Forum Moderators: martinibuster
As a real time example, Monday is often the best day of the week for my sites but February 28 was the worst Monday income and EPC day in ages. But our traffic was near record levels. Similar situation last Sat too with dismal EPC and revenue.
I have also noticed an all time high record number of PSA's. But had 'good' targeted ads on many sites for a long time but recently the same sites have far more PSA'S than normal.
After a noticable decline from Jan 28 thru about mid-Feb there was a fairly nice improvement for a while (about mid-month) but lately its back off the cliff again!
Anyone else notice this dubious long term (since 2003) and also short term trend (starting about Jan 28 2005), especially past several days? Any ideas why this happens? Has G possibly reduced its payout percentage? Does G perhaps have less advertisors which may be why there are so many PSA ads?
Could this be related to allowing 3 ad units on each page (and more and more of us doing that) vs the past where there was a limit of 1? Has that caused a double whammy of a reduced ad inventory and also caused lower bid prices, resulting in a significant increase in PSA's?
Of course, as a long time (well satisfied and very happy with G) publisher we are extremely worried about this trend. Nothing we do as far as making our websites better, good products/services, content targeting, getting improved traffic and good ad layouts/colors, seems to stop the ongoing decline. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Good theory, BUT it still doesn’t explain the sharp decline starting 1st FEB.
I'm a great believer in "supply and demand” & “market forces" but wouldn’t that cause a gradual decline rather then a sharp abrupt one starting at a certain date?
And another important question, why G$ keeps so quite about it? its smells a mile away.
I run 7 sites on a wide range of topics. Some of them continue to generate the same daily income (+-15%) while the others fell by almost 60% (from Jan, Dec income). Impressions +- the same, CTR considerably up, yet click payout considerably down.
either a major adsense algo change took place on the 1st of Feb OR a serious glitch (which may explain the recent click adjustments for Feb etc. for some publishers).
Too many "ifs" & "maybes". G$'s way of doing business and it is "evil".
[edited by: max_mm at 4:53 am (utc) on Mar. 5, 2005]
October to December peak internet spend therefore january would be expected to decrease but New year sales pick up some slack
February dull month in bricks and mortar business and do not see why internet should be different
March should start to pick up spring holiday booking credit cards payed down after xmas binge etc.?
My own problem is that in 12 months on my own sites a number of changes have occured so its not even easy to compare 12 months data
But when i look at overall picture CPC has been decreasing over 6 months period sometimes very minor or hardly at all and other months decrease with very rarely an equivilent increase which implies 1 of 2 things
1 G taking larger slice of Pie
2 Supply and demand
My only thoughts are for number 2 as my cpc has decreased on adwords overall in this timeframe
steve
The amount of sites showing Adsense is going up,
Google can reduce payments because of this "if" they choose, wihtout loosing inventory.
Advertisers are clueing in that content match often has a poor roi.
The real question is if Google is willing to kill this cash cow by reducing pay outs to the point that it's inventory erodeds to nothing.
It might sound crazy, but I would.
I run 7 sites on a wide range of topics. Some of them continue to generate the same daily income (+-15%) while the others fell by almost 60% (from Jan, Dec income). Impressions +- the same, CTR considerably up, yet click payout considerably down.
Could you tell us what the differences are between the sites (besides the differences in EPC and income)?
What categories are the +/-15% sites in, and what categories are the nearly -60% sites in?
Also, are their traffic levels comparable?
Is their type of content (editorial, forums, e-commerce, consumer, B2B, etc.) the same?
Also, could Google's tough new policy regarding direct-to-merchant affiliate ads have affected supply and demand (and therefore bids) in your sectors?
Could you tell us what the differences are between the sites (besides the differences in EPC and income)?
I’d be interested to see this feedback also. We need some good data to help put some light on what has happened to some sites since February 1st.
We have a pure content oriented website focused on a niche with strong depth of information – over 2,000 pages. It is considered THE authority site on our topic is always at the top of any search engine results on our keywords. The site has been one of those that has consistently been immune to all past AdSense changes. eCPM has been very constant (in the range of $35.00 - $45.00 and we have been in the program since June 2003) and income has increased month-over-month hitting a record high in December.
Any time we have had a drop in eCPM, it has been short lived. Not this time. Our eCPM has been cut by 2/3. No major changes to the site and it is still a the top of all search engine results. The only thing that I’ve noticed is that some of the national players in our industry are no longer represented in the ads.
This is not a complaint. I’m very happy with those monthly $1,000 + checks. Our income stream is well diversified.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Short and simple answer: Supply and Demand.
