Swinging on the AdSense Vine

the internet's money rollercoaster

[incrediBILL]

This is a follow-up post to last month's post [webmasterworld.com] about hitting all time highs and still climbing higher in AdSense.

I've seen earnings shifts in the spring/summer months before as all the winter shut-ins glued to computers start to wander outside and experience the magic of sunburn. However, now that spring has sprung this year and I'm pushing 800K visitors/month the earnings swings are wilder than I would've imagined.

Not that the lows are so low that I'm complaining, it's still on par with an average day a year ago, but a swing for as little as 0.5% CTR can easily changes earnings +/- $100-$150/day. A full percentage point swing can lead from total elation to suicidal tendencies depending on which way it swings, so you can easily gauge my mood by looking at my CTR.

Mind you, I'm not complaining as earnings are up, but the radical amount of earnings swing from day to day at the whim of a fraction of a percentage point change isn't what I'm used to seeing and it can be a wee bit unnerving.

I'm sure others experience this as well, but I do love those more predictable earnings days in the winter.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

[celgins]

Overall, my earnings are up, but the past month has seen a decline in EPC and eCPM.

Like Bill, no complaints though. It's just part of Adsense "vine-swinging."

[europeforvisitors]

I'm sure others experience this as well, but I do love those more predictable earnings days in the winter.

My experience has been the opposite: The "swing range" in April and May has been narrower than in previous months, with higher eCPMs and earnings as a bonus.

Why? Probably because my travel topic is seasonal, and people who have a vacation scheduled need to sit down at the computer and make plans at some point--even if the sun is out and the beach or barbecue beckons. (In November, it'll be a different story.)

[iwannano1]

Nice to read some positive stuff here. I’m about to push 400K visitor/ this month. I’ve already started to see some recovery. I was little upset (may be angry too) in Jan and Feb this year as my earnings went down (almost 50% deep). But I paid more attention to the content, my site user needs and removed ugly TF ads.

PS: I’m also reading your blog @ blogspot. Hope it is your blog only!

[Hobbs]

Bill, could be a serps shift causing your ctr swing, I'm riding the positive end of a good ctr wave, also observing subtle shifting action in the serps at the same time, bracing hard mind you.

[inside joke: are we there yet?]

[potentialgeek]

Swinging Adsense--and now more often fluctuating Google SERPs--oh what fun! Pity the man who has this situation and a wife to explain it all to. ;/

I have over 2 million PV/month, but don't know how to optimize Adsense yet. It's frustrating.

p/g

[edited by: potentialgeek at 7:18 pm (utc) on May 7, 2007]

[martinibuster]

Hobbs is right, there have been some shakeups. I'm also thinking on a variation of Hobbs' theme. Your new site visitors are coming in on different searches so their click patterns may not be as reliable as your core search referred visitors. My pattern is reverse from yours, slow in winter up the rest of the year.

[sonny]

"Swinging on the AdSense Vine"

That's Funny!
Sums it up nicely.

[netmeg]

Yup; I'm a-swingin' too. My site reaches its peak on July 4; for the few weeks leading up to that, I get 50k visits per day, as opposed to 200-300 per day the rest of the year. Last year I had reasonably good position in Google, but not so hot in Yahoo and MSN and got that kind of traffic, this year I'm #1 in all three, plus I totally redesigned the site, so I'm all a-twitter to see what the next couple months will bring in. One of these days when I have time, I need to come up with a site that actually brings in money past July 5.

[incrediBILL]

Bill, could be a serps shift causing your ctr swing, I'm riding the positive end of a good ctr wave, also observing subtle shifting action in the serps at the same time, bracing hard mind you.

Doubt it as the traffic is pretty stable with weekdays very strong, and traffic dips a little on the weekends. But it does this all year round fairly consistently.

The difference here is purely CTR and maybe it's a lack of ads, or lack of interest in ads, hard to say, but I'm pushing 800K visitors and 3M page views, which are records for my site, but the randomness in CTR is crazy.

I think I'll just go play poker this afternoon as it's more predictable and soothing.

[europeforvisitors]

The difference here is purely CTR

That's pretty much what I'm seeing, too. CTR in April and May has been up 10-13% over earlier months this year, probably because of normal seasonal factors. The quality of ads is better than it used to be, too--more real vendors, fewer affiliates--though EPC is still down from what it was before Google introduced separate bidding for the search and content networks.

[Content_ed]

May, June and July are the low season here, whatever else we do. The swing today was horrible, should be the worst day of the year, but at least we knew it was coming.

I wonder if we could apply the old stock market adage to Adsense - Sell in May, Go Away.

[rickhz]

I'm on track to earn $500 less this month than last (by looking at weekly earnings), and last month was $200 less than the previous month:eek:

Things were working really well and had finally picked back up after the last dip in earnings. I

This is very frustrating. I give them the impressions and clicks, I've optimized until I'm blue in the face, but earnings still drop and there is no way to find out exactly why.

[ken_b]

What about search queries or traffic sources

any changes there?

[rickhz]

Not for me... My site still ranks on the first page of the SERPs on both Google and Yahoo.