Significant decrease in earnings with increase in clicks.

Adwords advertisers noticing it too

[clearvision]

Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

I have had a tremendous amount of increase in traffic & click thrus over the last few months. The income per day remains stable which means it is actually decreasing with the increased clicks.

I noticed this on the Adwords forum:

This morning, like a switch, our average CPCs took a giant tumble on our new campaigns. We are now paying something like 1/4th of what we have been paying for the last month. This is on multiple keywords in multiple campaigns. Competitors have not changed and no one has dropped out of the bidding.
(posted here: [webmasterworld.com...] )

Someone posted in another thread that this could be happening because higher click thru campaigns and possibly seniority get more priority than the highest bidder on keywords. It just doesn't sound profitable for Google ( which is their ultimate goal...as it should be :)

I have not noticed a change in advertisers displaying on our site so even though it is not logical...it could possibly be true!

Any ideas?

[europeforvisitors]

Google may have changed its "smart pricing" algorithm in a way that lowers the net price for some ads (or publishers) and raises it for others. That might explain why some AdSense forum regulars are complaining of dropping EPC/CPM while others are seeing the opposite trend.

As for Google's wanting to maximize its profits, don't forget that it took a $$$ hit when it introduced "smart pricing" discounts last April. Sometimes making less in the short run leads to bigger profits in the long run.

[JohnKelly]

That is very, very interesing. On the date Jmez noticed a "switch being thown" on Feb. 18th in terms of CPC (see msg #8 in that thread), I noticed a sudden drop in EPC of about 25%.

Something odd is going on, too bad we don't have a Google representative who frequents this forum. Seems the big G want to treat it's publishers as mushrooms :)

[europeforvisitors]

Seems the big G want to treat it's publishers as mushrooms :)

If we work hard and keep our noses clean, maybe we'll be upgraded to truffles. :-)

[ownerrim]

"Google may have changed its "smart pricing" algorithm in a way that lowers the net price for some ads (or publishers) and raises it for others"

Personally, I had wondered about this; however I seem to be on the rollercoaster. Decent days, good days...she loves me, she loves me not

[kempozone]

I don't know anything about "smart pricing" but I started with adsense in October and was disappointed to see earnings dropped by 30% for each month thereafter up to about the first week of this month.

Since the second week of Feb, I am pleased to see earnings reaching high levels setting new records almost everyday.

I'm still trying to figure out the cause of this phenomenon. My guess is the result of better ad targeting from adsense on my sites. I have a total of 4 sites completely different topics but only 2 of them generate significant traffic to make any assessments.

kz

[jetteroheller]

[ Personally, I had wondered about this; however I seem to be on the rollercoaster. Decent days, good days...she loves me, she loves me not ]

Same here.

One day very happy, other day total desperate.

Last big change on Saturday.

Saturday, Sunday great, Monday highest ever, Tuesday awful

[ownerrim]

wow deja vu.

monday for me was fantastic. tuesday it dropped quite a bit