Idea to help combat Smart Pricing

[endomorph1]

Invitation to comment please on an idea.

I have suffered the affects of smart pricing on my site in the past and have narrowed things down as much as possible so far but last night I had an idea.

Do you think it would be a good idea to run a cookie on the site so that after a visitor has looked at XX amount of pages, ads no longer show thus keeping down the impressions.

The site is a forum and ads throughout the site are based on the forum topic.

What would you consider the best number of pages to view before cutting?

3? 5? 7?

One of the problems that I do have is that in the normal course of viewing the forum, there are certain pages that a viewer would hit multiple times, thus knocking the ad price down (I would assume).

Thanks for your input

[photo200]

You should try.
3 sounds good enough.

I have two opposite opinions-
impressions can affect and can't affect smart pricing.

It is not clear apriore if you will gain,
unless you are at the bottom of StupidPricing effect -
in this case you have nothing to loose.

[jchampliaud]

Do you think it would be a good idea to run a cookie on the site so that after a visitor has looked at XX amount of pages, ads no longer show thus keeping down the impressions.

I don't think impressions have anything to do with smart pricing. As I understand it, smart pricing is a guess that Google makes if a click will convert.

One of the problems that I do have is that in the normal course of viewing the forum, there are certain pages that a viewer would hit multiple times, thus knocking the ad price down (I would assume).

Why do you assume this? Again unless I'm missing something impressions don't have an effect on smart pricing. If anything more impressions might mean less smart pricing. Someone looks and looks and finally finds what they want. That person might be less impulsive and less click happy and more likely to convert. Just a thought.

[david_uk]

We don't actually know how (if) smart pricing works, so this is all slightly speculative.

It's my impression based on 2 years of stats and trends that ctr is taken into account by RandomPricing (tm). Therefore I'd suggest having a go to see what happens. I would also say that it's my feeling that RandomPricing(tm) doesn't take kindly to unstable trends and takes a while to recover, so it's probably an idea to let it run for a couple of weeks to see if it's helped.

[jchampliaud]

This might be a dumb question but has Google said anything about how smart pricing works?

[Publisher]

Where can I find a definitive explanation of what Smart Pricing is?

Thanks

[OptiRex]

It's my impression based on 2 years of stats and trends that ctr is taken into account by RandomPricing (tm).

As much as I am able to do so, I concur:-))

We don't actually know how (if) smart pricing works, so this is all slightly speculative.

And this is the crux of the matter, does anyone actually know? I've given up concerning myself with it and just get on with trying to do better.

[wyweb]

Where can I find a definitive explanation of what Smart Pricing is?

This is the standard party line:

[adwords.google.com...]

[endomorph1]

OK thanks for the opinions. I think impressions / CTR do have some weight as first time I cleaned things up on the site, the value per click rose approx 50 cents.

I will give it a try and report back in a few weeks time.

[europeforvisitors]

I think it's important to remember that "smart pricing" (discounts for advertisers) is only part of the equation. What you earn from a click is determined not only by what the advertiser pays, but also by the percentage that Google keeps as its commission on each click. For all we know, Google might take CTR into account when calculating its commission and payout percentage, on the theory that the ratio of costs to revenue is higher on low-CTR pages than on high-CTR pages. If that were happening, low-CTR pages might not pay as well as high-CTR pages (all other things being equal), but the lower payout wouldn't be the result of smart pricing.

(Disclaimer: Note that I said Google "might" take CTR into account. Speculation about the exact nature of smart pricing and the AdSense compensation formula is just that: speculation.)

[danimal]

>>>Do you think it would be a good idea to run a cookie on the site so that after a visitor has looked at XX amount of pages, ads no longer show thus keeping down the impressions.<<<

i think that phpadsnew will do that(?), and possibly even serve up another ad to replace the one that you don't want seen.

that way your screen real estate doesn't go to waste.