Thinking of joining adsense - But needs more info

Google has little info on payout

[lgn]

It appears that google is trying to suppress info on how much you can make on the Adsense program, by preventing users from talking about the adesense program in its TOS.

Good Thing we have anonymous forums like this, where we can discuss items such as this without fear of reprisal.

Im tring to find out two things.

What is the industry average CTR for adsense. What percentage of the revenue do you get per click. (ie. if a keyword pays google 10 cents a click, what do you get, 1 cent, 5 cents).

With this info, I can figure out if the program is worth it.

[seeber01]

Anonymous or not? hmmm ... even with it being so you won't find many webmasters talking about this in specific terms because it is against the Adsense TOS ... and we don't want to risk any chance of being penalized.

However ... there are ways to answer your questions without IMHO violating the TOS ... here goes :)

What is the industry average CTR for adsense.

Your CTR will absolutely depend on several factors ... what industry you are promoting ... which Adsense ad size you use on your site ... where you place the ad ... and in some instances, the color of the ad and how it blends and/or contrasts with your site. The only way to get the true answer here is to experiment and track.

My suggestion is to read all of the threads on this board regarding Adsense to get a real feel before you try.

What percentage of the revenue do you get per click. (ie. if a keyword pays google 10 cents a click, what do you get, 1 cent, 5 cents).

You can test this quite easily ... add your code to several pages ... watch your stats very closely, particularly early in the morning ... then do the math :) but your 2nd guess is a lot closer than your first ;)

Hope this helps,
Debs

[Denis at eVR]

You don't need to figure out if it's worth it. Just sign up, put the code on your home page (as a start), and start collecting your own data. This will be a lot more useful to you than other users' 'secondhand' statistics.

The whole thing won't take more than ten minutes of your time, and you can reverse it even more quickly if you don't like what you're getting.

[chiyo]

google does give general guideline that you will make more than alternative methods.

Seeing there is no "joining fee", and the set up effort is absoultely minimal, i agree with others here that Im not sure why people need to know payout percentages etc, and that the best way to find out revenue is to try it!

Percentage of click revenue will tell you absoultely nothing about your potential revenue anyway. Far more important is what advertisers are bidding for ads in your content area, how well google's algo targets your pages and the nature and surfing behaviour of your visitors These three things alone make percentage pay out almost superfluous.

[seaboy]

lgn - I don't think that you'll get anyone to give you their figures...but that fact that no-one wants to jeopardize their position with Google should be a strong hint as to how we feel about AdSense ;-)

[cornwall]

For what its worth, Overture has an average bid price of 37 cents.

AdWords do not disclose their average bid price, but it appears to be generally assumed to be roughly the same.

Take off that a figure of your choosing for Google profit, and you have the average AdSense payout.

Depending on the neck of the wood that your web site is operating in, you will be either above or blow the average

As other posters have said, try it and see!