Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Whay can't we, AdSense publishers set the minimum click price?
Since last weeks I'm seeing more "below 0.05 limit" clicks as 0.03 or lower, and I really want to cancel those.
If we look at this from another view, assuming:
Advertiser 1 - click price:0.05 - CTR 1%
Advertiser 2 - click price:0.02 - CTR 3%
then the ad with 2 cent price generates more earning throughout the whole day but I again would cancel it as I believe there must be an "industry low" even this banner has a high CTR or not, or even if it generates a return or not. I would cancel it..
Look at the case from another view:
As a publisher, I'm serving advertisements of "COMPANY A" 300,000 times / month. The problem is that Company A is in a such market that people better buy their products through their shops, not online but they well get all the information on Company A website, reaching there via my website. What I mean here is, is there such a software on earth that can rank my website links' performance? Smart pricing? <snip> Let me explain why:
Today I have bought a $1,200 worth digital camera from an electronics shop, after reaching them first on the internet by clicking a link. Because I didn't say: "Hello, I would like to buy this $1,200 camera but I clicked on a link yesterday", no one knows if my click yesterday generated a sale or not. Anyway, that's not something which is new so I will tell something another (that's why I will not accept clicks below a line)
Again, let's take Company A.
I have generated 500,000 views for them. But no one clicked. Even the name of the pricing is "Click Pricing", there must be a price, paid to me cause I have made their "online presence" 500,000 times even someone didn't click on their ads. How a thing which companies paid THOUSANDS of Dollars can worth ZERO in just a few years by just a name change? Yes, this is the CPC system but I still make impressions and help the company on their online precence but that doesn't worth anything. Same thing applies to affiliate marketing, the simplest way of making "zero cost" advertising.
For me, the CPC system is not CPC in fact. It's:
CPC + IMPRESSION
system... which means the impressions are "COSTLESS" to the advertiser. Because of all these:
A 0.02 click price is not 0.02 in fact, it's much lower than that cause I have made a thousand impression FREE to generate that click.
That's why I don't like to let below 0.10 or 0.05 clicks..
Don't forget: A CPC system would only be a pure CPC if we knew that the visitor will click on the link or not, and serve the ad only to those who will click. Otherwise, the CPC system is:
"Buy one, get one free"
system, which allows advertisers to make their CPM advertisings without a cost. The CPM advertising isn't dead. It lives just in front of your eyes, the only difference is you were not getting paid for it. That's why I will not accept cheap clicks.
[edited by: Jenstar at 12:59 pm (utc) on April 22, 2005]
[edit reason] language, as per TOS [/edit]
I could not recover this word from my brain. :)
Exactly - this is charity.
:)
The only thing Publishers have control of is whether or not they can afford to run Google ads, and to work this out you must look at what you earn over the period of a month, not individual click.
If you think you can earn more over a month by keeping all those $0.03 visitors on your site, then disable Adsense. But I have a feeling that despite the fluctuations in high/low CPCs, many Publishers will still earn more per month with Adsense than they would elsewhere.
If you are not bored, I will now tell you something that I remembered. Of course, tha's not directly related to AdSense, but please think the logic behind that.
I'm a 15 year smoker and about 3 months ago I bought a quit-smoking chewing gum at a $70 price. I did quit smoking, yes.. because I was already thinking to quit, it just HELPED me achieve that.
NOW, think opposite.. I paid $70 to a package of chewing gum, what happens if I knock Glaxo's door and say:
"Sorry guys, I paid for it, but it didn't work. Could you please kindly return my money?"
Of course, that's not the exact example. The exact example is that "buying Aspirin from the pharmacy" but not paying for it. Reason: it may heal or not. When the pharmacist asks for the money, then I say:
-"Oh, boy.. Oh, boy..
"Yes, I did buy the aspirin from you, but I still have a headache" :)
By the way. The point I'm trying to make here is not -of course- advertisers are saying they're not healed even they are healed. The point I'm trying to make here is that you have to pay for it even it was successful or not. Maybe a little bit more than 2 cents.
With the media hyping and advertisers complaining about click fraud there's no doubt in my mind why ad rates are declining. Then we had the recent hype of all the personal credit card information being stolen which undermines online shopper confidence and this impacts conversion and further ad rate declines. So let me get this straight, with this industry getting such a black eye recently you're asking for a RAISE?
CPA is obviously better for the advertisers and cuts out click fraud but due to possible cookie tossing by surfers the net results are potentially much worse for the content publisher in that long term sales are lost compared to the short term CPC capture no matter how miniscule.
How do you justify the increase in your CPC earnings compared to the advertiser ROI?
Don't tell me Google doesn't give you the tools because other companies like CJ do give you the tools to understand what your web space is really worth.
Let's have a little reality check - how many of you run affiliate programs?
