Getting ready to remove Adsense

ppc, ecpm, click % ALL WAY DOWN

[shortbus1662]

I don't know what it is, but I mentioned my ecpm was down about a month ago in the big thread about it, but ever since then, it's not only been down, but steadily declined.

Now, I'm at less than 1/3 of what I have been consistently for two years in terms of eCPM.

I can't justify displaying ads for much longer at this price.

I made changes to my site, but I also have pages that have not changed at all yet, that are still getting traffic and clicks on my site, and those pages are seeing an equivalent decrease, therefore I can no longer blame my site changes.

Is there something I'm missing that has happened or has Google just decreased the publisher's revenue share significantly?

[europeforvisitors]

I'd say the two most likely possibilities are:

- Supply and demand, and/or....

- Smart pricing

If your clickthrough rate is also down, you may be seeing the results of:

- Poorer-than-before ad targeting (possibly the result of changing advertiser demand)

- Audience "ad blindness" (especially if you have a lot of regular visitors)

[edited by: europeforvisitors at 7:23 pm (utc) on Jan. 29, 2007]

[MThiessen]

I am still seeing adsense increases, so I don't think it is likely it is a blanket, "catch all" decline across all sites.

[shortbus1662]

I am 100% positive it is NOT supply and demand.

I thought smart pricing was in regards to the adwords advertiser and not the publisher. Am I 100% wrong on that, or partly, or what?

The relevance of the ads to my visitors and the topics of the pages they are on is DEAD ON, and I have quality pages, so I can't see losing THAT MUCH GROUND if any, due to my site being of poor quality, ESPECIALLY compared to the competition imo.

[europeforvisitors]

I thought smart pricing was in regards to the adwords advertiser and not the publisher. Am I 100% wrong on that, or partly, or what?

Smart pricing is a discount to the advertiser based on the anticipated likelihood of conversion. If the advertiser pays less, you and Google get less, even if the Google-publisher split remains the same.

[norbiu]

same here shortbus1662. Since last month's update everything went down, including traffic. I used to make $40-$45 / day, now I can hardly get to $15. If YPN was available internationally, I would leave adsense for good.

[rbacal]

Consider that it's drastic changes in advertiser bids.

Went looking at some keyword combos to get a sense what advertisers are doing generally in a particular field. About a year ago, top overture tool bids topped out around $12. CPC. Now the top is around $5.00 AND all the middle bids have fallen out into the low range.

Many many advertisers were overbidding in a non-sustainable way, particular towards the higher end. Simple market adjustment.

...maybe...and that would account for why some people have improved, because different sectors have different advertiser patterns.

That's my current guess.

[netchicken1]

Me too ... I am down dramatically in 2007 compared to 2006.

I havn't done anything to justify the crash in stats. Its a saddening and depressing state, and yet again shows that google is too unpredictable to be trusted for anything more than chump change.

Compared to January last year ....

Page impressions up by 7.8 times
Clicks up by 3.7 times
CTR 1/2 last year
ECPM 1/2 last year

[ebound]

Mine has been slowly dropping as well and I know for a fact that CPC for advertisers has gone up. Thats why recently I started contacting advertisers one by one and converting them to my own PPC system. Advertisers love this because they get the same clicks at a discount and I get double the EPC.

Google cut my income, I cut them out. I'm working to be Adsense free.

[MThiessen]

Am I the only one seeing increases? So many posts about decreases got me worried the hammer will be falling on me soon... Guess I should just count my blessings.

[maxgoldie]

Simple market adjustment.

I bet that this is mostly the thing that people mistakenly label "smart pricing". Especially given the volatility in such a new medium.

[potentialgeek]

What are you doing about SERPs? I slipped in Adsense income, so I built more site, did more SEO, and now I'm making more than I did before slipping. Going higher than competition with Adsense ads not only gets you more traffic; the visitors see your ads before theirs. Fortune 500 firms entering the online advertising fray helps, too. :/ They seem to like being at the top in the bidding.

p/g