Falling EPC over Songkran holiday break

Thailand/Laos/Cambodia only

[stuartmcdonald]

Anyone with sites related to SE Asia see a fall in EPC that coincides pretty closely with the Songkran (New Year) break?

I'm not curious about traffic fluctuations but rather a drop in EPC. We saw around a substantial fall over Songkran that now appears to have corrected to pre-Songkran levels.

Struck me as unusual, as I wouldn't have expected hotel consolidators and so on (one of the main advertiser groups we get through Adsense) to cut their campaigns for a relatively short period of time -- their reducing/turning off their adwords campaigns over the period is what I'm assuming caused the drop.

Anyone else see similar affects? Other explanations/theories?

[jomaxx]

Does everyone at Webmasterworld really have to be subjected to this? How many of these threads where people discuss the slight short-term variations in their AdSense stats do we need?

[stuartmcdonald]

Jomaxx - The questions is related to a fairly specific regional area that a few other members of webmaster world have sites related to - I assume you're not one of them.

Sorry for "subjecting" you the arduous task of ignoring a post that was clearly titled as not having any relevance to your area of expertise.

[blairsp]

Jomaxx

I have posted similar thoughts to yourself on previous threads (some of which have been deleted). I am visiting WebmasterWorld far less frequently now because all I seem to see are threads on falling cpm/ctr etc OR I had my adsense account disabled OR I got my cheque (this is the one I find most pointless-who cares would be my response, I only care if I have mine)

I seriously wonder if these threads were deleted how many "fresh" threads we woudl actually see. Does no-one do a search on WebmasterWorld any more?

One positive though, at least this thread is about somewhere other than US. So it is new in that respect.

[jomaxx]

It's not just that the thread was addressed to such a tiny group of people; it's also the trivial nature of the observation: Your EPC dropped during New Year's but has now returned to where it was before. I mean, doesn't that answer itself? What else can usefully be said?

[stuartmcdonald]

Well it was a specific question, about a specific part of the world, at a specific time of the year, affecting a specific industry -- hardly a generic "Oh dear my EPC has dropped" style question - if it isn't specific to you - I don't see your concern.

Trivial to some, interesting to others I guess -- EPC is an ongoing issue for many trying to determine what influences its eb and flow over time. If others in the same field as me saw the same effects, and were, like me serving a lot of hotel consolidator listings, then it could point to the consolidators easing their adwords programmes over holiday periods -- I would have assumed that was something worth knowing and worth working into future forecasts -- partly because it is not an action that I would have expected the consolidators to have undertaken.

If others didn't see the same drop (30% over 6 days in my case - hardly trivial IMO) then I'd need to go back and look for other reasons for it.

"Such a tiny group of people" -- this is "webmasterworld" right? I didn't realise you need to reach critical mass on readership before posting a question/observation.

[OptiRex]

stuartmcdonald, personally I feel you are correct in trying to analyse or understand why advertisers would reduce spending at a specific holiday period such as in your focused business.

Surely this should be the time to increase spending in your widget market to take advantage of the potentially greater number of leisure visitors veiwing advertisements?

Or am I possibly looking at the Net with western eyes with potentially having extra leisure time to play and surf? I have no idea what the average SE Asian gets up to during their holiday breaks.

Maybe advertisers have tried increased advertising over that period and it did not work however unless you ask you won't get any answers from anyone! A perfectly vaild question to which no one need have to take time out and respond to if they do not want to.

By the way, don't let on that someone else has Internet access other than Americans, you'll make them paranoid:-)