Increased CTR, Massive drop in EPC

EPC drop increase CTR

[ElleA]

I made a mistake while redesigning my site.

I was optimising my ads, with success. However they were optimised a little too well on the front page, with a triple the normal CTR (up nearish 10%), I think the people believed the ads were content they were looking for in the site, and sharply hit back, leading to poor conversion rates for the advertisers (Real Estate search related~)

My earnings have dropped massivly (1/5th of what they were earning weeks previously.) Which leads me to believe I have been smart-priced.

I have subsequently removed all ads, off my index page in hope to achieve a better EPC

-- What would be the best way to remedy this situation? Leave it a week, in hopes adsense updates my Smartpricing? Remove all the ads off the entire site for a week/ days? It's already been a couple of days of abysmal earnings

[edited by: ElleA at 9:58 am (utc) on Oct. 3, 2006]

[Nicke]

I have also got slightly more clicks than previous months and since mid September I am earning maybe 20-25% less, I guess I hit the smart pricing.

Should I remove some ad blocks and use less ads in total? Would that help?

[ElleA]

You possibly haven't been. There may be less high paying advertisers, for the current period. Or if you have recently added more adblocks, that may have increased the likely hood of hitting lower paying advertisers. Or a combination of all. 20-25% is not that bad.

It's where you drop 80% of earnings, then it gets a little worrisome :(!

[moTi]

to combat smart pricing (or low epc, if you will), i'd recommend:

- decrease number of ad blocks per page
- eliminate ads on low performing pages (low ecpm)
- make ads stand out clearer
- eliminate low performing channels

good luck!