Forum Moderators: martinibuster
My CTR has been decreasing since march 18, and is now approaching a banner level ctr.
Is it just me? Is there anything to be done, except wait and hope for better times?
Because you've been seeing a drop in ad quality since March 18, other factors may be also be at work. It's possible that the pool of ads for your topics has shrunken because of a major advertiser's departure, for example, or that growth in the number of publishers for your category has outstripped growth in the number of advertisers and ads.
The first problem (a flawed algorithm) is likely to get fixed sooner rather than later, if only because Google loses money when ads for frozen steaks run on veganrecipes.org. A solution to the second problem (not enough ads or advertisers for your topic) is less predictable.
If you're thinking of dumping AdSense, you might want to consider keeping the code on at least some of your pages to see if targeting and effective CPM improve in the weeks and months ahead. If things do improve, you can then restore the AdSense ads to all your pages.
It's almost as if relevance to the page is no longer a factor.
Could it be that a lot of advertisers are dropping content targeting and you are getting 'general' ads?
They appear to be regular content targeted ads, that appear on the wrong page.
Perhaps some advertisers are using too broad keywords, that may be part of the problem.
Could it be that a lot of advertisers are dropping content targeting and you are getting 'general' ads?
That might be true in some categories, but it certainly isn't true in mine. On my site, the 15% drop in CTR this month appears to be caused by badly mistargeted (not general) ads on some pages, such as frequent ads for things like "Denver auto brokers" and "fleet management" on the home page of my European travel site.
I forgot to add: the last few days I have noticed lower EPC and I wonder if this is because my viewers are clicking ads out of curiosity that are really irrelevant to the information they are going after. If so, I am being penalized simply because screwgle is doing a poor targeting job.
Actually, it's the advertisers who'd be penalized, because they'd be paying for those "curiosity clicks." You'd be penalized only to the extent that you wouldn't be getting as many clicks as you normally do because of irrelevant ads.
DoU
Really, everyone loses: I lose clicks and revenue, advertisers get charged and get lower ROI, and google ends up with a publisher base that is so disaffected that they will jump ship when yahoo or msn get into the game at this level. Google also loses if advertisers start to drop out because they don't appreciate the lower ROI.
Like I said, google is now screwgle.
Using channel data, I removed AdSense from the 15% or so of my pages where it had near-zero CTR. As expected, my overall CTR went up. Then April the 1st happened, and my CTR went right back where it had been.
And so far today I have the lowest CTR and CPM ever.
I expect to make more from Amazon this month than from AdSense, which is something I'd never imagined would happen.
It seems there has been no algo advances in this area... and it may still be the underlying issue with the cries of "mistargeting". Lest this become just more posting noise, lets try and set some context with a small handful of actual examples. As of 30 mins ago on a very high content site, a reference on the page for:
1) Golf holidays in Cairns - triggers ads for golf in the UK
2) Tours in Victoria Australia - triggers ads for tours in Belize and Nepal
3) Wild flower tours - triggers ads for florists
4) White water rafting in Victoria - triggers ads for rafting in West Virginia
5) Melbourne italian restaurants - triggers ads for tours in Rome and Florence
6) A festival in Sydney - triggers ads for Musikfest in Bethlem, PA
and so on. These are not occasional mismatches.. its repetitive and can take over all 4 results on a skyscraper.
I am grateful for the opportunity that Adsense offers for increasing my income and do not wish to appear as Google bashing. However, I feel compelled to add my voice in hopes that someone at Google is listening and may feel it appropriate to respond to their commercial partners concerns as voiced in these forums.
1) Golf holidays in Cairns - triggers ads for golf in the UK
2) Tours in Victoria Australia - triggers ads for tours in Belize and Nepal
[etc.]
Yes, I often see the same thing--not constantly, but frequently enough to be perplexing. (What is a "New York City Guide" doing on a page about Austria, especially when New York isn't mentioned anywhere on the page?)
Because one of the changes seems to be VERY broad matching. Your page has the word "flower", so you'll get any ad mentioning flowers. No matter the context - funeral flowers, wedding flowers, dried flowers, squirting gag flowers, whole wheat flour...
Thanks--I think you've nailed the reason. I've got "City Guides" in my navigation menu, so that must explain why the "New York City Guide" ad is being displayed. (Too bad New York is on the wrong continent!)
Because one of the changes seems to be VERY broad matching. Your page has the word "flower", so you'll get any ad mentioning flowers. No matter the context - funeral flowers, wedding flowers, dried flowers, squirting gag flowers, whole wheat flour...
I guess if I think in terms of VERY broad matching, some of the ads we're seeing do start to make sense in a weird way ... but they're oh-so-irrelevant for the pages they appear on.
For example, on a page about oak furniture, Adsense is consistently showing a block of ads about hardwood flooring. None of the ads mention oak -- let alone furniture -- but the advertisers have probably targetted the word "oak." And thus these ads end up on our page.
Targetting pre-April 1st was much cleaner. The ads were consistently on-topic, and interesting. Our clickthrough rate was much higher too.
For what it's worth from our end, it doesn't much matter if a flooring manufacturer is willing to pay a buck a click while the highest bidder for oak furniture will only pay a dime. I'll get a slice of that dime many times a day ... but seldom a piece of that dollar!
