Poll: EPC trend over this year

[newbies]

I know when someone yells here about declining earning per click there are always people tell the opposite. But we never see the big picture. I am among the yelling club and would like to know actually how many of you have up trend and how many down trend from the begining of this year.

Two questions:
Clicks? - Up or Down
EPC? - Up or Down

For me,
Clicks up (60%)
EPC down (50%)

[Patient]

Not been running adsense for long but.... EPC down 50% across the board in Oct compared to Sept.

[Macro]

>> would like to know actually how many of you have up trend and how many down trend from the begining of this year

Such a poll is virtually useless as people who have declining figures are more likely to post than those who've seen big increases.

[darkmage]

Oh come on, not this topic again. Here is something you need to consider. EPC means diddly squat over the year, between sites and even between pages on your own site.

First point, you can't bank EPC, you bank earnings.

Secondly, multiple ad units and types of ad units destroy any meaningful EPC calcutions (there is, of course, no such thing as meangful EPC over any extended period). Why? Because the second/third unit EPCs are lower, so your impressions rise, total clicks rise, but EPC can plummet. But guess what, earnings go up - according to most people that post here. You bank earnings, so that is good. To compare EPCs, you would need to know how many ad units, plus what ad units (singles, wide sky etc). Then over the long term, the number means very little.

Did you notice that the only person who mentioned an EPC was one who was down, not up? That's where these threads always go.

But then you see this:
[webmasterworld.com...]
'Has anyone else noticed a sudden increase since 11th October.'

Repeat after me: earnings go up, earnings go down, earnings go up.....

[europeforvisitors]

First of all, smart pricing was introduced in early April, so a more valid comparison would be between April and the current month (or the last 30 days, if you prefer). Comparing post-smart pricing EPC with pre-smart pricing EPC is like comparing apples and oranges.

Second, as others have pointed out, earnings--measured in total revenues or CPM--are what count. Try paying your bills with EPC and see how far that gets you. :-)

Still, just for the sake of useless discussion, I'll say that my EPC this month is slightly lower than my EPC in April. So is my effective CPM. What's remarkable to me is that those numbers aren't lower, because I have a leisure-travel site and this is the time of year when I'd normally expect revenues to be dropping off. (Indeed, some--though not all--of my affiliate bookings are dropping off.) The fact that my AdSense revenues continue to be strong this late in the season is a very pleasant surprise.