This could help you determine how much per click your site is REALLY worth to an advertiser as I have no illusions about this. Last month one very generous CPA campaign ($20/sale) generated about 7,800 clicks to make a whopping 9 sales or $180 in commission which in CPC terms is about $0.023 CPC.
Sounds familiar, no?
I would've assumed a higher conversion rate of AT LEAST 1% which would generate 78 sales for a nice $1560 commission or $0.20 CPC (which is what I average in AdSense) but it didn't. Maybe I'm not getting all my CPA credits due to people deleting cookies, maybe it just doesn't convert as well as it should, but I'll take the advertisers $180 either way knowing my AdSense currently pays more overall.
At least with the Google CPC model I'm earning an average of $0.15-$0.20 CPC that I expected to earn from the CPA program based on the same number of clicks and surfers dumping cookies have less (if any) impact on my bottom line.
Now let's throw ONE MORE THING into the mix you may not be considering. Many of the low paying $0.05 clicks are probably coming from the thousands of AdWords advertisers reselling CPA affiliate programs to earm commissions and the margins in this revenue producing ad scheme are very thin for most of them and raising the ad rates bumps them all out of the game. My hunch is you price them all out, and you'll have a lot more PSA ads running on your site which will thrill you even more.
So let's get this straight, we're expecting AdSense advertisers to pay MORE for the same ROI based on some illusionary amount of money we desire to make for our content regardless of whether or not it's cost effective to the advertiser?
</putting on devil's advocate hat>
I'd like more money too but the business realities I see as both a publiser and a advertiser don't appear to justify the higher ad rates.
If Google were to permit a minimum CPC rate, I doubt it would increase the number of high CPC ads. My guess is that those sites which set a minimum would see more PSA's (or their alternative ads).
I think one big concern for Google in not permitting a minimum CPC is that it would faciitate click fraud.
And I wouldn't get paid only for those readers who saw an ad, threw down the magazine, and ran out and bought the product that minute (all zero of them).
Most web publishers ARE getting ripped off. I can only hope this will change as advertisers wake up to the fact that they're spending millions on TV ads while their customers are surfing the Internet.
I think one big concern for Google in not permitting a minimum CPC is that it would faciitate click fraud.
... Not to mention the increase in the already high number of sites chasing those high-paying keywords. Afterall, there is now a greater economic incentive to have those high paying keywords to avoid those PSAs caused by weeding out the low paying keywords.
While we may feel at a disadvantaged position, the reality right now is that advertisers view television advertising to be far superior (hence much higher prices) than internet advertising. Internet advertising is only slowly getting the respect it deserves from big ad spenders, but I don't think they are rushing to use Adsense as yet.
advertisers view television advertising to be far superior
And rightly so as how many clicks do you think text links for "Captain Crunch" or "Bounty the Quicker Picker Upper" would get on your web site? Maybe animated banners or flash, AdSense text links probably zilch.
Not to mention the fact that 99.9% of all products advertised on TV have absolutely nothing to do with my web site so AdSense being context sensitive wouldn't send them to my site anyway.
As a couple of posters prior to you aptly point out, a lot of big money is going into TV, when their buyers are actually on the web. The web is no doubt growing. We are experiencing growing pains, and publishers, I believe, have valid arguments.
If webmasters and publishers CAN hang in long enough and grow their sites, they will be well rewarded in the long run.
It would be wiser to compare similar offline and online ads. For example, I get a lot of AdSense ads for Rail Europe, Europe by Car, and other advertisers who have been advertising in newspaper travel sections, the back of THE NEW YORKER, etc. for years. I don't know what the effective gross CPMs are for my Rail Europe or Europe by Car ads, or how those figures compare to the same advertisers' CPMs in offline media. I suspect that the advertisers are getting leads much more cheaply from AdSense. Why would that be the case? Partly because AdSense doesn't have the track record that offline media do, but lead quality is likely to be another factor. Until advertisers have more control over where their ads appear (i.e., until they can get the same level of editorial and audience quality that they get offline), they won't be willing to pay as much for leads as they do in time-tested offline media and direct marketing.
I have to disagree with you, Bill, in a regard. If a large consumer product company were to run an ad for an online coupon, for say, Captain Crunch or Bounty, it may get tons of hits.
You can disagree all you want as that WAS NOT MY POINT - those ads would never be served up by AdSense on my site, or most web sites in general, as they don't match our content! How many mainstream TV ads actually match the content on your site?
Sites like orbitz, travelocity and priceline are on TV and in online direct marketing and they already show up on EFVs site. Some web sites would profit even more mainstream products being advertised online but I can count the applicable TV commercials on one hand that would apply to my site and most of those products are already being covered by various affiliate programs via existing resellers and I'm already covering them.
