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I'm racking my brains, trying to figure out why my eCPM is so low. There has to be a reason why this website is performing so terribly well with adsense recently.
I'm about to apply for Yahoo's because I am certain they can't be as bad as this. I'm kinda worried that will effect my SERPs, I'm don't have much faith in googles algorithms atm.
Can somebody PLEASE explain in the most simplistic way, exactly what smart pricing is and how I can hopefully prevent this from driving down eCPM.
This is driving me literally insane.
Can somebody PLEASE explain in the most simplistic way, exactly what smart pricing is...
It depends upon what the meaning of the word "is" means. If is means is, and never has been, that's one thing. If it means, there is none, that was a completely true statement.
LOL. Just kidding.
Actually, the answer is no, nobody will accurately tell you exactly what smart pricing is. Anybody who knows, isn't talking. The rest of us just have to gues.
Content clicks may be priced differently than search clicks. Using smart pricing, AdWords automatically adjusts the cost of clicks for keyword-targeted ads that appear on content network pages. While you set one CPC bid, if our data shows that a click from a content page is less likely to turn into actionable business results — such as online sales, registrations, phone calls, or newsletter signups — we reduce the price you pay for that click.
Ok so I just rang a friend who I hoped could shed some light, here is what he says.
As we know, from a publishers point of view, we only pay $0.01 more for our placement that the next highest bidder.
If we have 10 ad slots on our website, but only 8 advertisers willing to pay a decent CPC, then 2 of the slots will be filled with low paying advertisers.
This of course means that even if the first 8 were willing to pay $5.00 for the click, should the other two only wish to pay a max of $0.05 then it will drive down the CPC to $0.06 ish. Extreme figures but you get the drift.
So for a solution? Kinda obvious I guess, decrease the amount of available slots on pages that have low eCPM.
I guess time will tell for me, though I can't believe mobile phone advertisers are paying so little, when I pay so much when I'm using adwords.
I'm not sure whether all of the above is completely true, but it makes sense. I'm going to give it a go.
Content clicks may be priced differently than search clicks. Using smart pricing, AdWords automatically adjusts the cost of clicks for keyword-targeted ads that appear on content network pages. While you set one CPC bid, if our data shows that a click from a content page is less likely to turn into actionable business results � such as online sales, registrations, phone calls, or newsletter signups � we reduce the price you pay for that click.
#*$!? How can google, possibly know, whether an ad clicked on my site, resulted in a phone call?
Now I know they're clever but they're not magic.
So given this snippet of information, it kinda makes sense that google have done something to my account, since it was wrongfully suspended a few months ago. Since the suspension my eCPM has been lower.
About having an include (I'll assume you are refering to PHP), this should NOT effect adsense at all as with any server side include, the browser (client side) sees it just as if it were a straight HTML page coded normally (please correct me if I am wrong).
But anyways, considering your niche, if adsense is not scoring you well, you may want to switch to something else. An affiliate program might work, one that is targeted directly to the type of site you have. Some people do better with affiliate programs than with Adsense anyways.
Hope this helps!
God Bless!
[edited by: CWebguy at 10:29 pm (utc) on Sep. 4, 2007]
#*$!? How can google, possibly know, whether an ad clicked on my site, resulted in a phone call?
One way they can tell is when an advertiser uses Google Analytics. But obviously not all advertisers use that, and I *think* that Google guesses by using an algorithm (the buzz word for 2007). The algorithm might take into account factors like where the click originates, the relevancy of your content to the advertisement, and/or other things. Anybody who knows for sure (such as Google software engineers) probably had to sign a confidentiality contract.
As for the suggestion of using smaller ad units to try to get higher paying links - that sounds REALLY logical but I am scratching my head over the fact that my 120x600 ads have a higher eCPM than my 120x240 ads. Could it be that the 600's have twice as many ads and are therefore more likely to display something of interest to more people? Could it be an anomaly with my website? Who knows? The thing is, the eCPM for the 600 ads is not double, but it is more like 5 times! Well, all I can do is keep watching and if that's what works, maybe I'll convert all the 240's to 600's.
Likewise, you could do an experiment using channels. Try various size ad units, and identify each with a channel. That way you'll know which format works the best.
Meanwhile, someone else suggested that red links work better than blue. Personally I'm reluctant to try that because red links would make my website look really odd. But the point is, experimenting with color might be worthwhile, too.
Basically google gives us little control over eCPM, CPC etc.
I'm kinda annoyed, my site's popular and the ads look targeted, my ctr is high but I can't get away from this low eCPM.
to make matters worse, I'm in the UK and Yahoo only want US customers for some reason. Blah.
So maybe ....? any suggestions are welcomed but I really wanna try something else and see if I can earn more from a potential gold mine.
Cheers
Paul
Meanwhile, someone else suggested that red links work better than blue.
That was me, but bear in mind my site is 4th of July themed (mostly) so it's pretty much red white and blue and nothing else.
How long has your site been up?
ALL my ads are in PHP includes (it's how I do the random testing) and my ecpm is way up over last year. As mentioned above, it won't have any negative effect.
I've come to the conclusion that for whatever reason, the adsense algorythm just isn't liking my website and I'm losing a lot of money.
2 cents per click just isn't cutting it, considering my site and other sites I know are getting 20-30-40 cents per click in the exact same field.
