Forum Moderators: martinibuster
What I have noticed is in past 1 year is the traffic to my websites have increased but my adsense payments have dropped from 500 USD to 100 USD approximately. Am I doing anything wrong Or I am missing on something critical as per Adsense placement on websites is concern?
Club's name...something related with btas2's words..."More traffic, more clicks, less revenue"
Direction we may go...that one mentioned by Fearlessrick.
Facts...
...Adsense has been one of the most successfully business in recent years.
…Quality content sites like ours was an important part of that success.
I would like to get $25-35/M/page, but actually could make a very good living on $15-20. Google somehow believes they're doing a satisfactory job (actually, maybe they know they're short-changing us) with me at around $3/1000.
There's an easy solution, if your pages and audiences are worth as much to advertisers as you think they are:
Pull the plug on AdSense. Start selling ads for CPMs of $15-20, or even $25-35. Don't look back.
Better yet, use a mixture of CPM display ads and, affiliate links to earn higher CPMs, with AdSense serving as a source of incremental revenue instead of the main event. (With the right topic and readers who are researching ways to spend their money, the effective CPMs from affiliate programs can be far higher than AdSense eCPMs are--which stands to reason, since you aren't sharing revenues with an ad network.)
Pull the plug on AdSense. Start selling ads for CPMs of $15-20, or even $25-35. Don't look back.
Thats a lot but very much possible for somebody with established list of advertisers. We just started recently and for image ads we do charge $5-10 per CMP based on the amount of impressions you buy. We also have a PPC program only for advertisers from our niche because we know we will convert. For link ads we do charge on average $0.50 per click which is about half what our advertisers are paying to Google through adWords. Even though we do not sell 100% of our inventory yet we are still making several times more than we could get from adSense.
But, just for comparative purposes, since you are always a staunch defender of AdSense, how have they been treating you lately? Has you eCPM increased, decreased, stayed the same?
I'm sure a lot of us would like to know how you really feel.
But, just for comparative purposes, since you are always a staunch defender of AdSense, how have they been treating you lately? Has you eCPM increased, decreased, stayed the same?
Actually, I'm not "always a stauch defender of AdSense." For example, I've been vocal in criticizing the network's one-size-fits-all, advertiser-take-potluck approach over the last 3-1/2 years. However, I'm not foolish or egocentric enough to assume that, when things don't work to my advantage, Google must be cheating me and everybody else.
As for how AdSense has been treating me lately, I don't know, since the AdSense team leaves me alone and I leave the AdSense team alone. :-) However, I can say that my average AdSense eCPM dropped a bit in February and has been up in March and April. March this year was probabl down about 30% over the same month last year, but I suspect that's due, at least in part, to changes that I've made on the site (changes that resulted in substantial overall revenue growth at the expense of some AdSense income). It may also be due, in part, to changes that are unique to my sector, and which are benefiting me greatly on the display-ad side even though they're having a dampening effect on AdSense affiliate ads.
SIDE NOTE: One problem with selling all of your ads direct (as opposed to using AdSense or a multinational rep firm) is that, if you have an international audience, you may be limiting your revenue potential. AdSense reaches advertisers in many countries and uses "geotargeting" to reach audiences that U.S.-centric networks and advertisers prefer to ignore. If you cater specifically to a U.S. audience, that may not be a problem, but if a significant percentage of your audience is outside the United States, AdSense can help you to monetize your non-American traffic.
I mean, just look at the qualifiers in that middle paragraph (don't know, probably, suspect, may also be due to...). And that last sentence, well, Orwell's Ministry of Truth would be proud.
For example, I've been vocal in criticizing the network's one-size-fits-all, advertiser-take-potluck approach over the last 3-1/2 years.- yeah, show me three examples.
Thanks for enlightening all of us.
- yeah, show me three examples.
If you're that obsessive, you can go back and read through 3-1/2 years' worth of threads. :-)
And I'm talking about responsible sites not MFAs.
