Reasons why CTR would suddenly go down?

[HuhuFruFru]

Until June 3rd I had a good average CTR of 3.5%, however since that day CTR dropped suddenly to under 2%.

Interesting thing is I didn't change anything on the site.

- Same site layout
- Same ads (no change in colours or layout etc)
- No change in impressions
- No change in EPC

So I didn't do anything.

What could be the reasons that CTR would suddenly fall down without any change on the site. I searched the whole forums here and found some answers.

1) An advertiser may have decided to stop his campaign. If his ads were the most important to show up on the site, then users won't click the ads any more because they don't find them interesting enough.

2) It could be that the server on which the site is hosted has new accounts on them, lowering performance, maybe pages don't load not as fast as before.

3) People are mabye on holidays (or watching the world cup), maybe big events etc, and they are not interested in buying products.

I would appreciate any more ideas as I am completely confused!

[security56]

Well, did you check all your pages, cause my CTR has even drop more then yours about 70% and I though I had the same ads but on further checking I notice a lot of crappy ads that have nothing to do with what my site is about.

The bad news is that there is so many of them that you wont be able to filter them all out. If this is your case.

[jetteroheller]

- Same site layout
- Same ads (no change in colours or layout etc)
- No change in impressions
- No change in EPC

So I didn't do anything.

Same here. I also checked the ads, seems all to be good targeted. All the checking brought only 2 more into the URL filter, nothing prominent, I have seen them only with the previwe tool, not really showing up.

[jetteroheller]

I would like to see some new features for a better control over the ads.

For example an AdReport sorted by how often an ad appears in the chosen time range.

At each ad an [ ] to mark the ad as unwanted or not.

Just right now, it's with several thousand pages not possible to really control with the AdSense preview tool.

I check maybe 10 pages, find 2 or 3 new URLs for the filter list, but the preview tool does not show image or video ads.

When I chose at the preview tool "Germany", maybe some ads only shown in Berlin will not be shown.

[europeforvisitors]

You didn't say how long you were running AdSense ads before the CTR dropped, or what kind of site and audience you have. Could "ad blindness" be a factor? (If you have a community-oriented site, CTR might drop after a short because the same people are seeing the same ads again and again.)

[jawhite]

I have been consistently in the 14-15% CTR range for over a year. Over the past two weeks my CTR has dropped to the 9-11% range. My site is a Christian directory with over 10,000 pages of indexed sites so the ads vary GREATLY. One or two advertisers stopping their campaign would not cause a noticeable drop. I have no idea what is causing it.

[vbignacio]

this month ive been getting 2-3 clicks a day with the same number of impressions from my average of 40 clicks. something is definitely going on.

[Aircut]

same here. i am sitting still and watching the ads quality drops and so is the CTR and earnings. I have been saying it over and over again. we NEED a KEYWORD FILTER option so we can exercise a better and smarter AD TARGETING. the discussion about smart pricing leave out STUPID ADS.

i want to believe that ads targeting is at google's top priority, so please give us the KEYWORD FILTERS

[annej]

I went through my adsense stats for the last year and my epc started dropping about this time last year and was even a bit lower in July and Aug. So I think it has more to do with less advertisers and lower bidding in the summer for my topic.

I still hate to see it go down though. My CTR is great.