Meaning all time record numbers of adsense units running while adwords spending is likely little changed.
Luckily for me I have actually done better bottom line overall than many others (but still lower EPC trend for a long time). My comparative success was due to experience, lots of hard work and improved traffic, etc.
We can now close this thread and the others as the big question has now be answered!
As others have pointed out, supply and demand doesn't explain the suddenness and steepness of the CPM and EPC (and in some cases CTR) declines.
Are we to believe that there was this massive surge in new Adsense publishers centering around February 1st?
And/or that many Adwords advertisers had this sudden epiphany (gee, my ROIs are too low) and withdrew (or scaled back) from the program almost all at once?
>We can now close this thread and the others as the big question has now be answered!
I don't think so.
We still don't have an explanation that fits all the facts.
All these ad units would seem to result in a shortage of well paying adwords, with either EPC reductions or worse yet no income at all at times due to so many PSA's.
Perhaps due to statistical anomaly, various adjustments going into effect about the same time, many new adsense websites going online early 2005 (with 2 or 3 ad units), old sites with 1 unit being expanded to 3 ad units, or delayed marketing programs from new year Adwords budgets the overall effect seemed to have culminated somewhere near Feb 1 or end of Jan.
can the expension of gmail have any effect on adsense?
Yes, very good point I had forgotten about. Gmail is serving zillions of ads alright and that would also significantly deplete the adwords supply along with all the webpages with 2 or 3 ad units installed vs the past with no gmail or smaller gmail and only 1 ad unit per webpage.
Getting back to why this seems to happen abruptly at times, i.e. near Feb 1. Just a wild guess on my part but possibly G started running more Gmail ads about Feb 1. I really do not recall seeing so many before but am not sure about it.
For example, I just looked at a Gmail email and see 4 sponsored links and then a link to even more, and also on same email are 4 related page ads. If you follow the sponsored link it leads to 12 more sponsored link ads and 6 more related page ads. That all works out to 8 direct ads on the email and a link leading to 18 more on a 2nd page, or 26 total ads, all from one lone email. Now that is a lot of pressure on adwords ad inventory attributable only to gmail!
Is it any wonder G lets us put 3 units and about 15 ads on a webpage if they are serving so many themselves on emails? G may actually be overdoing it more than its publishers!
can the expension of gmail have any effect on adsense?
I think I must be going blind, I hadn't even noticed these ads so checked them out!
Trader's right though:
Is it any wonder G lets us put 3 units and about 15 ads on a webpage if they are serving so many themselves on emails? G may actually be overdoing it more than its publishers!
This must have a dilution effect but only G knows the answer to this.
Interestingly overall our sites saw the EPC move upwards some 50% on Friday and Saturday and there was definitely a reduction in AFF ads.
The smaller specialist niche sites have remained firm throughout all of this whereas the larger specialist sites have definitely taken a hit but Friday's channel is even showing them as having a 100% ECPM with a 50-60% increase in EPC.
Why the dramatic and sudden turnaround?
The beginning of a new month? Advertisers noticing their enquiries dropping?
One thing that no one (I think?) has taken into account is the position of advertisers stocks or availability of their goods. Had many advertisers oversold during December and the January sales and pulled back their adverts owing to lack of stocks?
One good advert and referral can play havoc with stock levels.
I know this one point does not explain the overall decline however do we have many such influences occurring. For instance, it is well documented in the UK and becoming much more common for many people to wait until the January sales.
Our widget trade supply business is absolutley inundated with orders with ourselves actually being out of stock for many popular items. One TV program a week ago had a dramatic effect for one of our clients even though he was never mentioned by name at all, only by the fact that the product was bought off Ebay at a specific price.
His business quadrupled last week!
Very early in this thread I said I was going to analyse figures, sit it out to see what happened and I still feel right now that is the best course of action, however I have set myself the end of March for the final decision as to whether to continue with Adsense or start using other services.
Don't disappointment me G, we've had a good relationship until now:-)
This is a new development. I previously would have a good number of clicks in those hours, now, I am supposed to believe that thousands of page impressions - all in the AM - are resulting in ZERO clicks?
This is depressing CPM and earnings overall, and worse, destroying my confidence in doing business with Google.
I understand what many here have said - that Adsense is good (there's nothing to replace it) and we'd be making nothing if not for Google - and I agree.
However, not knowing what the commission percentage is - it is standard in the advertising business to know this - and other "secretive" functions of Google are beginning to become annoying and, I believe, unfair to small publishers.
