Consistent Slide

Month started well then...

[J_Evans]

I read how everyone has their ups and downs and I see this too but it only seems to last for a day or two then rebounds. The first week of this month I felt I did good but since I have been in a steady decline. I have reviewed my site and have not made any changes other than adding a few more pages. I am stumped. Here are the figures for the month.

Feb. 1st - 7th CTR 6.15 eCPM 16.56
Feb. 8th - 14th CTR 5.47 eCPM 11.71
Feb. 15th - 21st CTR 1.41 eCPM 1.56

Page impressions are up so I would assume over a period of a week things would at least even out. Have you seen a trend like this, this month? What should I look for in my site? Should I get someone to review my site for me? Thanks for your help.

Jamie

[Pengi]

I have always found eCPM as not very useful when it comes to diagnosing problems.

I separate it out into its constituent parts of: Click Through Rate and Earnings Per Click and track these separately.

I've found that poor performance in Click Through Rate is related to ad targetting (all my ads changes to a single theme for a period and the CTR fell dramatically for all pages on other themes). CTR could also be affected by page layout, ad blinding etc.

Earnings per Click is perhaps affected by smart pricing or it could be rleated to advertiser behaviour. Changing you content may affect the advertisers showing or the likelihood of clinks on the ads from your site converting for your advertisers.

I know this doesn't offer any fixes, but it may help you understand what is behind any changes or trends.

[trannack]

How long has the site been active with adsense? Is it a site that may get a large amount of repeat visitors - which could result in clicks from the same IP address not being counted?

As Pengi stated, I would suggest there is a direct correlation to the decrease in CTR resulting in a decrease in eCPM. If the site is quite new, you may being seeing "normal" fluctuations. If it has been around for a while it could be smart-pricing. Perhaps you could provide us with a bit more detail.

[maxgoldie]

Looking at the OP's timline -- on the 15th, there was a drop. It could likely be that the recent changes in Adwords QS on the 15th Feb has something to do with this.

Maybe the recent changes in AW caused some of the better advertisers on the OP's site to drop outta content for a bit?

[J_Evans]

My site is about 7 months old and I have been running Adsense for about 5 months. Not alot of return visitors, most are new. Since I am starting from scratch, no expierence etc. I don't have the huge page view etc. that a exsisting site or expierenced webmaster has so yes a little drop off means a large percentage. The CTR I think is the number that concerns me the most for the moment. Thanks for all the help.

Jamie

[edited by: J_Evans at 7:45 pm (utc) on Feb. 23, 2007]