Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Now I have heard it all...
A.) Seasonal - No bidders around this time of year
B.) Adding weak sites that carry a low eCPM to your Adsense Account
C.) Smart Pricing and poor landing page quality.
But I am not guilty of any of the above. Whats the deal. Can anyone here concretely say do..... to halt falling eCPM NOW.
Of all the brilliant minds here lets get them cracking.
I mean REALLY GOOD content.
In the same way that there are thousands of writers in the real world but very few best sellers. You need to write a best seller.
Pages of text is content not GOOD content.
My ecpm has slowly increased for 4 years on my good well written best sites. And dropped to practically nothing on the rest.
Overall its still up year over year.
As the rollout of the content placement reports continues over the coming weeks many who may think they have converting traffic or just do not understand the true metrics involved in this equation will be shutout and reduced to RON ads and branding inventory while those who do have converting traffic will enjoy higher revenues then ever as long as google doesnt pocket the growth ;)
There will not be much you can do about this, it was just a matter of time, increasing ctr will just result in more people turning your sites off as they direct budgets to clicks that produce and not clicks forced down someones throat. This is where really understanding your users and understanding your advertisers and the vertical of your website is going to pay off.
You may have a great website with great content but if conversions dont follow in a defined market I would expect a big surprise circa 2000 cpm levels for many.
Something I just think is wrong. It cant possibly be that the visitors are just clicking on poorly paying ads.
But how can Google state with the thousands of Adwords advertisers using broad match state that this advert showed on Site A did or did not lead to a conversion for an advertiser. If they can.....what if NO advertisers for the keywords uses conversion goals. Ah! see my point. Then what Google just pulls a hat out of the rabbit.
My 2 cents, ammend your website copy to drive browsers to click and to buy. Hence we are no longer websites, we are Internet Tv's.
My Adwords blocked sites list went from 3 on Monday to 100 today. I also just block a few entire countries today since I couldn't find a good website in them.
I'm seeing better ROI and I was able to raise my bids so those sites that still show my ads are making more money.
This is one time we would like to hear from the guys in the Adwords forum. Help HERE!
Write an honest interesting unique bunch of content that cannot be found in any other site or book that only you could write, stick non in your face ads that are not blended and obviously ads on and you will have advertisers and punters wanting your site.
Advertisers want a balanced informative site with NATURAL and therefore very targeted traffic. They want people to click a ad because they choose to. Not tricked or mistaken.
The traffic will come if your content is good. I mean GOOD. Averagely good is a waste of time.
many who may think they have converting traffic or just do not understand the true metrics involved in this equation will be shutout and reduced to RON ads and branding inventory while those who do have converting traffic will enjoy higher revenues then ever as long as google doesnt pocket the growth ;)
This point keeps popping up and it bothers me: are you saying that branding inventory (which I understand as getting mostly "site-specific" (CPM) ads) is bad? I tend to think the opposite. I think the smaller, no-name sites are going to be reduced to contextual, "let-see-if-you-can-convert" type of inventory and precisely those are going to be the bottom feeders. The biggest and the most expensive sites out there (think CNET, and the like) all charge and will continue to charge CPM *for branding ads*. Those are the sites that will make tons of cash.
Why CPM? Because for most verticals (technology is certainly one of them), almost nobody is EVER going to click and buy something right away. So, if you're dependent on "conversions" - hypothetically speaking, people clicking on ads to order that printer or gadget or whatever, then good luck with your site! Sure, you're getting paid by click but if you accept the argument that the better converting sites are going to get most ad dollars and the rest are going to have err.. the rest, then you're reduced to a commission-based salesman.
I am not sure - may be contextual stuff works for some verticals, but I'd think that in most cases, CPM is a lot better for publishers and smart advertisers will simply cherry-pick the sites they like to put their brand ads on.
All my websites sell an ebook.
Why do you care about AdSense if your goal is to sell an eBook?
No wonder your eCPM is falling as your site makes no sense for AdSense IMO. If people are actually looking to buy your eBook the AdSense ads make no sense for them unless it's to other sites with similar eBooks. If people aren't looking for your eBook or that topic then your SEO is all wrong and you're bringing the wrong traffic to your site therefore the AdSense ads are irrelevant in the first place.
I think you need to examine your site and make a decision:
1. AdSense all the way and put the eBook content on the site in many pages of HTML for free
or
2. Focus on the eBook sales and conversions and toss the AdSense as I wouldn't think you're serious about that eBook if I saw AdSense on your site
Once you decide which is most important, revamp the site SEO to improve the conversions depending on whether it's for the eBook or AdSense.
[edited by: incrediBILL at 6:41 pm (utc) on June 27, 2007]
Focus on the eBook sales and conversions and toss the ...[AdSense?].... as I wouldn't think you're serious about that eBook if I saw AdSense on your site
I agree with this. Whenever I see a transactional web site with AdSense I am immediately thinking - they are not really serious about selling their product/service.
