Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Funny side note, from the homepage I didn't realise I could post without signing up to the premium service, I was in such a rush to get my answers, I paid for a 6 month premium membership heh. But I'm sure it will be worth it.
Now for my problem. I run two successful mobile phone websites both on the same topic 'of course'. One site has an eCPM of $1.13 last month but the other site only has an eCPM of $0.17. Incidentally the latter of the two is significantly busier. Both websites have the same CTR.
I've been reading around and found some tips, some of which I'm unsure how to implement. 'Blocking low paying ads' but how? google won't allow me to see who's paying what, how do I tell who's driving down my CPC?
Something else that's confusing me is, another website suggested removing adsense from low performing pages. How will a low performing page lower my adsense income, it's still clicks after all? or do these low performing pages, somehow lower the value of ads on other pages?
I've just implemented the adsense targeting, I'll see how that goes.
Any tips, suggestions would be warmly welcomed. I'd love to sort this out asap.
Warm Regards
Paul
One site has an eCPM of $1.13 last month but the other site only has an eCPM of $0.17. Incidentally the latter of the two is significantly busier. Both websites have the same CTR.
When you say "significantly busier", is that in terms of unique visitors, or in terms of page views, or both?
As both sites have the same CTR, though, I guess something is wrong with your traffic source for the underperforming page. I'd compare the traffic sources for both sites and then try to make conclusions as to how likely the clicks will convert. E.g. - if you are having adults looking for reviews of high-end phones you might get a different conversion rate than with a young crowd of users who just want to enjoy your free stuff (if there is any free stuff).
If you find that the traffic sources are very different, then you will want to consider getting similar traffic like your well performing page.
'Blocking low paying ads' but how? google won't allow me to see who's paying what, how do I tell who's driving down my CPC?
In general, Google does not tell you which ads are low paying. In fact, Google does not tell you much anyway. You get a paycheck at the end of the month, that's it, and please keep quiet about this, and do not ask any questions. Yes, they tell you the impressions and clicks, so that you feel 'safe', but you will not get to know which ads ran on your site, which ads were clicked, what these clicks paid. They are masters at keeping you/us in the dark.
However, you may download and install their "Adsense Preview Tool", a (crappy) browser extension that allows you to have a look at the ads that "may be" showing on your sites. It also features geotargeting, i.e. you can see what "may be" showing on your site in other countries than your own. You get to see the ad copy and the landing page URL. This landing page URL can then be used to block the URL in the Adsense control panel.
Now, this still does not help you determining which ads pay well and which not. But you might want to think about "usability" for your users/visitors. An arbitrage site, for example, that just is a page full of ads, has no product to sell. So their business plan depends on buying clicks cheaply. Thus, these guys might not pay well (some may argue that they pay well, but how can we know?). In addition, they are providing your users a bad impression of your site. Most people are annoyed by "walls of ads" that do not provide value to them. (Again, some may argue that they are helping users to find stuff. Erm, yes.)
I used to block them. However, recently the number of sites with questionable content increased that much and so fast that I have given up on filtering. It's too time consuming to find out what new crap came up during the last 24-48 hours.
But try it, it might give you positive results.
Something else that's confusing me is, another website suggested removing adsense from low performing pages. How will a low performing page lower my adsense income, it's still clicks after all?
Pages that show ads but no or very few clicks are dragging down your eCPM, because they increase the page count without adding (much) revenue. Therefore, some recommend to remove Adsense from such pages. Some also claim that increasing the CTR of your account gives you better ads, or better performing ads. I could not exactly verify this on my sites.
You may find out that removing ads from low performing pages will pull the higher paying ads on the remaining slots first. But your milage may vary.
In general, I recommend to do tests, changing only one thing at a time, and let the test run for at least a week. Then have a look at the total revenue, and draw your own conclusions.
Thanks for a great reply and warm welcome.
When you say "significantly busier", is that in terms of unique visitors, or in terms of page views, or both?
Both, this website is at the top of google for many of the big mobile content searches, so gets quite a bit of traffic.
Both sites get the main bulk of their traffic from Google, neither site has a high bounce rate.
I wonder if these 'free themes' or 'free ringtones' pages are what's pulling the cpc down.
I'll have to go through my pages and try to temp take down low performing ads, see if I'm given higher paying advertisers. I have to do something. If my main site had $1.00 eCPC I could give up my day job :D
Because frankly sometimes it comes out with such random #*$!. I don't really want to block my nav from the adsense spider, or maybe I do? hmmm. There's an idea :D
I guess that the 'free ringtone' ads are potentially low payers. I had some of them as well on one niche site, but as ringtones is a low-margin/high-volume business, I'd suggest to try blocking those ads FIRST.
Only if blocking does not improve earnings, I'd pull the ads from the non-performing pages.
...I don't really want to block my nav from the adsense spider, or maybe I do? ...
Section Targeting should help you out with this problem:
[google.com...]
As you are a paid member, you may try, the Site Review forum to get more feedback from learned members.
In general you may also increase eCPM by decreasing adblocks. If you are using say three ad blocks per page , try reducing them to two.
In my experience, going below two adblocks normally puts in the MFA's in most of the slots. However, experiment and find the best strategy for your site.
Best of Luck.
I love being a part of communities, that actually strive to help one another succeed rather than slag one another off for their lack of knowledge. Collaborative knowledge is the way forward.
I will try blocking the ringtone ads and see how that goes. Though it seems to take a few hours for the block to filter.
I only have 1 ad strip at the top of the page and one ad block (120 x 600). It usually contains 4 ads.
I've been thinking about this all morning. I've taken a long look at the content on each page and ensured the language I've used, properly reflects it's content. Hopefully without any negative effect in the SERPs.
Once my membership is approved, I'd love to post my site up and see if that helps others give me further suggestions.
Thanks again guys for taking the time to reply.
I used googles adsense targeting and tried to ensure copy was properly reflecting the pages content. I also blocked a few domains that I knew wouldn't be paying much per click.
If I could get all of my pages up to this standard, I'd quadruple my monthly earnings.
When I was advertising another website on Google adwords I was paying like £1.00 per click, yet google are giving me about $0.02 for the clicks other sites are receiving.
My site was suspended a few months ago, for a few days due to a misunderstanding that was quickly resolved, I wonder if google have set something on my account to only serve lower paid ads?
Might explain why my other site has almost a 6x higher eCPM.
Hmmm
