smart pricing

how does it work?

[Publisher]

I understand that if I'm an AdWords advertiser, and my ads fail to generate conversions, that smart-pricing clicks in and the rate I pay for each click drops.

My guess is that this is independent of which site the ad appears on. If the advertisers ads aren't working, they're not working on all sites.

Given this, it would seem that smart-pricing would come into play on an AdWords basis, not on a site basis.

Discussions on this topic seem to indicate that smart pricing can affect an AdSense site's performance.

Is it the site or the ads that trigger smart-pricing?

[europeforvisitors]

We know that smart pricing is determined by the type of content on the page and its likelihood of conversion. (Because Google has said so.)

It may also be influenced by available conversion data for an individual site, but we don't know that for sure.

We've also been told (via a former AdSense Forum moderator who has contacts at Google) that smart pricing is applied on an accountwide (not just a sitewide or pagewide) basis.

And that's about all that we do know.