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However, the main question is: Is this a per-site, or a per-account effect? Would the low-performing ads on my generic blog be having bad effects on my more carefully focussed niche sites?
Thanks!
Drew.
Is this a per-site, or a per-account effect?
Per account.
Would the low-performing ads on my generic blog be having bad effects on my more carefully focussed niche sites?
On the current smart-pricing model, yes.
TJ
I've read repeatedly that removing the adwords code from lower-performing pages results in better earnings.
That hasn't been my experience.
If your average CTR is over 5% you probably dont have to concern yourself with this at all.
I watched for a couple of weeks and realized the only difference was having lost what those pages were earning... so I put them back.
Additionally, it never appeared to have had a significant impact on the eCPM for the high traffic/high CTR pages.
I have, however, removed the ads from any high traffic/low (very low, >.2%) CTR pages as that DID seem to have a visible affect!
Chapman
Would the low-performing ads on my generic blog be having bad effects on my more carefully focussed niche sites?
I echo EFV, this has not been my experience either.
Smart Pricing is not based on CTR, but on conversion rate and other factors. CTR and conversion rate are mutually independent.
Compare these two sites:
1) 100% CTR, 0% conversion (and being tracked)
2) 0.1% CTR, 100% conversion
Number 2 is what Google and advertisers want. Number 1 is what Smart Pricing is designed to penalize.
0% conversion (and being tracked)
Have we determined just HOW conversion tracking might be accomplished? I still do not see what specific mechanism exists to do this.
If it can be done then I certainly agree with John's analysis. If not, I'd still be inclined to believe "smart pricing" is working off an impression to CTR ratio.
Not trying to start trouble... I would LOVE to know for sure!
Chapman
Removing ads from pages that get few views and few clicks isn't going to make a lot of difference. I'd personally leave them serving ads.
Where this does work is on pages that have a lot of views (and low ctr) in comparison to other well earning pages. For example, on my main site index page I have tried two blocks of ads. The page itself is high traffic, and the top block gets a fair few clicks. The bottom block gets diddly squat clicks. As an ad block blocks get shown twice per page impression, if the lower one doesn't get any clicks it lowers the ctr of the site quite dramatically. That may well have an impact on RandomPricing(tm). Removing the bottom block increases the ctr, and usually increases epc as well - boosting overall earnings.
Likewise, one of my high traffic pages I've just discovered has been serving psa's for a while. I'm guessing there are stop words there somewhere. Removing the ad from that page has increased ctr, and my earnings have increased slightly.
I've got some pages where I don't get a click for a while. But as they are low volume, the performance is OK and I don't think having the ads on these pages impacts at all.
It's only when you have high volume pages that don't generate clicks, or multiple blocks on the same page that don't pay their way that you need to remove them. A lot of low volume/ low click pages can add up to a decent income!
BTW - Google don't have a clue what converts and what doesn't. They just guess. CTR does have an impact on smart pricing as it is a clue of sorts. As an advertiser I don't use conversion tracking for two reasons. 1, they don't offer to track what I really want to know, and 2, I just get the feeling that telling G what converts for me will mean they will charge me more for those clicks. Therefore in not telling G what is a conversion, it's possible I might pay less as an advertiser for the clicks.
I'm not alone in feeling this way either.
I believe theres no way out :(
I was speaking to the AdSense guys at the Google Dance the other night and they said that smart pricing is not necessarily account-wide or even site-wide. I didn't have the sense to ask if this was new, or if it had always been like this, but I can't find anything official on the AdSense site which says that smart pricing is account wide. This topic lead right into a discussion of how there were a lot of misconceptions floating around about AdSense.
I certainly am in no position to argue the point, but I thought you might find this interesting...
I was speaking to the AdSense guys at the Google Dance the other night and they said that smart pricing is not necessarily account-wide or even site-wide. I didn't have the sense to ask if this was new, or if it had always been like this, but I can't find anything official on the AdSense site which says that smart pricing is account wide.
They have publicly said that it's account-wide. But an account wide smartpricing probably doesn't "account" for all of the things they do which affect webmaster income, but are called other things.
With google, there's a knack to reading what "isn't said", and a knack to understanding that what they say may be absolutely literally true, but be only a small part of the whole system.
For example, smartpricing on an account-wide level may interact with onpage variables of each specific page so that its effects occur differently on each page, magnified on some pages, minimized on others.
It may interact with the algo that chooses the "most profitable ads" for each page. It may be calculated account wide but is used to alter the ads that are shown to show higher cpc ads or lower ones.
...and on and on.
A flaw in so many of these conversations is that people don't quite grasp that no single anything stands alone, no variable acts on its own. It's complex, and people try to explain complex interacting variables with simplistic explanations.
When I first starting hearing the smart pricing theories it was to punish high CTR that didn't convert as mentioned above, now it has become to punish low CTR and high CTR is immune. It seems we're creating a myth here.
