Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I have been using Adwords and Adsense from the beginning of the programs. Both with the same subject areas and therefore keywords.
Adsense:
At its peak I was earning $100 to $150 per day. This has shown a gradual decline (in fits and spurts) to my current earnings of $20 to $40 per day. Amusingly the rise in popularity of my site means my earnings are inversely proportional to my traffic/clicks.
Adwords:
At the beginning the Adwords keywords I was using were maxing at between $0.40 and $3.00, although I did not bid near the top. Now the same keywords are maxing at a much lower level, my bids are close to the max, but I have to budget much more to get the same traffic volume. My cost per click has actually risen.
While my Adsense traffic has risen and earnings dropped, my Adwords account costs me more and more to generate the same amount of traffic. Margins are squeezed tighter and tighter.
[probable] Conclusions:
The sheer volume of Adsense/Adwords use as the program has exploded around the globe has been my downfall. The lower cost of the keywords has not made it cheaper for me to advertise as I'm competing against thousands of other people (or at least clicks), but it has greatly reduced my income. I am now competing against high volume WEB sites and many, many MFA sites.
Adwords/Adsense started be it by design or accident as a way for low volume sites to make some cash. The success of the program means only high volume sites and those based in countries where the exchange rate is in your favour can make the significant money (generalising here, of coarse there are exceptions) as either their traffic swamps the little guys, or they are very pleased with $10 at the end of the day.
While I preferred the $120 earnings, I never intended making money from my site in the first place (shock, horror!) so it has been an unexpected boon, so no complaints. I even got a nice radio with Google written on it, and a USB lamp that blew up the USB port on my laptop. Good things cannot last for ever. Actually, thinking about it, I do complain when I see people asking users to click on adverts when mine is the target advert.
I would now prefer to see the program wiped off the internet as it has made it a much less useful place to be.
I can't comment on your AdWords experience as I have never used it, but at least for my low-volume content site, AdSense has been only a positive experience.
