Am I getting ripped?

[stuartc1]

Hey,

Been using Adsense for about 8 months. The first 3 months where ok, then after this is dropped by about 30% and stayed there ever since.
Over the last 2 months I have increased the amount of sites I run Adsense on, and also tweaked it the best I can - I've managed to increase visitors by about 25% and clicks by arounf 40%. All my visitors are targeted as they come mainly from search engines looking for what I provide (they are not bought or off topic visitors).

Anyway, no matter what I do, adsense keeps reducing the amount I make. It's on maxing at around $32 per day on avverage, and has never got past $40 (which is my aim).
Im getting around 300 clicks per day now and still making the same as what I made on 200 clicks.

Anyone else seing this kind of thing or is it just me? I may be paraniod, but its like they have placed a max per day limit on my account, so no matter what clicks I get, they will keep reducing the cost per click.

I cant wait until yahoo start offing their service in the UK.

[David_M]

I have a similar problem.

My thoughts:

1) Your keywords are not that profitable.
2) The number of content sites have increased, possibly causing advertisers to drop their budgets to compensate for the increased click expense. (since the performance-conversion is probably not very good from content sites vs. web searches)
3) Advertiser churn- Advertisers thought they could generate $ using adwords but have since dropped, and the ones replacing them aren't willing to pay as much.
4) Smart pricing thinks your referalls are poor performing.
Think #1, #2, and #3 are probably most likely causes.

[stuartc1]

You are probably right David, It just gets a little annoying when spend alot of time and effort and receive nothing extra in return. Well, I best just stick at it and see how things go. Must not grumble :)

[ann]

Your ad placement and blending may be the problem.

Try using the new ad units, 5 ads per unit, across the top and/or bottom of content blending them in to your colors and see if that helps pull higher paying ads.

Are your skys on the left?

You need to use the google heatmap and take a few hints from it. Using it as shown will mess up the looks of most sites but some parts of it is feasable.

And last but not least, Keep adding content, content, content. Never stop and rest on your laurels. The site must be in a state of growth to attract the better ads.

Ann

[jetteroheller]

I paid Dezember 2002 189.-EUR for my first WLAN router.

Are now all companies producing WLAN routers riped of, because an equal model is today for 59.-EUR?

Or do they produce simple so much more, that they even earn more money?

[Paris]

Stuart, I think David's got the most likely reasons covered. Ann has some great advice but obviously your ads are having no problem finding an audience as your clicks are already 50% more than when you first started.

I've been with AdSense for a little over two years and I too have seen my average per click drop dramatically (especially in the first year when advertisers just were overbidding senselessly -- ahhh, the good ole days). And I think a lot of us are in the same boat as you in that we're adding more content just to keep pace with what we were earning before.

I think that's the crux of the problem. AdSense publishers have grown and the number of pages they are producing with AdSense has grown. It would be a shock to see high-bidding advertisers growing at the same pace as the publishing side. That brings the inventory down to the $0.05 AdWords ads and that's my own theory as to why payouts have fallen.

Then again, I know some have reported that their pay-per-click have gone up over the past year. So maybe I'm wrong. Either way, you're not alone.

[ann]

You know, Paris, you may have something there. It makes sense.

Ann

[OptiRex]

How many ad units are you displaying?

My earnings dropped for two consectitive months and then I decided to remove 50% of the ads, the increase in earnings was immediate, even though the CTR remained the same the eCPM has risen dramatically and the EPC has risen by more than 20%.

I've seen click values that I would never have believed possible in my trade!

[John Carpenter]

IMHO, this is the most likely explanation:

Zero/insufficient ROI detected -> SmartPricing -> eCPM decreases (regardless of CTR and traffic).

[stuartc1]

Hi All,

Thanks for all your comments.

I have been playing with Ad placements over the past 2 months - and took some great advise about heatmaps.

I do not have to many ad units per page, usually one one per page. I've also changed it so they appear in differnt places and in a differnt format on my most successfull pages. It has worked and Im getting more clicks.

The impressions per day are around 15,000 - this is for all the sites I run them on.

So I guess, my topics are just not high paying and with the increase in publishes it makes things harder.

Looks like Yahoo and MSN are getting into this games, so hopefully things will brighting up with the competion :)