Drop in CTR since Jan 19?

[JohnKelly]

In addition to a drop in EPC since the new year, I'm now seeing about a 20% drop in CTR since yesterday, back down to where it was before I switched to the large rectangle ads.

This is for a directory site that covers pretty much everything, so a few advertisers making changes should have no effect.

[irock]

Me too...

Here's what I found out...

Before Jan 19th... the ads are generally targeted on my site theme. Now, it's targeted to the content of each page. Sounds like the latter targetiing would result in higher CTR, but in my case, a lower CTR is the result.

My other revenue source: price comparison co-brand... the merchant seems to be bidding up again.

So my guess is that CPC will begin to raise as soon as next week. Though I maybe wrong.

[Macro]

>>since Jan 19

How many days of stats do you have since Jan 19th?

<shaking head>

[JohnKelly]

How many days of stats do you have since Jan 19th?

I know, not quite 1.5 days (I was including 1/19)... but my CTR is amazingly stable. Any variation of 10 or 20% is noticed immediately.

[webman]

My Adsense CTR also dropped by about 40%, which affected my commisssions by the same. For me, it happened on the 18th and has remained 40% lower since. Also, when I look back at the last 6 months of data, my CTR hasn't been this low since September.

If this is a seasonal variation, it wouldn't make sense that it would change overnite like this.

[jabberwookie]

I've noticed a 20% drop in CTR since 1/17. My CRT has been stable (within 0.2% daily) for the past 7 months and my volume is contant in the low XXX,XXX impressions per day

[david_uk]

I have to say that you are basing the statistic on a very short timeframe. Personally I look at my stats daily, but don't take a lot of notice of bad days as during the rest of the week there is usually a good day to compensate.

Apart from MLK day (USA) this week my CTR and earnings are well up.

[FromRocky]

I noticed that some of my pages used to be on-targetted ads have been shown the off-targetted ads (completely diffrent nique) since yesterday. That's very odd for my site.

[karatekid]

went into the tank today - 75% drop

[rapidcars]

Mine dropped about 30% yesterday which is the lowest its been in a while and its usually pretty stable. It's almost normal though so far today

[qwer]

My earnings have also dropped in the last 3 days.

[kempozone]

Don't know what is going on, but Jan is the worst month since joining adsense in Oct. 04 :-(

I have 2 sites. Travel & general topic. Both experiencing similar trends.

Down about 60%. Hope things turn around. Getting tired of saying that.

kz

[TNJed]

My CTR dropped about 43% in the past 5 minutes. Anyone else seeing this?

Ah, nevermind, it's back up.

[security56]

lol you guys should concidered yourself lucky, i being 50% down the whole month, :)

[darkmage]

Here we go again with the 'income down threads'. As usuaul, those doing well are keeping quiet so we end up with a skewed thread. Funny thing, why not say that January is normal and December was very good?

Also, please stop trying to make a trend out of fractional days. If you have to use a decimal point to describe how many days there has been a trend, there is no trend. A 0.5 or 1.5 day trend?

Finally, most posts have not given their topic areas, so you can't deduce anything from the above 'me too' answers.

[webman]

I just hit the fourth day of CTR being down 40%. It's been consistent within 0.1% during those 4 days. If it's not a change in Adsense, then it must be a change in SERPs (not necessarily Google's) or a change in the advertisers being served by Adsense.

I've checked the SERPs but my ads are so diversified across so many sites and categories that I can't find any cause for the change. Also, it's noteworthy that total page impressions have only dropped by about 5-10%.

If this was a seasonal effect, why would it take place so suddenly (everything changed on one day)? That's why my best guess is that Adsense has changed. Either the algorithm they use to serve ads or maybe the way they track the clicks. Who knows....

[markis00]

"I just hit the fourth day of CTR being down 40%."

Maybe I'm not seeing the picture here, or maybe you guys have amazing CTR. But my average CTR is only 10-30% - so unless you're getting higher then 40-50% CTR, how can you have a 40% CTR drop?

If you do manage to have above 40% CTR; what am I doing wrong I wonder?

January will be a lower month for all of us. While I'm still making more then I did in December, my earnings rise about 20% every month, as well as my traffic.

But when you think about it, most people won't be buying much on the 'net in Jan. because everyone spent their money in December. For a lot of people, you will experience lower CTR because of buyer trends, which affect everyone, as well as webmasters.

At least that's what I imagine is happening. Correct me if I'm wrong

[hunderdown]

If a site averages a 10% CTR, and experiences a 40% decline, then the CTR has gone down to 6%. They are talking about a percentage of a percentage.

[markis00]

Thanks, that makes much more sense ;)

[flobaby]

Maybe I'm not seeing the picture here,

You're not, 40% of anything is a little less than half, right? So even if the OP was used to getting a 1% CTR, a 40% drop would leave him with .60% CTR.

Edited to say: Posted at the same time as previous answer.

[edited by: flobaby at 7:52 pm (utc) on Jan. 21, 2005]

[markis00]

Yes, sorry, hunterdown explained that