Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Using August as a baseline (my first full month with Adsense), I've had a steady decline in EPC with an extreme drop-off beginning in late October.
September EPC: 78% of August
October EPC: 73% of August
November EPC: 35% of August
December EPC: 35% of August
January EPC: 36% of August
EPM is also down, though not exactly in the same pattern.
September EPM: 64% of August
October EPM: 68% of August
November EPM: 30% of August
December EPM: 32% of August
January EPM: 48% of August
I did have some changes in traffic pattern in November and December that probably contributed to the drop in EPM. I hada huge percentage of my site traffic flowing through one page that offered instruction on how to make a craft and I'm pretty sure most of those folks were not clicking. But that still doesn't account for the drop in EPC, which continues now, even though traffic is back to a typical pattern for me.
This includes changes to location/size/colour of ad, removing it from some pages, adding it to other pages, changing content (or meta tags.. or anything really) on their pages...etc.
There will be a few sites with no change in content, ad size/location/colour who've seen a drop in EPC. And some of them would have seen a rise in EPC. But don't forget to account for other changes...eg could you confirm no changes in inward links and no changes in Google SERPs (both of which would affect what your visitor is looking for)?
Thanks.
Things are only going to continue to fall.
This is absolutely true unless they put some intelligence behind their program. So far all they did was make a contextual match to get the ads out there. Then the quality control consists of booting who they thought was cheating the system. That's it. They completely ignore any other marketing trends, rules and options.
JAG
They completely ignore any other marketing trends, rules and options
That's a bit strong, isn't it JAG? They were the first to implement contextual ads in such a big way. They have paid out very healthy figures to many, many webmasters. Even some of those who complain of lower EPC/earnings are getting more from Adsense than they'd get from any other network (that's why they are still with Adsense).
I think the Adsense program has been a massive success. The fact that Adsonar even exists - or is attempting to get off the ground - confirms it. If Adsense has ignored marketing trends and rules it looks like it worked for them. Or maybe they are so big that they make the rules.
To say that they need to put some intelligence behind Adsense - suggesting that they lack it at present - is a bit laughable.
"Things are only going to continue to fall" Sorry Brett, may be just EPC; EPM, can be controlled (in some extent) by us with CTR (page layout, ad position, type of content), and target traffic (more content + healthy SEO).
Wilmer
Even some of those who complain of lower EPC/earnings are getting more from Adsense than they'd get from any other network (that's why they are still with Adsense).
Being good for the publisher is not always good for the advertiser. Remember the days of punch the monkey banners that had nothing behind it except hype and high payouts? It wasn't good enough so things had to change to satisfy the ones who pay the bills. They did in several ways. Better ways of targeting and lower payouts keep them alive.
I think the Adsense program has been a massive success.
It has and I didn't say it hasn't. But it has to change as well.
Or maybe they are so big that they make the rules.
They do make the rules but again it's the advertiser who pays the bills so the current rules have less meaning now than they did when the program first started. Things like being automatically enrolled if you were an AdWords advertiser is something they made up because they could. The fact that Overture has implemented a different pricing structure means that there is more to this than throwing an ad up based on content.
To say that they need to put some intelligence behind Adsense - suggesting that they lack it at present - is a bit laughable.
OK, I'll laugh at it also especially when I see the untargeted ads and ads that are way out of touch with the audience of a site and such. But to think it won't or doesn't need to change and become better for the advertiser is a crying shame. It can be much better than it is and I would hate for this type of advertising to suffer because someone thinks it's just fine the way it is. I guess I'd rather laugh a little and see it get better than see it fail and cry :-)
JAG
Pretty much what we knew would happen. Things are only going to continue to fall.I can confidently say that making generalizations is always a bad thing ;)
My numbers do not look like Varya's. They are down from August, but not by 64%. In fact, October had a higher EPC than August for me, and January is coming in better than December by more than 10% month to month improvement.
Someone once wrote "The Report of My Death Is an Exaggeration".
Impressive post varya. Pretty much what we knew would happen. Things are only going to continue to fall.
My average EPC is down 20% from August.
BUT, my effective CPM is up 34%, thanks to a higher CTR in January.
And most important of all, my total revenues for January should be 40% higher than for August.
If that's what you mean by "things are only going to continue to fall," I can only assume that you live in the Southern Hemisphere where down is up. :-)
So...AdSense is working great for me. How's it doing for advertisers? To judge from the fact that many of the same advertisers are using AdSense month after month, I'd have to assume that those advertisers are finding AdSense to be a useful source of immediate sales and/or leads.
My average EPC is down 20% from August.Hehehe mine is down 19.3% so we are very close there.
Regarding revenue is down a bit, but at least January will mean a 20% improvement over December, which was really bad.
