Difference in adsense payout depending on visitor's country.

[fischermx]

I heard that you get different earnings depending on your visitor's country. How true is this?

And if so, how is this determined? does google categorize countries? Is it an algo?
Or is it just the adwords advertisers run campains with lower bids for some countries?

[FromRocky]

Actual cost for each ad is determined by:

- ad ranking. The more competitive the country is, the higher cost the advertiser has to pay. If there is one ad in the country X, the cost for the ad is 5 cents even the advertiser sets the max. CPC of $10. If the same ad at the top position in country Y with a total of 30 other ads, the actual cost can be as high as $10.

- Max. CPC. Depending the ROI, the advertiser can set at different max. CPC for different country.

[howiejs]

HUGE swings on this. I have seen 5X EPC changes when tracking pages for specific countries.

[dillonstars]

HUGE swings on this. I have seen 5X EPC changes when tracking pages for specific countries.

I'm naturally interested in which countries perform better in your experience, and if this is consistant across a range of topics... I don't suppose you would mind sharing this at all?

Also, are all your ads well targetted and similar across the different countries? I suppose there are a lot of variables that could cause this...