Forum Moderators: martinibuster
For instance if you have one or more sites that don't convert well (and your AdSense EPC is adjust downward accordingly), and you add a new well-converting site, will the new site get a higher EPC? Or will it be "dragged down" by the other sites under the same account?
First off, CPC is determined by the advertiser. In the new pricing structure, Google evaluates a number of factors on the page the ad is showing on (one of those factors, may, or may not be, conversion rate) and uses that to set the price of the ad. It may be the same or lower than the what the advertiser set up, but not higher.
The same ad, on different pages on the same site, could generate a different CPC.
1) Conversion has as much to do with the advertisers ability to convert a qualified lead to a sale as it does with the publisher sending quality leads to an advertiser. An advertiser can construct a great Adword ad that is shown on high quality and targeted Adsense sites which generates good quality click throughs. But if the landing site does a poor job of “selling” or convincing a person to take action (which leads to a poor conversion rate), the publisher should not be penalized.
2) A conversion rate assumes that the advertiser is selling a commodity that is purchased at the point of coming to the advertisers website. Few advertiser in our niche are selling commodities. They are looking for qualified leads that they can build a relationship with which will eventually lead to a sale, i.e., our niche has a long sales cycle.
3) Many are using Adsense as part of their national branding campaign where an immediate sale is not the objective. Increasing awareness of products and services is the purpose.
This is a very important question that would be helpful to know the answer to.
Say a site is only able to convert 0.5% of its visitors. If leads originating from my site tend to convert 1.0% of the time, I should be paid twice as much.
The same ad, on different pages on the same site, could generate a different CPC.
Do you have a source on this? Is this what you are seeing? I am not sure that is true, but I'd like to know if it is....
Letter from Google to publishers
Letter from Google to advertisers
Comments made by Adsense Advisor in this forum
Comments made by Adwords Advisor in the Adwords forum
Comments made by various Google representatives in interviews
In general you are correct because CPC varries depending on other ads competing for the same position which may vary page by page.
But, AFAIK, There has been no disclosure of how CPC is lowered due to smart pricing. In fact it seems the concensious is that it is site-wide 'theme' factors and not per-page factors.
I'd be interested to know which it is.
The info they have released about Smart Pricing certainly sounds like it is based on the page the ad is shown on, and not site-wide theme factors.
Many people here have speculated that conversion rates play a role in Smart Pricing, and they may. Other people have asserted that Smart Pricing is based solely on conversion. I disagree with that. Google has specifically stated that Smart Pricing is based on a variety of factors, so it can't be just one thing anyway.
My EPC has gone UP since the introduction of Smart Pricing
Neither, according to the info given out by Google.
?
I have not seen very definitive information from Google about precisely *what* the criteria are for lowering the CPC. All I have seen is a very general 'other factors'.
Maybe I have missed something.
