Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I have a site that serves a niche profession. One page of the site has specific information pertaining to that profession. On that page I have one AdSense display, a single button.
The targeting for that one page to the single AdSense ad that appears on the page is as good as it gets. Since that page was launched about 1-1/2 years ago, I haven't changed a thing. I've always had my one ad and my text and nothing else on the page other than a link back to the home page. I have a channel devoted specifically to that one ad.
Evidently there is only one company that offers a product (actually it's a service) pertaining to the topic of that page. Over the last 1-1/2 years I've checked that page many times at different times of the day and different days of the week. I've never seen anything there other than the one company's ad. And I haven't noticed the company changing the text of their ad in any way.
Now here's where my question comes in. Sometimes I can check my stats very early in the morning and catch when 1 click has been recorded and see the amount I've earned. At other times, I can use the channel information to divide the amount by the number of clicks to determine the earning per click.
Sometimes, the amount is X, sometimes it's 7X and sometimes it's in between.
Same ad - same text on the page - same ad position on the page - yet different amounts per click. Why is that?
And if it's this SmartPricing thing, does that mean SmartPricing is based on the visitor doing the clicking, because that's the only variable in my situation?
Thanks in advance to anyone who can assist.
And by the way, since this is my first post and it's not a "I was banned from AdSense" post, do I win a prize? :)
See ya',
farmboy
Plus, geo-targetting as well as the speculative and widely discussed smart pricing phenomenon.
Added in: Welcome to WW, there is a wealth of information here.
Don't forget advertisers can change their bidding at any time. So they could decide to have a max of $1 in the morning but drop it down to $0.50 in the evening. Or change it to $0.50 for the weekends.
The advertiser may have geotargeted the ads. So this might mean a click from the US is max valued at $1, a click from Canada has a max of $0.50 while a click from UK is max of $0.25. So a click on the same ad could produce a great variety in earnings simply dependent on where the visitor who clicked is located.
If the advertiser has geotargetted the ads, shouldn't they be showing in only the places the advertiser had targetted?
I know that advertisers will often opt for a global campaign, even though the geotargetting option is more sensible for them based on what they are selling. I have always had the feeling based on watching stats arrive as the US sleeps that if an advertiser has opted for a global campaign, clicks from the other side of the planet are discounted. In some ways that makes sense to me. Are you, or ASA able comment further on this?
They could also set up one without specific geotargeting with a max bid of $0.25 for example (kind of like a catch-all, so to speak), then set up separate ones for 20 different regions or countries that they feel are better converting for them and are willing to use those higher prices.
Countries are not automatically discounted, the advertiser would need to set geotargeted pricing on that, in order for that to happen.
If there are more ads than just the single ad you see, this could account for the fluctuations in ads. A visitor from a different country might see 4 ads, and one or more of them could be worth significantly less than another. So EPC you think is from one single advertiser could actually be from multiple advertisers with different max bids set.