Next.
1) AdSense has flooded the market of good sites.
2) Similarly, crappy sites with AdSense have flooded the market.
3) There are only so many advertisers.
4) Everyone wants something for nothing.
5) Everyone else wants something for potentially nothing.
In my opinion, a lot of the responsibility for improving this situation comes down to Google. It's not good that advertisers feel the need to turn off content ads, or that so many publishers are seriously ticked off at charity-priced ads.
It's up to Google to improve the *validation* and *continual verification* of both the websites that are running AdSense ads, and the clicks they are generating to make the advertisers happy. Now, Google's already doing a good job of the latter (and are a little too gung-ho in some cases - we're all scared of them).
But it seems that they almost don't care about the former. I see MANY crummy, pointless, link-filled, rip-off-other-peoples-work sites prominantly displaying AdSense ads month after month. That can't be helping either side of the story...
But looking on the performance, I would say, I would replace ads below 0,5 Cent
As web publishers we sell ourselves short. If I had a magazine with a circulation as large as my website's, I'd be wealthy in no time from the advertising.
And I wouldn't get paid only for those readers who saw an ad, threw down the magazine, and ran out and bought the product that minute (all zero of them).
Website visitors and magazine readers aren't even comparable. Consider how many of your site's pages the average visitor to your site views vs how many pages the average person who picks up a magazine will view. Then consider the quality of the content. Explore it further if you wish but the bottom line is the same; apples and grapefruit!
Most web publishers ARE getting ripped off.
As publishers, we tend to have an inflated sense of the value of our work. The CPC and CPA market is driven by sales, and only those who continue to make them will continue earning money. I feel like I say this in almost every post lately -- if you want to earn money, learn how to drive sales. Not only will you make more money with adsense, when you get good enough at it, you'll learn that you can sometimes make even more money by replacing your adsense boxes with affiliate links.
I can only hope this will change as advertisers wake up to the fact that they're spending millions on TV ads while their customers are surfing the Internet.
I send around 30 leads a day to a car insurance company that advertises on tv all the time. I'm only able to send that traffic because people already know they want the product before they get to my links, I just put it in front of them. Over the course of a year, those TV ads will have generated between 5,000 and 10,000 new customers through me alone. TV ads aren't an alternative to internet ads and vice versa. If big companies are continually spending millions on TV ads, it's not because they're losing money on it.
It's happening to me today, my worst nightmare, somehow someone managed to get PurplePill banners all over my site today and *I AM NOT AMUSED*
Keep it on the TV dammit.
...somehow someone managed to get PurplePill banners all over my site today...
Ditto. I've been seeing that same banner randomly for several days, but today that banner was showing up on about every other page view. I switched to a format that doesn't show image ads after been run down by that big purple thing!
I can't imagine that many folks would click on it.
Website visitors and magazine readers aren't even comparable.
I get a lot of repeat visitors, so the page views are comparable over time, too.
I'm not surprised most people don't want general interest ads on their sites since they would be paid per click, and people generally don't click unless they are interested in buying the product that minute. I would like general interest ads and I'd like to be paid CPM. People who visit my site do drink Coke, use paper towels, etc. Seeing a Coke ad on my site is no different from seeing it on TV except the Internet ad has the potential to engage the viewer and (by getting them to click) bring them to another site that gives them still more info on the product. The advertiser's goal on TV is to get the ad seen and the product remembered. Website visitors have eyeballs and memories.
Guess I'm saying there are two types of sites, those that drive sales and those designed to entertain/inform. There are both types of ads on TV (infomericals to sell, and general interest ads for branding), and it makes sense to have both types online. I imagine we probably will see more general interest branding ads someday. And webmasters will have to be paid enough to make them want to use those ads.
People who read magazines and people who visit websites are the same people.I get a lot of repeat visitors, so the page views are comparable over time, too.
But the magazine ad you pay once, the ad stays no matter how many page views, and a single magazine in office waiting rooms, airplanes, libraries and very busy communal bathrooms can be read hundreds or thousands of times for the same money spent.
The web page you pay every time it's viewed (CPM) or clicked (CPC), totally different beast.
But the magazine ad you pay once, the ad stays no matter how many page views
Ncreegan, I use mostly CPM, just not enough out there right now to fill all my site's impressions. I get clicks too. Fastclick pays me pretty well for them but Adsense, no. I haven't had time to read this new Adsense news closely but it looks like they are now offering some CPM? That's just what I had hoped for.
I haven't had time to read this new Adsense news closely but it looks like they are now offering some CPM?
Unfortunately I don't think it'd be much help to your situation unless your site concentrates on a single subject...
Of course, Google's plans of running CPM ads is different than what I'm talking, but this may be something as a start.
If this thing has to be discussed, there's no place to do that other than here.