I think this was the mistake of the 1st generation of e-commerce sites (circa 1997-1999) - make an e-Commerce site and then load it with banners. By 2000 people realized it doesn't work.
I am not sure - may be contextual stuff works for some verticals, but I'd think that in most cases, CPM is a lot better for publishers and smart advertisers will simply cherry-pick the sites they like to put their brand ads on.
I'd guess that, all other things being equal, direct-response ads are worth more to advertisers than branding ads are, because the results are trackable and consist of leads or sales.
Also, the more risk the publisher assumes--e.g., CPA or CPC vs. CPM--the greater the rewards that a successful publisher can expect. (I earn much higher eCPMs from affiliate commissions than I do from AdSense ads, for example, and I suspect that's not an uncommon result for topics that lend themselves to affiliate advertising).
Getting back to the topic of "eCPM free fall," I'd have to say that any "free fall" certainly isn't universal, but it's likely to become more common now that Google is making it easier for advertisers to control where their ads appear. Seasonal factors shouldn't be dismissed, either, at least among publishers who haven't experienced several years with AdSense.
Strategy is the name of the game. Now what I am saying is suppose you ended up not selling that many ebooks and then most of your income came from the info side to your website the free recipes and people clicking for barbeque grills and TO GET MORE FREE RECIPES elsewhere. If Google just thinks well hey John Brown Grills did not sell any grills and his conversion is low so I should CHARGE HIM LESS is realdiculous, and this is not a misspelling its foolish. Lets wait to see what the new CEO of Yahoo has in mind.
I believe the more you can sell an advertisers product the better of you are. Hence creating pages just for John Browns Grills will make better sense than just creating great content about grills in general. This just means I will create a website about grills optimize for grills but blitz keywords for Johns grill. People come like what they see and buy. Even though browsers are buying Johns Grill I wont get smartpriced out because I will be a high converting site.
Lets face it just good Content is DEAD. Write converting pages for Adsense or we are all dead.
Lets face it just good Content is DEAD. Write converting pages for Adsense or we are all dead.
If you write good content for the right audience, you don't have to worry about AdSense. You can just stick the AdSense code on your pages and collect a monthly payment. That's how AdSense is supposed to work, and it's how it does work for professionally-published media sites (including mom-and-pop media sites) in commercially viable niches.
This is no different from magazine publishing. ROAD & TRACK or POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY is going to earn higher CPMs than a literary quarterly does, simply because of its topic, its audience, and how its readers respond to ads.
Well its all I have and its been working great unchanged with an ever increasing ecpm as well as traffic for 5 adsense years.
Lets face it just good Content is DEAD. Write converting pages for Adsense or we are all dead.
OK, that's just silly. If YOUR site doesn't convert it won't convert for eBooks or AdSense and you're just dead while the rest of us are doing fine.
I've actually seen a recent surge in what I'm getting paid and it's almost 50% more M-F and the content is pretty much what it's always been.
I'll rephrase this for you:
"Lets face it just YOUR Content is DEAD" ;)
Well its all I have and its been working great unchanged with an ever increasing ecpm as well as traffic for 5 adsense years.
Me too, only for three years now. I just checked, and my eCPM is 2.5 times what it was this time last year (this being my peak season) and my CTR is almost exactly double. Nothing on my site but information.
Pure info, no sales.
I think the advertisers on my niche would be happy to advertise on my site if they saw it. This is just the opposite of so many poorly done sites I have seen which have some minimal content, but it is of low quality and creates a poor user experience. Those are the sites that advertisers will want to block. In the future, as advertisers gain more and more control, publishers will have to create sites which not only are desirable and interesting to readers, but ones which are desirable to the advertisers as well.
So I must strongly disagree that good content is dead. However, I know that lots of folks are just too darn lazy to create good content, or just are not creative enough to do it, so they will laugh off the value of publishing great content, and keep trying to game the system.
Perhaps G has noticed that we have added thousands of pages of unique high-value content since we started in the mid 90s?
Nah, Newborn is right. Treat your users like cattle, write just to get the clicks. I'm sure advertisers won't notice and turn to sites with better quality. So if you're in my niche, do as Newborn says.
Please?
I dunno what's considered a bad eCPM anyway.
I think that eCPM varies so much from site to site and topic to topic that about all we can look at for conversations like this one is a rise or fall in the numbers for our own site(s).
Lets face it just good Content is DEAD. Write converting pages for Adsense or we are all dead.
In a sense, part of that statement IS correct. Good content without ibl's is dead. What converts is subject to all the considerations previously mentioned. Without good ibl's, nothing will convert in any case.
In a sense, part of that statement IS correct. Good content without ibl's is dead. What converts is subject to all the considerations previously mentioned. Without good ibl's, nothing will convert in any case.
The aforementioned site has relatively few IBLs yet, still growing those organically. Mostly SE traffic - we are fortunate to place very highly for many popular keywords (no games played here, so I'm not to worried about losing SE placement over time). So people are searching for stuff when they come to the site - the site is entertainment/informational, we don't sell anything but we do tailor content to the site audience - and the advertisers have followed, so it seems.
