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First $300 Day With Adsense

Here's what's working for me...

         

kokaroach

10:55 pm on Jun 20, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi,

Amidst all the doom and gloom of late, I'm proud to say that this is shaping up to be my first ever $300 day with the Google Adsense program.

After reading some of the posts here at the WW adsense forum regarding the amount of ads on pages being related to EPC, yesterday I went and removed one low performing ad unit from about 3000 pages on one of my best sites (easy to do when you use php includes).

Guess what... CTR dropped a little, traffic was the same, but EPC increased immediately - so I removed a few more of the underperforming ad units. EPC went up again.

Then late last night I said "To He! with it" and went so far as to switch from the 336X280 which displays 4 ads, to the 250X250 square which displays 3. I also tweaked my css so the font size for the surrounding text is exactly the same as that of the ads. I went to bed.

Now, with 8 hours left in the "Google Day," my earnings are at $265 and going strong.

I only have one 3-ad block in the middle of the content above the fold on about 3500 pages, and one Adlinks block in the upper left of my nav bar on that particular site.

I'm going to wait this out til the end of June and if the results of these changes are fairly consistent I'm going to roll it out across my entire network of sites.

Of course, like anything Google, this may not last but it's a major milestone for me. It's one of those things you want badly but it's always a little out of reach.

$300 every day is a huge incentive to keep writing content, and enough to buy a lot of painkillers for the resulting carpel tunnel problems. LOL

So here's what's working for me, for today at least ->> Less ads per page. Who woulda thunk it?

K

kokaroach

6:27 pm on Jun 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hey guys,

I usually see some pretty wild fluctuations too, but this one's in epc only, which bumped my earnings up without anything else changing. It looks like today will break the $300 barrier too.

Usually my earnings are somewhere between $250-280 but after changing the one site the only real fluctuation was the epc. That's why I'm excited about it.

As I said, if this continues until the end of the month I'll try it on other sites and see what happens. If the results are similar and total earnings increase across all sites after the changes I'll be happy ;-)

K

Atomic

7:56 pm on Jun 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Anyone notice a spike in their traffic and income yesterday? Mine was unbelievable....for my site.

I had exactly the same experience. It was my best day in terms of traffic and earnings with a fabulous CTR. Today is earnings and CTR are also excellent and if the day continues this way it should look a lot like yesterday.

I also blend my ads and keep them barely above the fold dead center on the page. I keep the biggest square because every time I try a different size CTR decreases.

Atomic

7:58 pm on Jun 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I want to add that my best earning site was hit hard by Bourbon but is now obviously better than back to normal. This month's earnings will end up being twice my previous best month.

utahclimber

7:59 pm on Jun 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Frox:
<<Also, even when people are getting to more marketable keywords, if they are looking it up in a dictionary they cannot be very interested in buying one...

I must find some other way to make money out of that site.... >>

Just a quick note on this...
I learned a long time ago in sales that you'll make more money selling anything that 'goes up in smoke or down the drain.' To wit; I sell medical supplies etc., on my sites.
People will always use up supplies & need to re-order, information however; is a one off sell.

utahclimber

Dantol

8:33 pm on Jun 21, 2005 (gmt 0)



good stuff,
blending ads with content (and tweaking fonts) seems to be universally accepted formula for success. Good job!

universetoday

8:35 pm on Jun 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



So, just to get a better idea of the fine tuning process, I've put two adblocks on my site, one top, one bottom, and then an adlinks block over on the side. They're all fairly blended, and getting reasonable CTRs. Let's say the bottom block as a baseline, the Adlinks get 2x EPM, and the top block gets 8x EPM. Would you knock away the bottom and adlinks, get less clicks overall, but remain clicks would get a higher EPM, and therefore more revenue?

Arkanoid1984

9:12 pm on Jun 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



i envy you all.

with almost 5000 or more unique visitors a day and over 35,000 ad impressions a day, im doing like $7 to $10.

Seriously, I cant figure out what im doing wrong.

