Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Am I the only one :)
You dont but if you are getting a few cents per click then the chances are that your visitors are not converting. So you get paid less per click. This is smart pricing.
>>> 2 How do I improve their ROI? For now, the ads are very well-targeted and I use no dubious techniques to get clicks.
Sugestions (that have been working for me for years).
a) Dont blend. If you do blend dont make the ads look like part of the navigation etc. People must click because they choose to on the understanding that it is an ad! Or its very unlikely to actually convert! A sure means to get 1 cent clicks.
b) More importantly, make each page very narrowly focused and highly targeted on a specific subject/keyword(s) or phrase. I cannot stress this enough*. It may well mean less overall traffic but because this will help the search engines send you GOOD visitors rather than lots of visitors they will be i)more likely to click ii)more likely to buy as well!
Do this by making the page title short and to the point like "blue widget". Do the same with the text, on page titles, link text, link mousovers, alt image tags, file-names.html. image name etc.
Dont put "green, blue, pink widgets, hot widgets and cold widgets" as the page title, etc in an attempt to get the best chance of a visitor finding your pagees because then you will get mistargeted traffic that does not convert. Have SEPERATE pages targeted at ONLY green widgets etc.
c) have a LOT of real useful genuine interesting content on your pages that makes people want to link to the blue widget page from another related site. This too helps google understand that its "blue" widgets that that page is about. You will get better targeted traffic from the search engines that way.
Dont be generic! Be very very tightly and narrowly focused! It works for me. Go through your pages carefully and target each one very accurately. Remove comments about pink widgets etc and check and change links, names, text, titles, alt image tags, image names, image folder names, etc. Give the search engine the chance to send you the correct traffic to each page.
What I do know is that if this trend continues I'll be giving preference over to a pay per impression ad service being that earnings per unit is now getting to be higher than AdSense, which is a major turnaround from before.
Genuine, your advice sounds like MFA...
I don't get that at all. It looks like solid advice for any site to me, whether or not there's AdSense on it.
Genuine, your advice sounds like MFA...
Don't you just love it when a person takes his time to write a reply with tons of great information, and some smarta$$ attacks it with a 6 word reply.
Because on top of everything else you dont want filtering! There may be 10 good advertiserss in your chosen field of expertise. If say only three filter you, then your pay per click could easily half or worse.
Because top bid may be say 1 dollar.
2nd may be 1/2 dollar
3rd best may be 10 cents then 8 then 5 or less etc.
If you lose a few advertisers all the bids can be cheaper! And that leaves room for 1c mfas and similar. So theres more to worry about than smart pricing and ROI. You must offer something of value that people want.
If only 1 main regular advertiser filters you out then you may see a big fall in income and the sites that were not filtered win that money.
So whilst it was true that a few years ago you could earn money by posting almost any old rope and sticking ads on, its much less true today.
Much of the people screaming about falling income are seeing this happen. There are also a few casualties that dont deserve it but algos are not perfect! To them I say hang in there! And as the various algos and search engines get even better at determining the difference it will get even harder to earn and to get traffic unless you have one of the top sites in your field that offer something original that people want.
[edited by: Genuine1 at 8:44 pm (utc) on Aug. 27, 2007]
If I understand AdSense correctly, publishers have no control over that [advertiser ROI], no visibility into the merchants sales, no control over the landing pages so there really isn't anything else to focus on aside from maximizing revenue on the publishers side.
Publishers have control over their topics and target audiences. For example, two publishers might have two different editorial approaches:
- John Doe publishes travel narrative for armchair travelers.
- Jane Buck publishes how-to travel information for people who are researching trip purchases.
If both John and Jane run articles on Paris or New York, Jane's articles are likely to perform better for advertisers than John's are, because she's writing for an audience of people who intend to spend money on trips to Paris or New York.
This doesn't mean John shouldn't publish travel narrative if that's what he wants to do; it simply means that he shouldn't expect AdSense to be as profitable on his site as it is on Jane's.
Is Google taking a higher cut of adsense earnings?
I had thought of changing back over to YPN, but read that they are even getting worse at targeting then in the past. Maybe I need to get back into the regular banner ads with doubleclick, etc...
