Significant change in earnings per click

[mt1955]

My earnings per click changed significantly August 1st.

For some of my sites the change was 3x to 10x with an overall average so far today of 4x. I hope it continues but I am still trying to understand it.

I do see a few new ads but a lot of them look like the same ones that are usually served up with my content.

Could it be that my sites were under the Smart Pricing cloud from day one and it was suddenly lifted? Or could this be the effect of the recent changes to the AdWords program? Or just dumb luck?

Anyone else seeing anything similar to this?

[hunderdown]

More likely advertisers changing their bids with the new month. Coupled with a couple of new advertisers--you've got increased competition. You have to remember that advertisers are constantly changing what they are doing and this is at least as likely to be the cause of changes to our earnings as Google-controlled factors like Smart Pricing.

Not likely to last, though. They will probably tone things down. If it persists for a full week, THEN I'd celebrate.

[mt1955]

Not likely to last, though. They will probably tone things down. If it persists for a full week, THEN I'd celebrate.

Thanks for the insight. I'll try to remember to post a follow up on the results about a week from now.

At the time of this post it is only 7.5 hours into the day and already yesterday's earnings have been matched.

[momogi]

In contrary, my site generate a lot lesser revenue for the same amount of clicks. Still don't know why...

[mt1955]

Day 2: I'm still seeing the presence of the higher price clicks but now they are starting to appear on a different site which has completely different content from the one that was getting the 10x clicks yesterday.

So far whenever I've looked for something different I still see just the usual ads.

Does anyone have any experience with how the Online Advertiser sign-up works for advertisers? Would they ever be able to see a list of sites to choose from or only the one from which they clicked "Advertise on this site"?

[moonkey]

Something strange is happening, today and yesterday there were two clicks worth nothing (this clicks are not from CPM). I am not smartpriced by <0.01$ per click. I hope I'll find out asap what is going on.

[mt1955]

Not likely to last, though. They will probably tone things down.

You were right. Day 3 now and everything seems to be back to the old average and the 10x clicks are no where in sight. :-(

[mt1955]

Spoke too soon. They are back.

[hunderdown]

Ever put your stats into a weekly or monthly rolling average? Very good way to see what's going on long-term. I'm not an Excel expert but there have been posts here about how to do it in Excel.

Maybe there's one in the Library.

[cmendla]

Simple way to get a rolling average in excel

1 - get your data into a spreadsheet
2 - Create a line graph of the column you want (ie. earnings)
3 - I usually create the chart as a new sheet, not a chart on the existing data spreadsheet
4 - While on the chart, go to CHART, ADD TRENDLINE
5 - add a linear trendline - this will show your overall trend for all of the data (simple regression)
6 - Add a moving average - If you are looking at a couple of years worth of daily data, try setting the MA to about 30 or 90. You should see a smoothed out curve.

I just went in a day or so ago and grabbed the monthly totals since the begiining. Stuck them in a worksheet. Then I did a moving average of 12. Since I was working with months, that gave me a one year moving average. I did that for all of the factors, clicks, ecpm etc. You can see some interesting patterns by printing out the charts on relatively thin paper and overlaying two charts.

As the previous poster mentioned, moving averages really help you see what is really going on. The day to day fluctuations can cause a lot of distraction (ie. Deming's theories). When you look at the moving average the data can become a lot more meaningful.

Hope this helps a little

[hunderdown]

Thanks! That's exactly what I meant. This is the kind of thing that makes WebmasterWorld so great....

[wolv23]

I'm seeing a huge increse in revenue this month as well...woohoo. Hope it stays.