I make the same amount but I have around 500 unique visitors a day. You have Adsense on too many pages.

kempozone

9:24 pm on Jun 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



You have Adsense on too many pages

I find that saturating my sites with ads get fewer clicks.

I also have a hard time choosing items on a menu at restaurants with too many choices. So offering fewer, but high quality choices to visitors is really the key for my sites as well as my businesses.

Maybe it's just me.

kz

universetoday

2:20 am on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



After you take out the low CTR ads, how long do you find it takes before your EPM rises up? I've made quick changes, but I don't think I'm giving it enough time for Adsense's algorithm to shift.

incrediBILL

2:33 am on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Well blending is better, that's for sure.

I recently just tried something silly with 2 leaderboards up top, my earnings actually inched up some and so did my CTR - I think people are checking out all the menu options.

Maybe I'll try your less is more theory too and see what happens.

asianguy

5:37 am on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)



How many people in here lies that they made $300 or more a day from Adsense in this room?

Visit Thailand

7:23 am on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



asianguy - people here make a lot more than US$ 300 per day and there are people here who make a lot less.

If you do not make as much regard it as inspiration rather than lies, and if you make more, pat yourself on the back, congratulate yourself (if so inclined) and then start (or I should say continue) working towards the next daily AdSense earnings goal.

antman

1:45 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Thanks kokaroach! After reading this thread, I replaced my Wide Skyscrapers with Vertical Banners on the channels that have low EPC. And this mornings stats show higher EPC for those channels.

My traffic is tiny (all organic) and it's only one day but I think you're on to something here.

I'm off to experiment some more with your idea. Less is more, who would have thunk it. :)

ant

alika

1:50 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



How many people in here lies that they made $300 or more a day from Adsense in this room?

Asianguy ... not all of the folks here struggle to reach $100 each month. Some here makes $100 in an hour, and $300 halfway of the day. Some may even make $300 in an hour. If I make $300 a day, I get so frustrated as it means we had a really really bad day. Focus on your website and how it can make money, and soon, you'll be a believer that people do indeed earn $300 a day or more from Adsense.

infect

3:29 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



To anyone that feels bad about their performance I present you with abysmal-performance-101:

Tuesday, June 21, 2005:

20,000 visitors (thats not unique, that includes repeat)

140,782 ad impressions.

35 clicks.

Today marked a milestone though, I've just cracked 100,000 unique visitors this month.

Atomic

4:02 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



20,000 visitors (thats not unique, that includes repeat

Is this a forum or some other kind of site? Forums generally generate pathetically few clicks.

Affiliate links might do a lot better for you than AdSense.

infect

4:11 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



It's not a forum no, but a lot of our traffic comes from people on forums following links.

Any affiliate recommendations? (I'm totally new to this and kind of lost. I feel like with, this kind of traffic, I should be doing more)

madmatt69

4:55 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



When you say you blend adsense to look like the rest of the page - Do you make the link text in the ad look the same as your copy text? So for example if your page text is black, your adsense text, link, and url color are also black?

Or do you find it better to give them the same colour as other links on your page?

Atomic

5:45 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Any affiliate recommendations?

I would look in the Advertising Sales and Affiliate Programs [webmasterworld.com] forum for some excellent advice.

Undead Hunter

5:53 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Atomic!

Whoa, freaky. We were wiped out in Bourbon, too, then started to come back last week. Yesterday was our second biggest revenue day ever in the channel/website that was most wiped out, almost doubling our average revenue.

Makes me wonder if "SmartPricing" hasn't reset, as all our pages come back online.

I know better than to expect things to stay healthy.

And to Asianguy: you're just not thinking big enough. I ran into someone today who made $20,000 *a week* on just one aspect of his site. There are people on a whole other level... he's been at it for years, and has a lock on this health-related field. Has a staff of about 5-10 people to keep things rolling. Other than his main site, he gets in some things for a while, then moves on.

Sure has expanded my scope and thinking. I mean, I'm happy, we're making a living (again, now that Bourbon is back in the bottle) but there's so much more that we can do...

sirkei

6:33 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



After you take out the low CTR ads, how long do you find it takes before your EPM rises up? I've made quick changes, but I don't think I'm giving it enough time for Adsense's algorithm to shift.

