Fluctuating CTR

What causes it?

[knoir]

I noticed that from April 2nd to April 16th, i was experiencing hight CTR of anywhere between 6% and 7%. Since yesterday, my CTR has dropped to 3%. What is up with that? How can i have a steady CTR of 7% and then suddenly down to 3%? What factors play into this?

[yoyo8]

You probably don't have very many impressions.

[knoir]

what do you consider many? I get around *000 impressions daily. The CTR was high >6% for the past 3 weeks..and yesterday..it suddenly drops to 4%<... did adsens make some major changes somewhere?

[edited by: knoir at 5:54 pm (utc) on April 21, 2004]

[europeforvisitors]

Google's TOS forbid revealing site statistics, so you might want to edit your message to eliminate those CTR figures.

I don't know if 4,000 impressions per day is a big enough sample to prevent normal variation from causing big swings; I'd guess not, but I don't claim to be a statistician.

I do suspect that, if your site is highly targeted, what happens with a few advertisers may have a big effect on your CTR and earnings. If an advertiser stops running content ads or reaches its budget limit, that can change of mix of ads on your site, which in turn can affect your clickthrough rate and earnings.

Also, the quality of Google's ad targeting has had its ups and downs lately, so it's possible that your CTR is being affected by that.

Finally--and most important--one-day events aren't trends, so if I were you, I'd just grin and bear it until you can see whether the drop is a temporary annoyance or a long-term problem.

[knoir]

Thanks for the advice. I thought that posting $ earnings were against the Tos. I edited the second msg..but if a editor can edit my first msg..i would appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

[sandor]

i think google served up a lot of PSAs yesterday, so maybe that would account for a dramatic dip in the CTR yesterday ... especially since the page views for the PSAs are counted as an impression when you're viewing your stats

[whizkiddo]

ok PSA's r counted as impressions in the stats adsense displays, is the same true for alternate ads as well?