I don't think it's ever been the case that the idea was to punish one metric. I don't think any one metric is immune either.
What Google do is to try and work out what clicks convert, and what one's dont and discount them. We have no way of knowing what their criteria is, but what seems to work is not to remove low ctr pages, but POORLY PERFORMING ones - especially second ad blocks that don't work.
Poor performance isn't one metric - it's all of them. I look at traffic, ctr, ecpm, epc - the lot when making the decision to remove and ad block. A page might have a poor ctr, but excellent ecpm. In that case I wouldn't dump it. A page with high traffic and high ctr, but poor ecpm might be in danger.
It's not entirely straightforward as looking at ctr. Look at all the metrics before making the decision to remove ads completely from a page. The decision to remove second ad blocks is the reverse - they have to prove they are worth it in order to stay, and very rarely do.
In my experience, as someone else posted, removing ads completely from high traffic and very low CTR pages had an overall positive effect on earnings for my site. Exactly WHY is open for discussion.
Re EFV's point, this isn't going to work for everyone. But the OP has a different kind of situation. EFV runs an established travel site. The OP has a blog and some niche sites.
If the ads on the blog are getting few if any clicks, I'd experiment. Take the ads off for at least two weeks--replace them with carefully written links to relevant pages on your sites. See what happens to your overall earnings.
When I first starting hearing the smart pricing theories it was to punish high CTR that didn't convert as mentioned above, now it has become to punish low CTR and high CTR is immune. It seems we're creating a myth here.
It follows that CTR simply can't play any role in Smart Pricing
Perhaps not directly. But very low CTR could be a stand-in for some things related to conversions. If there's very low CTR on a given page, then maybe the ads just aren't of interest to the visitors to that page, and the only ones clicking will be, on average, less likely to convert than clickers on a higher CTR page.
The mechanism is just speculation, of course, but the effect has been observed by a number of people. And I'll say it again: I did see my site's average EPC and earnings go up significantly when I removed ads from a few high traffic/low CTR pages.
Not being an AdWords user I wasn't aware of that option. I wonder what percentage of advertisers actually use this feature.
In post 3045007 david_uk offers some interesting observations from his advertising perspective. All in all, if not enough advertisers are utilizing this tracking option... it may not be realistic to assume Google could gain much from basing their performance analysis on it.
Actually, now that I think about it, as it is an 'option' I'm not quite sure how it could be used to derive useful information for anyone other than the specific advertiser.
What happens to all those clicks that pass through our sites without tracking turned-on? Are they conversion failures? Hmmmm... thought provoking to say the least!
It would be interesting to hear the opinions of other AdWords advertisers.
Chapman
What happens to all those clicks that pass through our sites without tracking turned-on? Are they conversion failures?
I don't think so. As noted in this thread and in previous discussions, AdSense uses other metrics. Conversions are NOT the only one, and I believe that AdSense has even acknowledged this. Of course, they've been extremely cagy about what the other factors might be.
If there's very low CTR on a given page, then maybe the ads just aren't of interest to the visitors to that page
While it's true that 100% CTR would indicate poor content or MFA-style tricks, it would be a mistake to Smart Price the site just because it has a high CTR. Why? Because the site could convert 100% of visitors who click on the ads. The same goes for very-low-CTR sites. It follows that CTR simply can't play any role in Smart Pricing (unless Google engineers lost their minds).
Or unless there's strong statistical evidence to suggest that, for example, a page with an advertising ratio of X to Y, three AdSense ad units, a blended color scheme, and a certain type of content is likely to convert at a substantially lower-than-normal rate when the CTR is above X percent.
Smart pricing doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be good enough to be right most of the time.
It just has to be good enough to be right most of the time.
Well said!
Although... it might be softened to: "It just has to be good enough to be right SOME the time." ;-)
Chapman
Thanks!
Drew.
What happens to all those clicks that pass through our sites without tracking turned-on? Are they conversion failures?I don't think so. As noted in this thread and in previous discussions, AdSense uses other metrics.
That comment was realtive to a conversion tracking ONLY scenario that John Carpenter alluded to earlier.
1) 100% CTR, 0% conversion (and being tracked)
2) 0.1% CTR, 100% conversionNumber 2 is what Google and advertisers want. Number 1 is what Smart Pricing is designed to penalize.
Chapman
...or enough of the time to keep advertisers happy and publishers on board
Precisely!
I'm in full agreement with you, however, in the course of this morning's discussion, I'm just now adding the 'conversions' parameter to my previous feeling that it was the impressions/CTR metrics ONLY.
BTW, slightly OT... I believe I read some eloquent posts by you in an Amazon forum recently in defense of AdSense.
If they were indeed yours. I'd like to say "Well done"!
Chapman