Google is a business, they make money through placing ads. They increase their revenue via 1) overall increase in traffic, 2) adding extra services (so that people no longer have to go to your and my websites), 3) by increasing cost to advertisers, and 4) by decreasing earnings paid to publishers.
#1 is in hands of MSN and Yahoo!, and they are loosing a war
#2 we can't control
#3 is what makes advertisers drop out in your niche
#4 is basically "smartpricing".
If you have only one revenue stream (Adsense), you are an easy target.
This August we haven't seen Adsense reveinue drops, mostly because we consider Adsense "bottom of the barrel", i.e. we have direct advertisers who pay much better. Adsense is for websites were direct advertising is not practical - i.e. "informational" sites (hence, advice here about "building more content"), non-profit or low-profit niches, low traffic sites or websites that use SEO for traffic generation and are likely targets of algo change swings.
Adsense is for websites were direct advertising is not practical
On the contrary: AdSense complements direct advertising.
To use a very simple and obvious example, on a site devoted to Elbonian travel, you might see display ads for big hotel chains, airlines, etc. throughout the site, but on that site's page about Widgetville, you'd also see keyword-targeted AdSense text ads for Widgetville B&Bs, Widgetville vacation apartments, Widgetville sightseeing tours, and other local advertisers.
The two types of advertising serve different purposes, reach different advertisers, and double the revenue opportunities for publishers who are able to attract both.
Traffic is off about 20%, though, so it might be related to the time before Labor Day. I guess even the advertisers took the time off. lol
It appears to be mostly the same advertisers as usual, and the same number of page impressions, more or less...
Aug 2005 - range of 0.09 to 0.13 per click
Aug 2006 - range of 0.10 to 0.15 per click
Aug 2007 - range of 0.10 to 0.15 per click (except 31 Aug)
with 2007: Aug 31 to Sep 3 being in the range 0.04 - 0.06
So, I've never seen any drop like this at all!
The past four days are Very worrying.
I never liked this: Advertisers will pay, but we won't tell you how much you get.
I am considering dropping Google AdSense altogether.
Two things that have happened in recent month (but hasn't affected value-per-click until now) is this:
1) The wikipedia entry for our keywords has gone to #1 on the SERPs
2) Google have now put <keywords> news IN the SERPs, so our site has been pushed from #2 down to #4
Would a slide from #2 to #4 affect the AdWords bid price? If we are seeing the same advertisers, why would this be?
Immediately went onsite and got out the old Google preview tool and every, EVERY, ad but one that showed was a mfa directory or what appeared to be parked domains phoney directory sites.
The only one that wasn't had a blatant adsense TOS--which I reported right away. I eighty-sixth ALL of them and the next morning I delibertly waited up to see if I had made a difference and then the first click was for 34 cents. A Big difference!
Better check your ads before calling Google names...although I can think of a few for putting all that crap on me!
Ann
Thanks. But if ads are placed by auction, then why wouldn't the more expensive ads be shown anyway?
And the ads on my site are (mostly) the ones I've always had, and ALL are legitimate.
Very curious.
Could my site be penalized for click-fraud? I don't see how.
I have around the same number of visitors, from the same range of countries, that I've always had during the summer.
And I have around the same CTR as usual. Perhaps even a bit less than usual CTR.
Either Google are taking a bigger cut, or something else is going on...
.W
Perhaps Google have just gotten greedy and are taking a bigger cut of the revenue?
But why a bigger cut of your revenue and not everyone else's revenue?
Smart pricing is a more rational explanation, though supply and demand could be at work, too.
Key words: Taj Mahal
2) The decline may have nothing to do with smart pricing. For example, there could be fewer clicks being bought for your keywords or more publishers competing for those clicks).
If your earnings are based on one keyphrase, then they're likely to be far more volatile than earnings that come from ads on many different keyphrases. Think about it: What if one major advertiser for that keyphrase added your domain to its exclusion filter because of low conversions, because it regarded you as a competitor, or because the advertiser's bid manager didn't like your site?
