level. If so, they may have stopped trying to persuade publishers to stay in.
I doubt if the theory that CPM ads only displaces low paying ads or PSAs in my case.
It isn't a theory: It's how site-targeted ads are supposed to work, according to Google. (Which isn't to say that things always work as they should.)
just learned on the reporting feature from this thread. holly cow! the site targeting ecpm is 20 times less than the contextual ads.
Depends on the site and the page. You might want to go back and read this entire thread, including Prieshach's comment in message #17 that "My site targeted eCPM for Feb was 1.5 times higher than the contextual eCPM."
On my own site, the eCPM for contextual ads is running about 240% ahead of the eCPM for site-targeted CPM ads since the beginning of March. But (and this is an important "but"), the eCPM for site-targeted CPM ads is significantly higher than I get with contextual ads in some low-traffic channels such as photo galleries. So having the higher-paying CPM ads on those otherwise unproductive pages is a definite plus. (I might add that my site-targeted CPM rate isn't bad for "remnant ads," either: It's measured in dollars, not cents.)
If site-targeted CPM ads are performing terribly on your site, then maybe you should ask to have them removed. But don't panic or make assumptions based on other people's experiences--do a careful analysis before e-mailing AdSense Support.
Personally I've seen mixed results, but when I get targeted by a major campaign the CPM ads do appear to pay well. So I'm not changing anything for now.
But most of the time I get only a relative few site targeted CPM ads shown. At this point I'll take all I can get.
I didn't always feel that way, but December changed my mind when some image ads that overran my site, and which I assumed were site targeted, almost double my average months income. Seeing the actual numbers broken down in my stats confirmed my thinking.
BTW, it's important to remember that advertisers decide what they'll pay for site-targeted CPM ads and where those ads appear. If you're getting lousy CPMs from site-targeted ads, that isn't necessarily Google's fault: It may simply mean that your site as a whole doesn't appear to be a desirable venue for CPM advertising. (Hypothetical examples: A site that gets most of its traffic from forums, or a site where 80% of the editorial pages are photo galleries.)
If site-targeted CPM ads are performing terribly on your site, then maybe you should ask to have them removed. But don't panic or make assumptions based on other people's experiences--do a careful analysis before e-mailing AdSense Support.
I absolutely agree with this. There may be sites where cpm works really well, so a careful analysis MUST be done before decisions are made. Thankfully we are now in a position to make that decision based on facts.
I'm not against cpm ads. There are some very well visited pages on my site where I know adsense doesn't work, so I don't show ads. I'd happily sign up for site targetted ads if I could choose where they were to show! I would put aside a separate banner on my main page for them, and on some pages show them exclusively.
My problems with the way site targeted ads are implemented:-
1, I don't have a choice where they show. I spend a lot of time analysing visitor patterns on my site. I'm in a much better position than Google will ever be to decide where they would work. IMHO webmasters should have choices where to show them.
2, I've seen site targetted ads appearing at prime time in a banner that usually is well over $30 eCPM. That's either a really screwy algo, or deliberate. Either way I don't care, and I don't want a site targetted ad in that block unless they pay whatever the true auction rate is to appear.
If site targetted replaced PSA's, or genuinely were the best paying option then I'd happily allow Google to make that decision. Seeing that (in my case) the opposite is true then they are blocked.
If you're getting lousy CPMs from site-targeted ads, that isn't necessarily Google's fault: It may simply mean that your site as a whole doesn't appear to be a desirable venue for CPM advertising. (Hypothetical examples: A site that gets most of its traffic from forums, or a site where 80% of the editorial pages are photo galleries.)
Yes I fully understand that and I am sharing here the decision I've reached -- that site targeted ads are not working for me -- only after thoroughly looking at my stats.
My site is purely editorial (forum section does not have Adsense) focusing on various business topics (e.g. angel investing to branding to patents to LLCs to internet marketing) and I get very good eCPM (upwards of $45 even on a bad day) and revenues. Most of my traffic comes from the search engines, as I am tops in my niche, and not from forums. Site is definitely not a photo gallery; in fact, the only picture is a small graphic at the homepage. It contains lots of original articles, mostly several pages long.
I have also been showing CPM ads the moment it was first reported here (when I was still lurking) and everyone else was asking how do CPM ads look like. So I know my site is attractive to CPM advertisers. Everyday I see CPM ads on my site.
It is just that my site works really really well for contextual advertising, and my stats tell me that there is a high opportunity cost in showing CPM ads.
