CPM (Site-targetted) vs. CPC (Contextual) - a real world example

indicates strength of advertiser bidding?

[inactivist]

On my most 'popular' site (the one with the highest traffic and best ad targeting) - here are some stats from the last 7 days (actual $ amounts elided to avoid G TOS violations)

Site targeted ads (CPM): 250 ad impressions, revenue = $pennies
Contextual (CPC) : over 75,000 impressions(!) revenue = $many dollars.

Site targeted revenue is approximately 0.68% of total revenue for period.

All I can conclude is that contextual advertisers (CPC) are massively outbidding the site targeted (CPM) ads. But, the reports show the CPM ads having an average eCPM of over 2x the average CPC ads. So, if that's the case, why doesn't AdSense show more of the CPM ads? Or is this a case of hitting the max advertiser budget early and reverting to CPC ads? I'm soooo confused...

Is this representative of other peoples' results? Or is my site experiencing an 'AdSense Anomaly'?

Is this due to some (many?) CPM advertisers setting max budgets really low, in hopes of catching cheap branding?

[europeforvisitors]

In my experience, a lot of CPM advertisers are bidding fairly low for what amounts to remnant inventory, but some will bid high for good exposure. It depends on the advertiser and how much that advertiser wants to reach a specific audience.

[rman]

I have the same problem, my site ads have 400% more eCPM than contextual ads but Adsense sows only part of them and in part of my site.
Only in subdomains like example.mysite.com i have CPM ads and only few in my center site.
I want more CPM ads and i can't find a way to do it.
The income from these daily now is 10% from CPM ads
and 90% from contextual ads.

[berto]

I, too, have observed much higher eCPM on my CPM ads. Trouble is, CPM ads are displayed very seldom.

I have a number of pages and page categories where I have retired contextual ads because the CTR was so poor. It would be great if I could restore ads on those poorly performing contextual ad pages but specify to run CPM ads only.

How about it, Google?

[loudspeaker]

I'm in the same camp as berto: I am just hoping that CPM ads are going to take over completely at some point.

As for stats, my "site" ads have 4-6 times higher eCPM than my contextual ads. It makes perfect sense to me as "site" ads seem to be demographic-targeted and not keyword-targeted. I think there are quite a few limitations with the keyword approach.

I agree with the feature suggestion - frankly, I'd rather Google let us display alternative ads instead of contextual stuff if CPM falls a below certain level. Except I doubt they'll ever offer such a thing because it will be essentially a tool to run fewer ads.

P.S. For those who are interested in optimizing their layouts for one or another: I noticed there's a much better chance of getting a "site" (CPM) ad if you use the 300x250 format. Skyscrapers seem to mostly generate contextual stuff (although there are a few exceptions)

[inactivist]

P.S. For those who are interested in optimizing their layouts for one or another: I noticed there's a much better chance of getting a "site" (CPM) ad if you use the 300x250 format. Skyscrapers seem to mostly generate contextual stuff (although there are a few exceptions)

I've noticed this as well - my only problem with the CPM ads is that here you have this relatively large block (300x250) and only one ad - too much empty space, usually. So, for me anyway, the CPM ads are really ugly when I see them...