Why would smart pricing cut 2/3 of my value-per-click suddenly, if the same advertisers are still advertising?
You are being algorithmically Google screwed, happens to a lot of publishers nowadays.
Let Google know what you think about their poor click payout by dropping the ads and replacing by better paying alternatives, affiliate links or/and direct advertisers.
Now if I was getting 10 clicks a day, it is not a large enough sample to have any significance. With tens of thousands of clicks, my results become a bit more reliable.
Take note: with most of my ads being sky (160x600) and large box (336x280) - the box was my most profitable by far (and highest CTR). All 336x280 box ads on my site dropped dramatically in a very short amount of time - across many different channels. The sky didn't drop in price per click...
Could lower payouts be tied to a higher click-through ratio? I still believe that Google is pulling more - but I don't know why... and they won't tell me anything. I got the "no you are not being smart priced" and "maybe advertisers are pulling out" - but I am pretty sure I am mistakenly being smart-priced, or they are skimming more fat from mid-sized 'whales'...
C'mon Google - at least give a bit more info. .10 down to .01 or .02 per click? There has to be a 'good' reason that my rate per click has dropped by 90%.
Advertising in my niche should be at a high this month of the year (event driven). It's like political candidates nearly stopping their advertising spending as an election gets close - it just doesn't make sense.
AND if advertisers in my niche are in fact pulling out in mass - why aren't my adwords ads getting higher placement? I should have no competition.
Again, things just don't add up.
happens to everyone who gives the impression to have success with adsense and can't protect his niche sufficiently. for instance, i assume that a lot of people think i'm making a fortune with adsense as my web presence looks pretty professional, good seo, fair amount of visitors and i'm in it since years. so they try to occupy the same subject to get some of the sweet money. after that they see that the subject in fact yields pennies per click plus with their entrance to the niche they lowered the payout once more. most people are stupid, zero innovation, all they are being able is to poorly clone one's ideas.
My money is made through having a high traffic level - not a high click price.
maybe i was unclear. my niche also always only earned low amount per click. even before the massive influx of competitors.
Nobody with half a mind would try joining my niche to make money.
no, as i said, most people are uncreative. they don't know your earnings, do they? if they *think* you have success, they try the same.
anyhow, if everything other is unlikely, i leave you with "google has taken a bigger share of my earnings" if that is the most believable for you ;)
Less money was likely spent on adwords campaings meaning the average webpage has a wider range of click values available. The top may still be a few dollars but the number of steps between there and 5 cents is likely smaller.
AdBrite for example is drawing attention because it shows you how much someone is paying for any particular ad and you can reject any ad that is offering too little. You can't control the top bid but you can raise the minimum bid so that your click values increase. You make more per click this way. I suspect many former adwords advertisers are trying new things including AdBrite, Yahoo and even googles own referrals.
Solution, reduce the number of adsense ads on your site and give some of that space to a second service. Use two or three different services at once instead of two or three adsense slots.
Yahoo won't run with Google AdSense but Adbrite or Kontera will and so will several other networks. Sometimes non contextual ads even garner more clicks, it depends on the subject of the site. Diversify.
The share taken by Google is likely pretty high or they'd have anounced it long ago but that aside for now the problem is likely too many options for the advertising dollar.
We know what Google's overall share is, thanks to Google's quarterly earnings reports. But the more sensible reason for keeping the share secret is obvious: to make it harder for competitors to cherrypick Google's most profitable publishers by offering a larger cut of the revenues. (Offers of higher commissions are a common recruiting tool in the affiliate world.)
My page CTR is almost identical.
But the EPC for 2007 is about 25% of what it was in 2003.
FarmBoy
1) Advertisers had to opt out of the content network, and some of them didn't even know their ads were being displayed on third-party sites;
2) "Smart Pricing" discounts for advertisers hadn't been introduced (that change arrived in April, 2004);
3) Separate bidding for the search and content networks hadn't been introduced (that didn't happen until late in 2005);
4) Available clicks weren't being shared with scraper sites, arbitrageurs, computer-generated megasites, huge social-networking sites, etc.
Average earnings per click were bound to drop as reality set in and dilution occurred.