Of course, other folks with different types of websites will have different experiences.
[edited by: whbiz at 5:38 pm (utc) on Mar. 3, 2006]
I just removed the advertiser sign-up from my site. Is that enough?
No, because there are other ways for advertisers to choose your site for CPM ads.
Do we have to e-mail support if we wish to opt out of these CPM ads.
Yes.
I'm seeing lots of days with 300 to even 1,500 impressions for only $0.17 to $0.31 eCPM.
However, the positive side of this is that I'm now seeing that site targeting can be very lucrative. On some days these advertisers managed to get 22 clicks for only 18 cent!
I'm definitely going to play around a bit with site targeting now ;)
Supposing you have three ad units per page. In the top one, clicks are generating $0.50 a pop and you're getting a 5% CTR. That's a $25 eCPM. In the next unit, you're getting $0.40 at 2.5% CTR. That's $10 eCPM. In the bottom unit you're getting $0.25 at 1%, giving $2.50 eCPM.
So there you have it, a typical scenario for someone getting $37.50 page eCPM ($25 + $10 + $2.50), or $12.50 ad unit eCPM ($37.50/3). Why would you see $3 eCPM site targeted ads on a $37.50 site? Becaue that bottom CPC block is generating just $2.50, and if AdSense replaces it with a $3 CPM ad, the page earns more.
And one more thing: it looks to me as if site targeted ads are being shown instead of PSAs for unspidered pages. That's a $3 (or whatever) eCPM instead of a $0 eCPM.
I know this is not the whole story for many people, but bear it in mind before writing off CPM ads without thinking them through. Of course there are other issues, like whether or not you can bear the ugliness of the CPM "expanded text" ads, whatever they generate, but that's another matter...
First, please remember that site targeted ads are paid on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) basis, not a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. So if there are no associated clicks for your site targeted ads, don't worry -- eCPM is not affected.
Second, site targeted ads compete in the same auction as contextual ads, and will only display when they represent a higher eCPM than any combination of contextual ads that could appear. (for more information about Ad Rank and the AdWords auction process, I recommend reading [adsense.blogspot.com...] ).
Then why do you sometimes see a much lower eCPM for your site targeted ads than your contextually targeted ads? The answer is actually pretty simple: your site targeted ads are most likely appearing on lower performing pages or lower performing ad units (i.e., pages or ad units where a lower eCPM is required to win the ad auction).
So, by opting into site targeted ads, you should only be improving your overall revenue potential by deepening the pool of advertisements competing to display on your sites.
Supposing you have three ad units per page. In the top one, clicks are generating $0.50 a pop and you're getting a 5% CTR. That's a $25 eCPM. In the next unit, you're getting $0.40 at 2.5% CTR. That's $10 eCPM. In the bottom unit you're getting $0.25 at 1%, giving $2.50 eCPM.
Au contraire - I do see the point. In my case part of the reason for a good ecpm is that I don't let an ad block run unless it is productive. I know there is a wide variety of experience and opinion on this point, but it's been my experience that having ads that perform badly affect the bottom line cash figure - I know that I'm better off having a minimum of ad blocks but making sure they work. I would point out that you might be getting $45 ecpm overall by dumping the poorly performing blocks. Only experimentation will enable you to know what works best on your site.
I don't have anything against cpm ads - they just don't work on my site the way Google currently operates them. EFV gives excellent advice in this thread:- use the new stats to see if cpm ads work for you, and make a decision based on the facts. You may well find that they actually do work for you. They obviously don't work for everybody, but thanks to the new feature we can find out this for sure before making rush decisions to have them blocked.
Is site-targetting when you enable "Onsite Advertiser Sign-Up"?
Maybe I just don't have it as I have opted out of the 'advertise here option".
[adsense.blogspot.com...]
What Google missed is: publisher can NOT specify an ads slot for CPM or CPC only or for both. With this option up, publishers can optimize their individual ad slot and the result is everyone win.
But it seems Adsense is very slow in responding to request for optout from CPM ads.
Do let me know if there was an increase in earnings.
I would like to make sure if AS is really smart enough to optimize the ad serving to individual site-level, I doubt, however, if their algorthm can workout without the options configurable at the publisher side.
If it failed, I will opt out with no further expectation until AS release a real matching option for publishers.
I suggest they should put this option in the control panel instead of mailing them. ( if we wish to opt out of site targetting)