My site is usually on the first page of google searches on topics that it deals with. I'm pretty much doing everything right - or at least I'm not doing everything wrong!
As I said earlier, I'm moving into more affiliate programs and other advertising. I'm not getting rid of AdSense, it still generates a good income, but there's no doubt that the way to succeed is to diversify. At one time you could survive on AdSense alone, but that's getting harder and harder to do. It's still better than Yahoo and it's still better than any other contextual advertising program, but it's not as good as it used to be.
We are simply going to have to get used to that fact.
Spin it any way you want. For the average AdSense site revenue is falling and I suspect it will continue to do so.
Could be, although averages don't account for individual differences, and whether revenues are growing, declining, or staying about the same will vary from publisher to publisher.
There have been several major changes since 2003 that can't be ignored:
1) Smart pricing has been introduced, to encourage advertisers to use the content network.
2) Separate bidding has been introduced for the search and content networks.
3) AdSense publishers are no longer benefiting from the cluelessness of advertisers who found themselves advertising on the content network because they hadn't opted out at launch.
4) The pool of publishers and, just as important, of pages with AdSense code on them has grown enormougly since 2003.
As I said earlier, I'm moving into more affiliate programs and other advertising. I'm not getting rid of AdSense, it still generates a good income, but there's no doubt that the way to succeed is to diversify.
That's what I've been doing (and saying) all along, too. Also, affiliate programs, display ads, and AdSense aren't mutually exclusive. Each has different strengths. The great strength of AdSense is that it lets you earn money from subtopics and pages that might not generate revenue from, say, affiliate programs.
On a travel site, for example, hotel bookings might be a great source of affiliate revenue, but people who are booking Elbonian tour packages through travel agents probably aren't booking hotel rooms through your site. With AdSense, those prospective Elbonian tour-package buyers will see (and, in many cases, click on) ads for companies that sell Elbonian tour packages. So, even though AdSense might not be as good a source of revenue as affiliate programs might be for your site, it does produce revenue that otherwise might go to someone else.
BTW, one forthcoming positive change to AdSense is the introduction of site-targeted contextual ads. That won't benefit all publishers, but it could attract advertisers who are leery of the existing run-of-network or "you gotta take the crap along with the caviar" CPC approach and are willing to pay more money for the privilege of controlling where their ads run.
Today I’m convinced that MFA is only one aspect of the problem, may be not the main one.
Y, MSN and others play in the same ground (scale) of GG. May be when they have a competitive product this will not differ so much than actual AS (regarding our interests).
In one of my niches AW and Y charge 30 to 70 cents per click. Contextual advertising is paying to the site (one of the top ten in the topic) between 1 and 7 cents.
We were an important part of this business origin. Let’s put together our minds to find a better price for our products.
Today I’m convinced that MFA is only one aspect of the problem, may be not the main one.
MFAs are more likely to be a symptom than a cause. Why? Because MFAs depend on higher-paying ads being in short supply.
We can’t and we don’t need it! We only need to reach advertisers for a specific niche.
What about if the publisher places a text “Advertise here” in the ad spaces?
This is just an idea to find niche advertisers. There are many other aspects like how to offer and receive payments.
We can’t and we don’t need it! We only need to reach advertisers for a specific niche.
And to sell and serve geotargeted ads outside your home country.
And to offer a critical mass of of traffic for every subtopic on your site, no matter how obscure.
And to have enough clout so you can get payment up front instead of invoicing and waiting for the advertiser to send a check.
We do not need to compete with GG. We can not compete with GG.
We just need to find a solution for this:
“More traffic, more clicks, less revenue”
At the same time, wouldn’t be cheaper and more profitable to work with current publishers? We all know that many of us are more and more diversifying and Google is losing valuable ad impressions?
Just a thought!
At the same time, wouldn’t be cheaper and more profitable to work with current publishers?
Google is working with current publishers. It simply wants to add more publishers to the pool.
We all know that many of us are more and more diversifying and Google is losing valuable ad impressions?
