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Visitors up, Adsense down?

Am I missing something.

         

bouncybunny

10:42 am on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



In the last two months (April to mid May) my visitor numbers have risen by a quarter. Yet my Adsense profits have dropped by a quarter.

Is there any logic in this, or is it just a case of 'stuff hapens'?

Hobbs

11:35 am on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



'stuff happens' is the best explanation I have ever seen here in a long time, I like that, can I use it?

bouncybunny

11:57 am on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Feel free. ;)

I'd still be keen for any thoughts, random observations, or even paranoid and hysterical conspiracy theories.

humblebeginnings

12:36 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Stuff Happens

I like this one too. Forget smartpricing, ad-placement and rodeo-updates; Stuff Happens.

But if you really want to go deeper into this:

There are really a thousand reasons why your earnings could be up/down (while your impressions are up/down).

For example it could be:
- Smartpricing
- A serps update
- Less or more competitors in your niche
- Less or more advertisers in your niche
- Advertisers bidding less or more
- Advertisere changing their ad-copy
- Visitors clicking less or more for whatever reason
- An Adsense algo update
- Etcetera, etcetera.

GoldenHammer

12:57 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Take it easy, that is the rule for the game you are playing.... :P

Edge

3:30 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



AdSense can be like the weather. Sometimes it is hot, cold, rainy, etc.. Never take short term trends seriously or fret about it. Try to focus on the "big picture". Trends over several months tells the real story.

ronburk

5:49 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Did your top 5 (in terms of revenue) advertisers change during that period?

bouncybunny

8:43 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Not sure if my top 5 advertisers changed. It's a pretty changeable set of adverts that appear.

It just seemed odd that the earnings dropped at almost the exact same time as my visitor stats increased. I wondered if there might be any logic in that.

bsaric

8:53 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Only logic i can see from my stats is this.

Every month i get ton of traffic from total diffrent phrases then month before, this month are phrases from which people clicks less on ads :)

bouncybunny

8:57 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Hmmm. That would make sense.

Unfortunately I don't think that's the case. Pesky internet, who needs it?

Ah yes, me...

moTi

9:12 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



It just seemed odd that the earnings dropped at almost the exact same time as my visitor stats increased. I wondered if there might be any logic in that.

most publishers report that. i'm pretty convinced it has something to do with smartpricing.
with increasing number of visitors, it is more likely that every additional visitor is less interested in the content you provide, since there is only a limited supply of interest for the topic of your niche. lower interest means lower awareness for what your ads have to offer = worse preparation to buy those things. and that means lower click quality = lower conversion for the advertiser. there is probably a component in the algo that anticipates the effect of a surge in site traffic based on aggregated stats, so that smart pricing kicks in realtime.

secondly, there is only a limited number of high paying ads for your niche per day. it is likely, that google distributes the appearance of those ads among you and competing publishers throughout the day. increasing traffic in this case would mean accelerated "consumption" of those ad impressions on your site = lower paying ads to click on appear earlier.

bouncybunny

9:33 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



moTi

That's great food for thought, thanks.

Being of a 'scientific' nature (or just a sad git) that kind of explanation gives me a certain peace of mind. ;)

Hopefully, this will sort itself out over time. I'm in a niche industry, but it's not saturated AFAIK.

ronburk

10:40 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



> Not sure if my top 5 advertisers changed.

Lessee. Advertisers are the people who decide whether or not you're going to get any AdSense income whatsoever or not. Advertisers are the primary people to decide how much you'll get paid per click. For many publishers, a small percentage of advertisers are responsible for a disproportionate amount of the revenue -- just like with just about every other publishing medium in the history of mankind.

But you don't really know anything about your top advertisers, who they are, whether some of them dropped out or significantly cut their ad budget.

The solution? Focus on those AdSense stats. Closely examine theories such as, maybe bad ol' Google takes away your income if you start making too much. This is what we call Looking Where the Light is Better.

---------------------------

One night, a guy sees his buddy standing under a streetlight, looking around on the ground, asks him what he's up to.

"I lost my car keys."

"You lost them out here in the street?"

"No, I lost them somewhere in my yard."

"Then why are you looking for them out here in the street?"

"'Cause the light is better out here!"

bouncybunny

10:46 pm on May 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



ronburk

Thanks, that's a helpful and informative post.

I do indeed check my stats regularly. But I'm not sure how to track individual advertisers on adsense. I can track ad unit performance and per page performance, but I haven't found anywhere that identifies advertisers individually. I must have missed that feature, so I will go back and check.

bouncybunny

2:45 pm on May 23, 2006 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Well, I really would love to follow ronburk's advice, but I've still not been able to find where in the Adsense control panel the options are to track individual advertisers. Am I missing something?

Any tips welcome.

avader

9:48 am on May 30, 2006 (gmt 0)



I'm curious also if this option exists, anyone?

jema

11:48 am on May 30, 2006 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I am also trying to take the long term view. I could almost say the exact same 25% increase in vists over 3 months, about the same rise in clicks, but actual earnings are down on the last two months.