At least 1 day, that is what works for me. After changing the ad unit size, my earnings increase a lot.

I do not know how to count the CPM or eCPM. But what i am certain is the earnings do increase for me. It is now half day and i saw one of my most visitor's page are getting cray earnings.

Atomic

6:34 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I am happy to report that the trend accelerating. Monday was our top traffic and earnings day. Tuesday the earnings were good but traffic was another record. Today it's not even noon and our traffic is just shy of an all time record with excellent earnings. Overall I would have to say that there is a great confusion under the heavens and the situation is excellent.

The increased eyeballs mean that even if people aren't clicking AdSense links the affiliate links have a good shot at being clicked.

Atomic

6:39 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I can't say that this was the cause in the earnings increase but I removed AdSense completely from one underperforming site with thousands of impressions a day which seriously hurt the overal CTR.

Almost immediately my earnings and CPM increased together.

Some of this, if not all of it, is related to the traffic increase. Site targeting is probably helping and the quality of the ads is noticeably better than last month.

Sally Stitts

11:01 pm on Jun 22, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



The switch from 336x280 to 250x250 intrigued me.
So I tried it yesterday, on lots of pages.
Terrible results! Lowest CTR day of the month! Phew!

I do one block, above fold, blended in, etc.
I understand the concept of only showing higher-priced ads. But perhaps the DROP IN CTR, due to fewer choices, is really big, and larger than I care to accept.

The 250 font size (3 ads) is larger, and more "spaced" - does that put people off?
That 4th ad choice, which I removed, was usually significantly different that the first three. Could that be a factor?

Or, is it simply a matter of waiting longer, until the algo re-wiggles the data, and settles down?

I'm about ready to switch back to ALL 360x280, a proven best performer. I'll give the 250's one more day.

elguapo

12:01 am on Jun 23, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



From AsianGuy - How many people in here lies that they made $300 or more a day from Adsense in this room?

Funny question? If I tell you that I make $0.50 a day- you laugh. If I tell you that I make over $600 a day- you say, that is unbelievable? If I tell you I make over $300 a day, that is a lie? So, what do you want to see. Me earn like you? Frankly, I dont care how much you earn.

ann

7:23 am on Jun 23, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Anyone know why traffic is up, adsense and money is up but serp positions remain the same? Very puzzling.

Ann

Marcia

7:53 am on Jun 23, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>>serp positions remain the same?
Have you checked positions at MSN?

Sweet Cognac

10:54 am on Jun 23, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Sally, that's an interesting test. You would think that the 250x250 would perform better since it's only 3 ads instead of 4. Did you give the mediabot time to come back and respider the ads? The last time I changed ad sizes, the mediabot didn't show up till 3 days later.

Someone mentioned on another thread that you can tell when the mediabot has been there, because it changes from "Ads by Google" to "Ads by Goooooogle" I find this observation to be true.

"Ads by Google" seems to be a sitewide default.
"Ads by Goooooogle" is more targeted to the page.

Sally Stitts

1:34 am on Jun 24, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Sweet Cognac,
I don't think that it is necessary to wait for a respidering.

I watched carefully when I pushed the Refresh button the first time. In almost every case, ads 1, 2, and 3 of the old four, became ads 1, 2, and 3 in the 250 adblock. In other words, the top-paying ad was #1, and stays #1. Ditto for #2 and #3. The old #4 ad is simply dropped.

I couldn't wait 3 days. Since my CTR was dropping like a rock, I switched back to all 360x280s. My CTR is back on the upswing.

Thanks for the goo - goooooo clue. I'll keep my eye open for that one.

Sweet Cognac

2:10 am on Jun 24, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Sally, any guess then in what caused the massive drop? Font size? The extra spacing? Or maybe ad 4 was the most juicy ad?

That would be pretty scary. I think I would have done what you did, and slap the 366's back up quickly.

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