Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I've been running a site in the UK for around 18 months. It's been doing pretty well over the last 3 or 4 months, with a nice high CPM, albeit quite a low CTR.
Most of my visitors are UK based, so recently I've been trying to increase my US traffic. The site has some areas which are UK specific, so I created a new sub-domain for US traffic, and then used code within the site to slightly modify some of the pages to make them more applicable to US people (based on the sub domain). Basically, if you go to the US sub-domain you get the same pages, but with slightly dynamic modifications.
I'm glad to say that my attempts to increase my US traffic has started to pay off. Each week, for the last three weeks, I've been increasing my US traffic by around 80 to 90%.
However, my AdSense earnings have hardly increased (or at least, no where near the amount my traffic has increased). By looking at my Adsense channels, I can see that the CPM of my US visitors is much, much lower than UK visitors (although my CTR is actually slightly higher). To put it in perspective, my CPM for US visitors is around a third of that for UK visitors, my CTR is slightly less than double.
Now I'm not one to complain. When I created the sire in the first place, I didn't know about AdSense, and did it purely for fun. I've only been running AdSense for about 12 months, and have been amazed that I can make money from something I enjoy doing (Okay, so I can't make a living from it yet, but you never know!).
My first thought was simply that it's because the ads for the area my website is about pay less in the US. I still suspect that's the case, but I'm wondering if it's maybe because of my US sub-domain? Is it possible that because my main "www." sub-domain has been around for a while, and is quite well talked about and linked, it's getting "better" adverts than my new "us." Sub-domain, which is quite new? Remember that the content for both sites is identical, other than a few dynamic chances (eg, same code on same server).
Any views? If it's simply an example of ads paying different amounts in different parts of the world, then I'll just have to live with it!
Thanks.
Just a thought are you using American English on your US subdomain pages? Possibly there's not so much US Adword competition for the 'Queens English' keywords?
Having a UK site too the vast majority of my traffic is UK based. I'm trying to bring in more US traffic because I presume there are loads of US adworders who only want their ads displayed to users from the US. Therefore my thinking is there is more competition therefore higher return per click for ads displayed to an American surfer.
This is theory at the moment as I don't attract enough US traffic to prove it unfortunately.
Edited to say maybe more US adevrtisers use smart pricing? Not 100% sure what this means maybe someone more experienced can shed some light?
Having a UK site too the vast majority of my traffic is UK based. I'm trying to bring in more US traffic because I presume there are loads of US adworders who only want their ads displayed to users from the US. Therefore my thinking is there is more competition therefore higher return per click for ads displayed to an American surfer.
Yes, that was my thought as well, although so far, it doesn't appear to be the case (or at least, for my topic! - YMMV).
The sub-domain has been around for a long time - Since January, so I'm sure it's been picked up by Google. Of course the problem is that I can't tell what adverts are being displayed on it for US visitors, as I'm in the UK, so get UK ads! I guess I could find a US proxy or something, but even then I'm not sure just seeing the ads would help.
I suspect it's simply that US ads are paying me less. Ho hum. Here ends my dream of world domination :-)
Thanks.
Excuse my naivety adds but what does YMMV mean?
Excuse my naivety adds but what does YMMV mean?
Sorry: "Your mileage may vary". eg, just because it's like that for me doesn't mean it will be for anyone else!
Adsense has a preview tool so you can see what ads are being shown in each country.
