Drop in CTR + Rise in EPC

Is this a common trend?

[Swebbie]

I haven't made any changes recently to any of my sites, but I'm seeing a moderate drop in CTR in the last 3 days (about -15%) and a concurrent rise in EPC (about +22%) vs. the monthly averages.

Anyone else seeing this trend? If so, what are the speculations as to the cause?

[ArtistMike]

I haven't made any changes recently to any of my sites, but I'm seeing a moderate drop in CTR in the last 3 days (about -15%) and a concurrent rise in EPC (about +22%) vs. the monthly averages.

Anyone else seeing this trend? If so, what are the speculations as to the cause?

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It is common. I have taken ads off of some of my web pages and the money I take in stays the same and sometimes goes up.

[sailorjwd]

Somtimes I think adsense works under the Catch-22 theory - you can't win. And, the less visitors the higher ROI. The more I write the less return I get.

I should probably go back to just having a homepage that discusses everything but gives no useful information so folks will want to click out asap.

[Swebbie]

Somtimes I think adsense works under the Catch-22 theory - you can't win. And, the less visitors the higher ROI. The more I write the less return I get.

Exactly! This is one of my main reasons for using a "many sites" approach. I have a few sites that get under 100 clicks per day, and each one of them earns a significantly higher EPC than my other sites that get several hundred clicks per day. The subject matter doesn't have any bearing on this pattern at all, so far as I can tell.

I generally survive all the ups and downs when the Googleplex decides to monkey with the works, although I will say that this month is going to be a bit down vs. last month. Nothing catastrophic, though. If the people who have one big site are on a roller coaster, I'm on the kiddie coaster. :-)

[jenkers]

I've noticed it in the past also. When I've increased CTR my EPC has gone down. But then maybe its just marginal utility (or the advertising equivalent thereof) kicking in - each progressive click is worth less to the advertiser than the last...