What in the world happened to EPC?

Lowest figures *ever*.

[Sunflux]

When the April change came around, I complained about days with the lowest figures I've ever recorded - and at that point they were. Since then each month has slowly gotten better and better, peaking in July. But this August I have something new to complain about.

This past Saturday's EPC was the absolute lowest ever - 53% below my average daily EPC compared to just this past July (ie. a couple weeks ago). I'm talking $0.0x per click type earnings. Pennies. Things are not looking any better for Sunday.

Oddly, the selection of ads seem the same. Clickthrough rates aren't fantastic, but are still pretty good and fall within norms. Site traffic, if anything, is up a bit.

Very mysterious, and very depressing to my AdSense CPMs fall into untargeted Fastclick banner territory.

[Roomy]

I'm experiencing a "Bad" August, I have to admit that my sites are aimed at The Marine/Sailing fraternity....and I think everyone is out doing it rather than surfing for it.

[driris]

mine epc is becoming better than ever

[annej]

Mine is down a bit and I suspect it's the vacations and get the kids ready for back to school activities of my readers that is hurting me. This is my slump time. Things will peak after Christmas if it follows the usual pattern.

[Bluepixel]

My EPC finally rised too after that July (19-21) update :-)
That's the way to go :-)

[joebiff]

I have noticed that there have been a whole lot more PSA this month.

Keep in mind that you can have targeted AS ads running, but at some point Google may not have the inventory for your page so they post PSA's. I use a G back-fill script that allows me to track how many PSA's were posted throughout the day, I have had more PSA's for August to date than all of July.

[paybacksa]

Ditto here. So many PSAs that I pulled adsense altogether from a number of sights. Why waste the traffic.

Funny how the day after I pulled the adsense I also re-considered the value of several PPC adwords campaigns - since I am never the first to think of these things ;-) I paused them for mediocre performance. Looks like "we are not alone" -- poor targeting or poor exposure, low earnings, and high CPC.

Also funny how a few days later G sends a promotional email with a rebate offer ... no thanks.

Somebody give G a lesson in "affiliate management 101". Pay well and pay on time. That's all we ask.

[Mentat]

My EPC is rising since 2 days ago :)

[alika]

The thing with this type of thread is that somebody will say they're down, while some will say they're up. It's hard to generalize for everyone what you are experiencing with your site/s.

[hunderdown]

I think we'd all do well to ignore our stats for August. This is prime vacation time in the northern hemisphere AND the Olympics are about to start.

Wait for September. If things don't pick up, then it's time to push the panic button.

[Rodney]

I think we'd all do well to ignore our stats for August.

Why would we do that if our stats are up from previous months.

Not all websites will show the same trends. Some will go up, and some will go down.

I don't see why one month should be ignored over another?

[hunderdown]

OK--not "ignore," but not hurry to push the panic button over declining AdSense earnings. Don't rush to draw any conclusions about a change in the AdSense algo or something when your earnings drop off this month....

Your site may have radically different usage patterns and demographics, but I expected that both traffic and relevant AdWords campaigns would dip in August, then recover in September. So far, my AdSense earnings ARE down.

You can, of course, still draw valid conclusions when comparing one ad format against another, or one channel against another.

[btas2]

For this weekend (07-08 August) my EPCs were on the bottom 5% of all EPC for this year.

However I see wide variation in EPC the range of about 3x (i.e. highest values are 3x the lowest), though most are within a factor of 2x.

I also see what looks like a fairly regular periodic fluctuation when EPCs for this year are averaged over a running 7 day timeframe with a period of around 1 month. The dips usually seem to occur either in the first or last few days of a month.

I assume low EPS values over the weekend were just part of the cycle and today and tomorrow they'll be up again.

[Sunflux]

Wow, this is getting serious... Wednesday's CPM was 62% below the average for the first three weeks of July. If this continues earnings for the month are going to be the lowest I've ever had, far worse than the horrible April and May months - which were far worse than other months.

[ytswy]

Sunflux, a lot is going to depend what market your ads are coming from. We just bottom fish on adwords anyway, but if we ran a large campaign we'd have pretty much turned it off in August (or droped the bids right down), wouldn't be worth it since August is always dead in our industry.

[dk7012]

My EPC has always been very low but it has become even lower. And on top of that i also have a very low CRT.

[annej]

I hope this drop is just a seasonal thing and not a new algo.

[binary1000]

The best thing for a low CRT is to put it on a stand so it's at eye level. A telephone book works. Otherwise it's kinda tough on the neck.