I have no choice other than to try an alternative. They might not be as good for most, but for those of us who google adsense had decided it doesn't like, they gotta be better.
Today some of my eCPM are only 0.05 :(
sigh
I have no evidence for this, but it makes sense and I believe it may be one way that Google evaluates whether or not clicks are intentional - that the users click because they are genuinely interested in the ad or they clicked because the ad was practically unavoidable, but then backed up or left the landing site immediately.
For example sites which position ads where you would normally expect to find navigation - ie accross the top and down the left - AND remove the navigation from those areas to some unexpected location would be more prone to such accidental clicks and smart pricing and a consequently lower epc.
Blending is a balance - too little and you get ad blindness, too much and people don't even know they are clicking an ad. I don't know how they do it, but I believe that Google are getting much better at detecting and discounting accidental clicks.
So if you're right, I'm penalised because of it, yet my clicks are no less worthwhile from one site to the next. I don't know how I can keep a user on a page longer without jepodising functionality, which I'm not willing to do because of googles sucky algorithm.
My web partner is based in the US and hopefully he can sign up for yahoo. I've had 3 days of trying to figure this out and I'm getting nowhere. Right now I'd rather have no ads, than earn the pittance google thinks I deserve.
In regard to my post about available adslots vs number of high paying advertisers. Would the adlinks count as a slot or are they handled in a different way?
I don't know how I can keep a user on a page longer
I didn't mean on your site - I meant on the advertiser's site. Smart pricing occurs, broadly, when ads are not seen as delivering value to advertisers. One measure of that is people accidentally clicking through to an advertisers landing page, realising it was a mistake and leaving immediately.
When doing anything with AdSense one of the primary questions should be "How will what I do improve the quality of clicks I send to my advertisers?". In the race to increase their CTR, that is all too often something to which AdSense publishers give little or no thought.
Your most important figure is your EPC, Earning Per Click (Publisher), not CPC, Cost Per Click (Advertiser).
As to why your visitors do not click your AdLinks I have no idea, possibly lack of decently worded applicable ads?
My AdLinks were implemented when they were first introduced and have consistently performed in excess of 50% of overall earnings. The ads are perfectly targetted and nicely graphically, blended into the site, meaning they are obviously ads but not in your face!
My AdLinks vary between a 2% to 25% CTR over 100+ sites dependent upon the subject and page density therefore no one can specify an "average".
Time spent on the advertisers site, I guess that makes sense, though at the same time, it's not my fault if their website sucks and isn't quite what was offered on the ad. Quite common in the mobile world at least.
Husky, the ads seem to get clicked, on both my sites, it's just one of them has a very bad eCPM and EPC.
I've emailed google asking whether my temporary suspension has anything to do with it, like they're going to tell me, or even know for that matter.
Maybe someday googles algorithm will change and my eCPM will change. Until then I guess I can't retire ;)
Your niche just plain might not be a good match for AdSense. You should definitely try some others, but you have to give them time to work - if you're going contextual, it can take weeks or months to get really good ads (on my main site it took over a YEAR before I got targeted, well-paying ads - but once I did, it went through the roof.)
Also, bear in mind we are all fairly well involved with our sites, and that can make it hard to tell the forest from the trees or be objective. As I always say, get some fresh eyes looking at your site, and get another viewpoint. You don't have to act on it, but it won't hurt, and it might well help.
I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle with adsense. I believe it's beyond my control now. Both sites are so similar and yet worlds apart in the CPC department.
Adsense is so simple to setup, monitor etc, it's a real shame I have this issue.
On my second site, the adwords account is in my web partners name, so if smart pricing were account wide, could we use the same account for both sites? Is this against the TAC?
It would be interesting to see, how the ads performed, using the other sites account.
hmmmmmmmmmmm
Thanks!
I've not tried them, I'll take a look and give one of them a try. Worth a shot.
I just received a very personalised reply from a rep at adsense. I only sent the email a few hours ago. I was very pleasantly surprised.
She asked for the problem domains and said she'll look in to it and see what I can do to resolve it.
I'm still totally surprised :D
With the major drop in AdSense revenue over the last few months I'm probably going to do some major rearranging soon to give even more ad space over to pay-per-impression. My site's traffic has been going up, but the AdSense revenue has been going down.
I just received a very personalised reply from a rep at adsense. I only sent the email a few hours ago. I was very pleasantly surprised.She asked for the problem domains and said she'll look in to it and see what I can do to resolve it.
I'm still totally surprised :D
Cool! Let us know what she says.
I implemented several changes and my daily revenue has more than doubled.
First I removed the wide skyscrapers from my sideblocks and replaced them with large rectangles within my content. This had a HUGE impact. Please never underestimate the guru's when they tell you large rectangles outperform the other ad types.
Following my conversation with the google rep I also optimised my pages to ensure they were giving the googlebot the right impression of the page.
The conversation with the google rep was interesting. She talked about relevancy of the ad. e.g a page talking about cameras, wouldn't get nearly as much for the click, as a page talking about camera 'reviews'. Because there is a bigger chance of conversion. Do what you will with that snippet of information. :op
Take a look at your ads, are they a good representation of the content within the page? If not then perhaps you can tweak the page to ensure the adsense bot understands the pages topic a little better.
Any questions, please ask
Paul
