Blocking cheap clicks

How to indentify low earners?

[nervo]

There are 4 - 12 advertisers on my adsense and some of them are getting me nice $0.60 - $1.50 per click. The rest pulls just $0.01 - $0.05 ...

How do you indentify those cheap click advetisers in order to block them?

Thanks all!

[hunderdown]

You don't. Because an advertiser who pays you 10 cents from one campaign, may pay you $1.00 from another.

Very dangerous to block advertisers on this basis, as you can lose high-value clicks as well as low-value ones.

AND remember that AdSense is an auction system. You want as many people in the game, bidding, as possible.

Don't worry about low-value clicks. Look at your overall site average click value. You want THAT to go up. And/or your traffic. And/or your CTR. These three things together are what influence your earnings.

[Nitrous]

You think!

Well I have 190 in my blocked list. I block all "spammy" sites, all made for adsense/yahoo/other aff sites. I also block anything obviously off topic such as those body building "pills" and such.

I only keep GENUINE advertisers that are trying to sell thier own products. I am not about to get 2 cents to lose a visitor to an MFA or similar so they can get 2 dollars.

Every time I did this over the last year my click through, and my epc rose.

Total increase was about 30 percent ecpm.

I tried unblocking this lot several times over a couple of days to see what happens. Income always fell loads - back to pre blocking days.

And its not just dodgy stats due to low traffic, because always earn 3k+ monthly over 20 small niche hobby sites.

So the sooner you start weeding out the spammers/mfa's, etc etc the more clicks and earnings you will get. And its better for your visitors too.

Of course this only works where there are enough REAL advertisers to fill the gap!

[hunderdown]

Nitrous, yes, that's another aspect of the issue I should have mentioned. IF you can identify an advertiser as a garbage advertiser, then block them. It can be a lot of work, though considering how few nervo sees on his site, maybe not. He would need to investigate each of them first.

Even then, he's not eliminating them because he's figured out they are paying less, but because their site isn't one he wants advertising on his. Sites blocked on that basis may also be the low-paying ones.

So my original point stands, IF all the advertisers are legit, appropriate for your site, of interest to your visitors, etc.

[david_uk]

There is a danger in assuming who is and isn't poor payers. You have the added complication of smart pricing.

I've noted on my site that certain advertisers are using a global campaign, yet there is no real chance that they will get customers from outside the local area for the service they advertise (medical procedure). I have a theory that smart pricing may take geographical location into account and decide that unless the click is from the US, the advertisers will only earn minimum click price. I may of course be wrong, but if my hunch is correct, then blocking the ads that *sometimes* give me a click of $0.05 would be shooting myself in the foot, as the same advertiser is paying a different rate if the click is coming from elsewhere.

All that aside, I would never block a genuine advertiser (including competitors) unless there was some solid reason to do so.

I do block all MFA sites and ebay. I've been doing that since July last year, and the result is that whilst the CTR is lower, the epc is much higher and bottom line $$ is greatly improved since blocking these crappy sites.

[jchampliaud]

I have a theory that smart pricing may take geographical location into account and decide that unless the click is from the US, the advertisers will only earn minimum click price.

I'd never thought of that, bet you are right. It would sure make sense.

[mzanzig]

nervo,

I can only encourage you to weed out the spam. Will help tremendously with your EPC =and= will give you the good feeling to make the Internet a better place in general.

[nervo]

Guys thanks for replies!

I think that weeding must be done here for sure...
But as it seems I'll have to re-think about blocking cheap clicks..

BTW how you block a site with url of more than 64 characters as adblock filter allows?

[david_uk]

you block just the domain.

[scumbagscraper.com...] you would enter just scumbagscraper.com to remove all ads from that domain.

[nervo]

Thanks david_uk - that was fast!
;)

[miguelito]

It's an interesting point, if we have faith in google then blocking ads will only result in cheaper click ads appearing.

However, as has been mentioned, an ad may pay a cent more per click but if it is spam and constantly on your web site, then visitors are not going to click it.

There is no point having a slightly higher paying as on your site if your visitors are not interested and have no intention of clicking it.

I am tired of blocking anti-spam ads etc but it has to be done as i know nobody is clicking them.

[Scurramunga]

I find ecpm is better when junk sites are cleaned out. I don't know how many others face the same problem here, but the preview tool (for various reasons) has it's limitations.

I find it hard trying to identify new junk sites currently displaying on my site that are not on my blocked list.

The problem is further complicated because my target audience is spread over different countries and as we all know our ip's work with geotargeting, making it impossible for a viewer in Australia to see what is happening in America