If Google is unable to provide solid answers to EPC drops in some areas and deal with us straight, I will be looking to alternatives as soon as they become available.
Like I've said before, transparency is essential. Secrey breeds distrust and I am becomning very distrustful.
Call me a nut-case, but it seems odd that every time I complain, people click on the ads on my site. Within minutes, too.
Maybe I should just keep complaining?!
Call me a nut-case, but it seems odd that every time I complain, people click on the ads on my site. Within minutes, too.
Hehehe...been there, seen it, done it...don't concern myself with it now until much later in the day.
I am convinced there is a huge morning time gap whilst G updates its clicks & stats etc from the previous day.
I don't start taking any notice of my stats until mid/late afternoon UK time and within a couple of hours the stats can change dramatically even with thousands of clicks.
I often find that the "This month" stats are more recent than the "Today" stats. Anyone else? Checking just now "This month" shows 10% more visitors and clicks than "Today".
It would be useful if G were to advise their actual working practices and approximate update times so that we all didn't become so paranoid about zero returns since there must be millions of calculations being performed which have to take more than just a few minutes.
However, not knowing what the commission percentage is - it is standard in the advertising business to know this
You're looking at it all wrong. Google isn't a rep firm selling ads on your behalf. When an advertiser buys an ad, it's buying clicks from Google AdSense, not space on yoursite.com.
Think of it this way: Google is like a contractor or manufacturer, and you're like a subcontractor or OEM. What Google charges its customer (and the profit that it makes on the deal) really isn't any of your business. Your only concern should be whether Google is paying you, the subcontractor or OEM, enough to justify continuing with the relationship.
If Google is unable to provide solid answers to EPC drops in some areas and deal with us straight, I will be looking to alternatives as soon as they become available.
Alternatives are available now. Try AdSonar, Kanoodle, IntelliTXT, or a more traditional ad network like Tribal Fusion or FastClick.
Like I've said before, transparency is essential. Secrey breeds distrust and I am becomning very distrustful.
Google has learned the hard way that transparency encourages gaming the system. (I'll bet Larry Page and Sergey Brin wish they'd never allowed a PageRank gauge in the Google toolbar.)
Let's look at two items in particular:
SMART PRICING: If Google were to reveal the inner workings of its "smart pricing" formula, thousands of publishers would alter their sites overnight to exploit their new knowledge.
COMPENSATION: If Google were to reveal how compensation is calculated, two things would hapen: (1) Google would open itself to selective poaching of accounts and sectors by competitors, and (2) the kvetching by publishers who felt shortchanged by the formula's assumptions would reach epic proportions.
The bottom line is that:
-- You need only two pieces of information to decide whether AdSense is worth keeping: effective CPM and total revenues.
-- Google owes you nothing more than a monthly check.
If the policy change regarding direct-to-merchant affiliate ads has resulted in lower advertiser bids for certain categories...
I agree EFV, this is a big if and IMHO it had little to do with the change (our site has never had affiliate ads and for the first time experienced a dramatic eCPM drop around the first of February.
supply and demand
Supply and demand would not explain the sudden drop in eCPM. If the implementation of gMail ads and multiple ad units were to impact eCPM, you would expect to see a decide over time, not a sudden drop in just a couple of days.
Supply and demand would not explain the sudden drop in eCPM. If the implementation of gMail ads and multiple ad units were to impact eCPM, you would expect to see a decide over time, not a sudden drop in just a couple of days.
I'm speculating, just like everybody else, but I keep coming back to a change in "smart pricing" and maybe in the compensation algorithm. (By the latter, I don't mean a simple across-the-board cut, but adjustments in what may be a complicated formula.)
Ad targeting could be a contributing factor, too.
Whatever the cause is, it isn't as simple as an across-the-board payout cut of 10% or 30% or 60%, because different publishers have been affected to different degrees--or not affected at all, in some cases.
Ok, assuming the payout percentages I think are accurate, if your site gets 300 clicks on a $0.05 ad you can expect to earn about $9.00 on all those clicks compared to 300 clicks on a $1.00 ad which would yeild up to $180.
Now that I'm running both AdWords and AdSense it's obvious Google mixes all sorts of ads together during the day. I'm running low priced $0.05/click ads up against $1.00/click ads but my ads are getting clicks at that low price so you would be paid accordingly.