Google is in a better position than we are to know how many ad impressions it's losing to publisher diversification. I doubt if Google is losing a whole lot of sleep over publishers jumping ship, because (a) the least satisfied publishers are likely to be the least profitable publishers for Google, and (b) from Google's point of view, there's something to be said for having its weakest, least profitable publishers migrating to competitors' networks.
GG make a mistake ignoring this problem.
If any group of webmaster with quality content sites do the appropriate steps it may be the beginning of new times.
Remember back in 2003 when the market was invaded by jumping and blinking monkeys…
May be we are ready for new models.
Look at the keywords on your site, compare who advertises on your site and who advertises on google main when you do a search. I know in our industry, its a huge difference.
Just kidding. ;-) Hey, you can take a joke, don't you?
(Please read this as "Januuski, I fully agree.")
Just kidding. ;-)
Why? If an AdSense publisher thinks he's being abused by an untrustworthy business partner, isn't it reasonable to suggest that he say "You're fired" instead of sticking around for more abuse?
Sometimes people are not in a position to just say "You're fired". Most people can't simply pickup and leave in an instant even if they are being abused.
Those that do eventually, do so over time. This however, usually happens after sticking around for as you said: "more abuse" and after they've found an alternative.
Fortunately, there is a minority - perhaps you are in that minority that are able to say in an instant "You're fired" which is a good position to be in.
If an AdSense publisher thinks he's being abused by an untrustworthy business partner, isn't it reasonable to suggest that he say "You're fired" instead of sticking around for more abuse?
To make it clear, I have already removed AdSense from my main website about 3 month ago and we are selling banner ads and PPC links directly. I have been with adsense since 2003 but never had AdSense on more than 10% of our page impressions. Currently I have AdSense on one smaller website where we do all the testing. The site has about 1M impressions per months so my testing numbers should be accurate.
I have a Google AdSense rep and I do work with AdSense optimization team but so far no luck. I guess if my website was a garbage Google rep would not be calling me to place ads on some of our other websites and AdSense optimization team wouldn’t be wasting time with me.
FYI Our main website is one of the leading websites for our niche and is currently generating enough revenue to employ about 10 people.
Any other doubts/comments?
I think maybe someone has gotten a little too heavy handed with the balancing ratio in one of their long ago algos and it was such a great result, for them, that they kept it.
Anyway, sure wish there was an alternative that I could do but at this time I flat don't enjoy the idea of changing everything yet again for testing....just show me where the money is and I will jump on the train. ALL ABOARD!
Conspiracy theory? You bet.
Ann
more traffic, less clicks has been a problem for me for a year now
Impressions are also low, yet when I look at the relevant pages through various proxies around the world ads are always showing. Conspiracy theories are too far fetched, yet something does seem to be amiss.
[edited by: Scurramunga at 4:10 am (utc) on April 10, 2007]
I hope someone here able to provide some guideline to improve situation. I’ve only 2 - 350x250 box per page. There was a time last year when I use to get $220-250 each day. Next I thought I will touch $300..$400..$500 per/day and so on.My traffic and CTR increased but overall earning is dropping each day :(
same here...dropped from 220-250/day to 80-90/day
my dreams went down to the drain
get zillions of off targeted ads and MFA links.
A call to google: maintain a high quality ad base and worth clicking links. otherwise the public will get used to not clicking the ads and down the drain the business model.
dont say i did not i warn you
Why do you think google is rolling out pay per action for pubishers? Probally to put some trust back into the publishers network.
Wouldn't the first logical step to gain advertiser trust in the content network be to clean it up?
get zillions of off targeted ads and MFA links.A call to google: maintain a high quality ad base and worth clicking links. otherwise the public will get used to not clicking the ads and down the drain the business model.
Call to Google: kill the domain parking program, and you will kill 90% of the most misleading ads out there.
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I love to hear stories like this, januuski. Gives me something to strive for.
PS. I'm not a stock market pro so invest at your own risk :-)