EPC: down by 36.1%
EPM: down by 2.3%
MONTHLY EARNINGS: Up by 574%
I don't bring EPC percentages to the bank; it's the check I receive that counts. And with 574% increase in revenue from where we started, we are one happy campers here.
True ... it's unfortunate that you can earn more if at least the EPC would remain the same (at the very least), but it is up to individual sites to make sure that their earnings go up. Our primary purpose for joining Adsense is to leverage our content and increase our revenue sources, and we are really working hard to improve our content, add pages to our site and increase traffic so that at the end of the day, we are happy with what we receive.
But then, my affiliate bookings are also way up compared to what they were in December. Some topics are heavily affected by season, and my topic is one of them.
EFV, you and I live in the same hemisphere. My Jan earnings are way, way above August.
If that's what you mean by "things are only going to continue to fall," I can only assume that you live in the Southern Hemisphere where down is up. :-)
I keep agreeing with you on so many things people are going to suspect you are sending me big cheques every month :-) For the record I'd like to say that Google is the only one sending me big monthly cheques.
I have to also agree with loanuniverse. I don't believe it has dropped. I don't believe that we "knew" it was going to drop.
"Things are only going to continue to fall" is a pessimistic outlook that - at any time - you will find some publishers to agree with. I do not believe it describes the program in general.
JAG, sorry I didn't realise you had Adwords so much in mind when you made your previous comments. I assumed it was just Adsense we were talking about... and the publisher's viewpoints/earnings/EPC.
Heck, no need for apologies here :-) I have an interest in this whole business making it and I firmly believe in contextual advertising. But just as Google was able to bring it to mainstream it can also destroy it in the minds of advertisers. I come from a marketing background working a great deal with buys for advertisers so I always have the advertisers point of view in the front of me.
Marketing is about making the advertiser happy and as soon as someone would forget that the account would go away.
It makes me nervous when Google is pushing new tools for the publishers and selling the publishers with ads and movies like the one posted the other day. That's great to keep publishers happy but it's even better to keep advertisers happy and I just haven't seen much out of Google except opt-in or opt-out.
JAG
JAG
That's great to keep publishers happy but it's even better to keep advertisers happy and I just haven't seen much out of Google except opt-in or opt-out.
I agree that keeping advertisers happy is important, and I think mainstream advertisers in particular are going to want more control than they get with AdSense. Still, it's important to remember that AdSense is a first-generation product, and improvements are likely to occur.
AdSense is a first-generation product, and improvements are likely to occur.
Exactly my point but instead of the word likely I use the word *must* :-)
JAG
1) Natural fluctuations happening with some publishers going down others going up
2) Seasonal changes. XMAS is over and travel is just heating up, etc.
3) Decrease in publisher demand for content ad space as more opt-out. May particularly hit hard very specific keywords with a small publisher pool
4) Increase in inventory as more install adsense, publishes give more inetory to adsense, publishers target high value words. In addition, I think Google's adding of parked domains greatly increased low-cost inventory.
5)Google changed the payout ratio.
6) Here's a new one, maybe EPC'are falling across all Adwords. As I fine-tune my campaigns I keep paying lower and lower CPC's. But then, I hardly do any content ads.
Did I miss any of the reasons?
In July, I made changes to my primary site, as I had to change the layout to accommodate the ads. That is part of why I did not include July in the comparison. EPC in July was much higher than any other month, but I figure that was partially due to the novelty of the ads.
The only change I made to my site between August and November was to add five new pages to one section (the site already had over 300 pages).
At the time my EPC dropped, I was actually on vacation and not doing anything to the site at all.
Midway through November, I altered background color of the ads to make them blend into the background because my earnings were so terrible that I wasn't going to get a check. That brought daily earnings and EPM back up a bit. No impact on EPC.
Of course, if your CTR has been constant or improving, ad fatigue obviously isn't the problem.
Idustry specific sites should climb and fall as their industry does.. If your selling product X but the Product X industry is slagging dont expect your epc to be doing well ..
when Product X industry rebounds and more advertisers enter competing then rates go up..
If any thing instead of fallng as Brett sugggests I'll beat they (EPC) rise overall as the controls by google and the advertisers are "tweaked" to the point where the advertiser start gaining even better targeted traffic.. They wont pay well for general traffic but they will if you can send them targeted traffic; traffic that they can convert
Actual clicks were higher in October, Novement and December than they were in August.
So far for January, my CTR and actual clicks are much higher than August. January CTR is 130% of August CTR. EPM is less than half of Augusts.
I don't think Google has cut payout. I'm fairly sure the change has been due to declining relevance of the ads and the increase in the number of publishers.
Back in July and August, I had much better matching per page than I do now.
On the other hand, there is the potential that this would affect how my PR is distributed. I guess it will be all good as long as the darn bot follows the sitemap. Then again, the day that it misses the sitemap, I can lose 100 pages in an update... decisions.. decisions...
