Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Despite the increase in earnings, my CTR has halved to about 5%, should I take this as a signal to do do some tweaking and although I have read much about smart pricing, when do I know it has happened or about to happen?
Is it inevitable?
If something changes, you could be, of course. If conversions from your site decine, if your traffic changes, if the advertisers themselves change....
But to answer your question, the declining CTR could be due to a number of things, and does not necessarily presage an impending smart pricing whack.
However, one indicator may be that your average earning-per-click (EPC) is going significantly down compared to previous week while traffic is coming in just as always. I have not been hit that hard by SmartPricing in the past, but others have. Let's hope for them to jump in and explain things.
And no, Google won't send you a mail/notification that you have been SmartPriced.
Thanks for that, I didn't expect a mail as such but I wondered if there was a notification on the earnings page.
You may have already been "hit" by it, in other words, but the hit might have been so small as not to be noticeable, or it's been built into your site's earnings from the first week, and hasn't changed since then.
I could see no reference relating to whether there was some form of information relating to adjustment for smart pricing.
So, I'm sorry, clearly the problem wasn't that you didn't read the post carefully. You just didn't understand what I said. I'm sorry that I didn't explain it adequately.
Please read the original smartpricing spin from Google. CTR has no direct influence on smartpricing adjustments. If my CTR dropped the first things I'd suspect are 1) relevancy and 2) advertisers dropping out of the market.
Google's most unambiguous statement about this is that click-through is not directly related to advertiser ROI--which when you think about it, leaves them some wiggle room. They didn't say they never use it as a factor in smart pricing. They have also said that they consider conversions and a number of advertiser-related factors in caculating smart pricing. So, in the ABSENCE of conversion information, it remains possible that CTR (or something else that is related to CTR) is one of the many things figured into the smart pricing equation. Too many people, including me, have seen our EPC go up significantly when we removed AdSense code from pages that weren't getting clicks, and thus increased our overall CTR.
What peewhy should do about that I don't know, however. A decline from 10% to 5% might not have any impact.
As has already been said, he should watch his average EPC. If it drops suddenly, then smart pricing MAY be involved..... Or it may not be.
(if I quote it, this will just get zapped)
Thanks for that...where do I find it?
I don't think it adds a lot to what we've already discussed but you might find the background useful.
(forgot how to do a quote box!)
Sadly I learned nothing from previous posts, thank you for your input all the same.
I'd like to read a piece from an authority on the subject.
Unfortunately smart pricing is like what Churchill said about something (Stalin's Russia?)--"a mystery cloaked in an enigma shroaded in a riddle". Not an exact quote but you get the idea.
I wondered if we could read into a trend for instance, that would indicate a pending 'hit' such as lower CTR.
I frequeqently notice massive differences in earnings, as much as one click my make me $3.00, then two clicks make $3.30 but assumed the second was simply a lower bid.
Is it fair to say that it could be smartpricing? and/or a lower bid?
It should read;
I appreciate that like tax and death, smartpricing is certain. I wondered if we looked at our earnings page and it showed a debit figure with a notification or explanation. Clearly not.
I wondered if we could forecast or read into a trend for instance, that would indicate a pending 'hit' such as lower CTR.
I frequeqently notice massive differences in earnings, as much as one click might make me $3.00, then two clicks make $3.30 but assumed the second was simply a lower bid.
Is it fair to say that it could be smartpricing? and/or a lower bid?
I frequeqently notice massive differences in earnings, as much as one click might make me $3.00, then two clicks make $3.30 but assumed the second was simply a lower bid.Is it fair to say that it could be smartpricing? and/or a lower bid?
Well, now I can tell you something definite. The different click values are nothing to do with smart pricing. At any given time, you have many different ads appearing on your site(s), for which advertisers have made many different bids.
As people posted in that thread about "highest EPC you have seen", there can be a tremendous range of click values on just one site--from a few cents to a few dollars.
Since smart pricing applies to an entire account, you will see your AVERAGE click value change. For example, you might currently have a click average of 37 cents. If it suddenly drops to an average of 25 cents, and stays there, and you do not see anything else that would account for the change (different traffic, different ads, etc.), then that change could be due to smart pricing.