Of course, this may all be a 'spike' due to seasonal and other factors, so only time will tell.
Just thought I'd mention that at least one of my sites is seeing a dramatic increase in eCPM and CTR.
Maybe advert blindness is spreading among users?
This is what I mean, you guys can stay on the old side of the fence. Do you guys really think that there is no use for YouTube..those video are going to be lit up with ads soon.
YouTube video ads may take money away from the TV and cable networks, but they won't be competing with direct-response text ads on niche editorial sites (just as Toyota brand-awareness ads on CBS News don't compete with Toyota dealer ads in the car section of your metropolitan newspaper).
I cannot think of the last time I clicked a google advert.
Maybe advert blindness is spreading among users?
That hasn't been my experience. CTR for January-June 2007 has been running about 8.5% ahead of the same period last year, possibly because of an improvement in ad quality. When ads meet the needs of readers who are researching how to spend their money, ad blindness doesn't appear to be a problem--even when the publisher makes no attempt to "presell" whatever it is that the ads are selling.
That hasn't been my experience. CTR for January-June 2007 has been running about 8.5% ahead of the same period last year, possibly because of an improvement in ad quality. When ads meet the needs of readers who are researching how to spend their money, ad blindness doesn't appear to be a problem--even when the publisher makes no attempt to "presell" whatever it is that the ads are selling.
That sounds insanely high to me. I am typically seeing CTR well below 1% and anything above 2% is already suspiciously high for me. My ads are relevant, but I feel that's part of the problem - people simply DON'T NEED those other sites if they've already found what they were looking for on my site.
Not to imply anything here (certainly nothing personal, EFV!), but I am very curious if other people encountered the phenomenon mentioned in
[webmasterworld.com...]
Namely, the phenomenon of CTR and EPC *decreasing* as the quality of content *increases*. The "logic" being that the more people can find out on your site, the less they need to consult any other site.
Conversely, thin sites and pages with no information often seem to have a remarkable CTR and EPC - precisely because the user is forced to click on something to get any information at all...
If you've seen that on your site, please post how you're dealing with it.
That sounds insanely high to me. I am typically seeing CTR well below 1% and anything above 2% is already suspiciously high for me.
Just to put your mind at rest, I said I was experiencing an 8.5% increase. I wasn't referring to an 8.5% CTR. :-)
Namely, the phenomenon of CTR and EPC *decreasing* as the quality of content *increases*. The "logic" being that the more people can find out on your site, the less they need to consult any other site.
That argument has never made sense to me. If you have a site that's read by people who are researching ways to spend their money (as they're likely to be on, say, a travel-planning or product-review site), a lot of your readers are going to be interested in clicking on ads because the ads complement your content. Example: John Doe is thinking about a cruise to Slobovia. He reads a review of a cruise on Slobovia Cruise Lines, thinks "That's for me!", and clicks an ad for a travel agent to check fares and availability for a cruise in August.
Namely, the phenomenon of CTR and EPC *decreasing* as the quality of content *increases*.
The word quality is subjective and therefore meaningless to this discussion unless you define it better. For instance, Wikipedia is considered quality and I am certain one wouldn't be off the mark to assume the CTR and EPC on that website would be low because people researching marsupials or obscure species of dinosaur are not actually in the market to purchase anything, much less to purchase a kangaroo.
Authoritativeness, good grammar, professional editorial standards are not a guarantee of better EPC or CTR.
It's like the tagline to the old commercial for Starkist, where Charlie Tuna would be talking about something like his new art collection and a narrator would intone: "Sorry Charlie, we don't want tuna with good taste, we want tuna that tastes good."
So it's not your good taste in writing, editorial standards, and authoritativeness that matters in terms of epc and ctr. It's the topic plus the monetary value of the market your topic is about.
The "logic" being that the more people can find out on your site, the less they need to consult any other site.
That does not sound like logic, it resembles an assumption. Once someone knows all they need to know about a specific product model, they're generally at the point of making a purchase. If you have an ad targeted to the specific model number that the site visitor is convinced they need to purchase, you have achieved perfect synergy between your content and your ads, and are going to stop the free fall. It's as simple as that.
Once someone knows all they need to know about a specific product model, they're generally at the point of making a purchase.
And you make the assumption that most people use the Net to make purchases and forget that many use it purely for information gathering and in the case of "specific product models" possibly an offline purchase.
If you have an ad targeted to the specific model number that the site visitor is convinced they need to purchase, you have achieved perfect synergy between your content and your ads, and are going to stop the free fall. It's as simple as that.
Oh yeah, sure, if only it were as simple as that then maybe there would not be so many complaining about reductions in EPC, CTR and eCPM!
Sure there are those who are doing increasingly well but to dismiss those who are having problems as having "no relevant content" as some here would infer is downright patronising and counter productive.