I attribute the fact that my ads ever run to:
a) the AdSense network generates more impressions than there are high-paying adverts or...
b) the AdWord daily budgets on many high-paying adverts run out sooner or,
c) high-paying adverts with smaller AdWord daily budgets are given fewer impressions in the network so they don't exceed that daily limit and we all get less of a shot at those click thrus, maybe your competitor gets all the clicks on Monday and you get them on Tuesday, luck of the draw.
d) that the ads currently appearing don't appeal to your current customer, you never know what they are looking for and if google is shuffling 50 ads around on a keyword how do you know the 6 ads your visitor sees match what he/she is looking for?
e) the ads on your site may range from $1.00 to $0.05 in one skyscraper, and if the $0.05 ad is more on target for your visitors than the $1 ad...
Probably a dozen other reasons as well, but like everyone keeps saying, it's SUPPLY AND DEMAND otherwise my $0.05 ads would never run.
If you think your earnings are low, I suggest trying a more consistently higher paying topic.
If you think your earnings are low, I suggest trying a more consistently higher paying topic.
Maybe another approach is to try a less popular topic--one where higher bidders' ad budgets aren't exhausted so quickly and the .05 ads don't get as many opportunities to run. (It's probably a lot harder for an advertiser to use up a $50 daily budget for Vistula river cruises in Poland than for Web hosting, credit cards, or little blue pills.)
I know this is slightly off-topic however it may assist us alll. Can you answer this since I am not an advertiser:
b) the AdWord daily budgets on many high-paying adverts run out sooner or,
I understand it is possible to target one's country only?
Can Google filter Adwords so that they only appear to users from that country and if so do they do that by IP address of the referring Google site?
For instance, if I only want to target the UK only does Google only serve those Adwords to UK IPs or does it just display everything on Google.co.uk.
I assume that the Google.co.uk SERPs shown would be the same as if I were to access it from France, USA or Italy however would the ads be the same as the UK or would they be different?
I notice that I have several UK widget advertisers who advertise on both .com and .co.uk and are UK suppliers only. Would you think it reasonable to assume that as more people become used to using .co.uk rather than .com, that those advertisers in a few months time will probably stop advertising on .com?
That would make sense to me with the geo-targeting however what would then happen to the USA advertisers who have no choice but to be on Google.com?
Can they specify USA-only led IPs?
Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere however I feel your posting has answered several questions to the publishers as to what may be happening.
a) the AdSense network generates more impressions than there are high-paying adverts or...b) the AdWord daily budgets on many high-paying adverts run out sooner or,
c) high-paying adverts with smaller AdWord daily budgets are given fewer impressions in the network so they don't exceed that daily limit and we all get less of a shot at those click thrus, maybe your competitor gets all the clicks on Monday and you get them on Tuesday, luck of the draw.
d) that the ads currently appearing don't appeal to your current customer, you never know what they are looking for and if google is shuffling 50 ads around on a keyword how do you know the 6 ads your visitor sees match what he/she is looking for?
e) the ads on your site may range from $1.00 to $0.05 in one skyscraper, and if the $0.05 ad is more on target for your visitors than the $1 ad...
Well, I think I refuted all of the above by recently hugely filtering the list of advertisers on one of my pages.
I left only the first six showing in Google search too.
Four of them constantly appeared in my ads for very competitive keywords.
Yes, the CTR dropped for about 30%-40%, but I still didn't get 60%-70% of my best times. It was more like 35%-40%.
I cleared up the filter list as I still get slightly more with all the advertisers in the game.
[webmasterworld.com...]
- For AdWords (search ads), CTR helps to determine ad placement. So impression spam could result in lower-ranked ads for the same bid, affecting ROI.
- For AdSense and the "content network" in general, CTR isn't a factor in ad placement. So impression spam wouldn't have any effect.
IncrediBILL, does that sound right?
Well, I think I refuted all of the above by recently hugely filtering the list of advertisers on one of my pages.
How can you refute it by filtering ads? Just because the ads are the top 6 doesn't make them the most attractive to the visitor, just possibly the most expensive per click, assuming the top 6 was all based on price per click and not performance based on popularity.
I'm just reporting what I see based on my ads showing up with $0.05/click vs. the top dogs in the group with over $1/click. If I raised my minimum bid I'm sure I'd get more impressions, but a lot of sites are running the ad and it's the content network giving most of those impressions, not google search.
Your mileage may vary.
How can you refute it by filtering ads? Just because the ads are the top 6 doesn't make them the most attractive to the visitor, just possibly the most expensive per click, assuming the top 6 was all based on price per click and not performance based on popularity.
True, that's why I noted the decline in CTR.
BUT yes, the clicks now represented the highest possible payout. I know for sure that the CPC difference among the four advertisers were extremely low, so I was to get the maximum out of that.
Instead I got much lower than expected, which could only mean lower share than before.
