Forum Moderators: martinibuster
If it's just me I maybe I've been smart priced down but I wondered if it might be based on something else like lower bids for ads.
How is this going for others?
April (compared to March) -13%
May -2%
June -3%
July -13%
August (so far) -1%
That's five months in a row with a lower EPC than the previous month, something that has not happened before. Must be something else. I suspect that there are fewer genuine advertisers and even more bottom-feeders with their parked pages.
I'm hoping advertisers in my topic are just not bidding as high right now but it's hard to tell.
I'm hoping advertisers in my topic are just not bidding as high right now but it's hard to tell.
I think that's the hard part... seasonal? lack of advertisers? arbitrageurs? smart pricing? new google algo? downward price pressure?
I really hate being in the dark like that... would it be so imprudent from Google to tell us when we are being smart priced so we can actually do something about it? Their monthly tips could actually be useful, something like "this web site (or this channel) has been shown to poorly convert with advertisers, so it is being penalized...". At least we would know and could think of ways to fix it. Meanwhile, EPC for many publishers is in a constant downward trend for mysterious reasons. I feel like publishers are considered dispensable. Last year, clicks under 0.10$ were the exception, now it's the rule unless you're in some hot topic. What has changed so much? Is it really the natural market rules? or has the algo changed? Are they favoring CTR over price bidding a lot more?
I dont think it works like that.
Google "smart price" all sites all the time. The amount of value each click gets most likely depends on visitor source, history, length of time spent per page on this or similar sites, the number of ads they click on yours or previous sites, and maybe much more besides. Like conversion history of your site/page/ad/part of world visitor is from etc etc. Its all down to googles algos and they are very very complex!
There is no smart price on off switch.
They can now see and filter out sites they dont like the look of or that dont convert or both! Meaning more for the better sites and less for the rest.
Your sites better have some real user value and have very targeted traffic because if not your income will keep dropping in the future I suspect.
IMHO, having articles on many different subtopics twithin the site's overall theme helps to smooth things out, because many different subtopics = many different advertisers.
I was good Mon. and Tues. Down 1/2 epc today. Same #'s with everything else. Makes no sense.
I think we are starting to see the change in advertisers from pay per click to pay per action.
How can you tell if an ad shown on your site is pay per click or pay per action?
Sometimes it’s very difficult to tell. I looked at one of our eCommerce sites PPA text link ads and I have been seeing them on publisher sites as regular text links ads by Google. I think the content (eCommerce) PPC inventory has dropped since PPA came out and PPC will continue to drop.
Most eCommerce sites will eventually turn to PPA since there is no risk for click fraud and the advertisers know they do not have to pay for non converting traffic.
Most eCommerce sites will eventually turn to PPA since there is no risk for click fraud and the advertisers know they do not have to pay for non converting traffic.
Sounds good, except for the fact that those e-commerce sites need ad impressions to generate inquiries and sales. Until and unless Google can make CPA a "set and forget" solution for publishers (with no manual intervention required), and demonstrate that CPA will generate higher revenue than CPC or CPM, publishers who have other revenue streams besides AdSense will be likely to say "Thanks, but no thanks."
I'm wondering what has happend. Yesterday and today epc down 70%. Has never ever been so low in last 3 years.
And, I've got some terrible active x referral showing up somewhere that is getting 1 cent for a conversion.
Honestly, most advertisers have very little faith in the content network. Most are already changing. We are a publisher as well and we see the PPA list grow daily when we search for referals to place on our adsense sites.
And the other side my dream program would check advertisers as well and all the scammy, spammy stuff would not be allowed in.
I suppose I'll have to just keep dreaming.
FWIW, I haven't seen any change whatsoever in terms of CTR or EPC. Steady as always, and still within 10% or 20% of when I first joined, several years ago.
I think some sites go up and some down based on competition and referal reports how effectively you filter the mfa/mf-ads sites etc.
The reason I say this is that in the beginning I already had about 15 sites on vastly different subjects. All good content but some much "more" good than others... They all used to earn around the same and get similar ecpm and traffic. That was years ago.
Over time google has got better at differentiating between the good and the better! In both search results and in adsense. The better 3 or 4 sites now make 90 percent of the money.
They get much more traffic AND they have much higher ecpm. And I mean massively. Across all 15 sites as a whole average ecpm and traffic / earnings has risen slightly over 4 years. The sites have not changed.
So obviously the other 11 are now earning much less. So much so that I wonder why I bother to keep them.
Why has this happened?
1) The good sites obviously have many inbound links and high pr. So good search traffic levels and really good well targeted visitors. This is soley due to strength of content and time. The other sites havent...
2) The good sites convert well for the advertisers. Because of well targeted search traffic/forums/other relevant sites linking in. The bad ones obviously dont convert because they are earning cents per click instead of dollar(s), and smart priced heavily.
3) referal reports... Advertisers can filter and do filter the less successful sites because they dont convert (or because they just dont like to be associated with them) which means reduced competition on those sites for adspace so lower epc..
4) luck!
This is what we are seing here in this thread. And remember that those doing ok dont feel the need to post so the impression that adsense is paying less and less is probably artificial! I personally know three freinds that are seeing the opposite and are very pleased! At the end of the day you need to please the advertiser and the visitors to get the inbound links that mean success.
[edited by: Genuine1 at 10:01 am (utc) on Aug. 26, 2007]
Honestly, most advertisers have very little faith in the content network.
Well, they had a billion dollars' worth of faith last quarter.
Most are already changing.....We are a publisher as well and we see the PPA list grow daily when we search for referals to place on our adsense sites.
It would be surprising if the list of advertisers experimenting with CPA hadn't grown (just as the list of advertisers using site-targeted CPM ads has grown since that product extension was introduced). That doesn't mean "most are already changing," though.
Considering how successful Google's CPC network has been, I think CPA is likely to remain a side issue for the foreseeable future, and the real growth will be in site-targeted CPC ads (which, according to Google, will be introduced in the not-too-distant future). Site-targeted CPC ads take a successful, proven concept and make it even better from an advertiser's point of view without requiring any additional work or risk for publishers.
One thing that I have noticed is that it seems like more and more of the advertisers on my sites are using bid scheduling (advanced ad scheduling) to reduce their bids during off-hours or using regular ad scheduling to stop showing their ads during these hours, leaving a vacuum that low-bidders and MFAs are happy to fill. Unfortunately, I get a fair amount of traffic and clicks during these hours, and this may be partly responsible for a lower EPC.
