EPC drop off throughout day

Why?

[poodwaddle]

The first quarter of the day gets 4x the epc as later in the day. It's kind of like Google is saying, "You've earned enough today so we're cutting you off." By the end of the day I'm getting penny clicks! Does anyone else experience this? Could this possibly be smart pricing?
I experienced a spike today. My hits and clicks jumped 10x in one hour. I think some TV or radio show must have reported my site, probably in Europe. Have any of the rest of you experienced international interest like this and how have you targeted ads for this?

[netchicken1]

The first few hours give me dream epcm numbers. I wonder if there is a throttle thing happening, where you only get a certain number of high paying adverts before its throttled out and lower paying ones are used.

Alternatively, and doubtfully, it could be using up the entire days amount of high paying adverts all over the net, based on the 24 hour cycle of Google.

That would mean however that for a set time in the day expensive adverts would predominate on the net until they are used up.

[Raymond]

My beginning of the day always starts off with wacky numbers. Sometimes I get 5x the usual EPC and sometimes I get penny clicks. It'll always even out by the end of the day.

[The Contractor]

The first quarter of the day gets 4x the epc as later in the day.

The first few hours give me dream epcm numbers.

I have "always" (since July/03) had the exact opposite - ECPM and EPC are pennies in early morning.

[tinker_mac]

I have exactly the same problem, i must make 70% of my earnings in the first 3 hours of the morning and then its down down hill from there!

[netmeg]

Hunh. Most of mine are exactly the opposite. Seems like things don't really get cracking until after noon Eastern time, and peak around 10pm at night. My users must be late sleepers.

[europeforvisitors]

Could this possibly be smart pricing?

That seems unlikely. Why would Google give discounts to advertisers only for midday to late-in-the-day clicks?

IMHO, it's more likely to be a smaller pool of higher-paying clicks as the day goes on, which would make sense because (1) advertisers have budgets, and (2) ad networks spread ads around among many publishers, and you may be reaching your allocation limits during the day for the better-paying ads.

[ashii]

Does any of you noticed Blogger.com and Blogspot are down most of time in last 2 days.
I can open then once or twice in full day.

[wyweb]

I have "always" (since July/03) had the exact opposite - ECPM and EPC are pennies in early morning.

Exactly what I see as well.

[The Contractor]

IMHO, it's more likely to be a smaller pool of higher-paying clicks as the day goes on, which would make sense because (1) advertisers have budgets, and (2) ad networks spread ads around among many publishers, and you may be reaching your allocation limits during the day for the better-paying ads.

Very well could be. I tend to think it is do to where your visitors are located (where your traffic comes from). If most of your visitors come from Australia or the UK and you/your site is located in the USA... mornings will be better :)

[farmboy]

For those of you reporting better EPC at various times of the day, are you speaking of the time of day where you are located or the time of day where Google is located (California, U.S.)?

With people on this forum from around the globe, one may be speaking of morning while another is speaking of evening and yet in real time, it's the same time.

FarmBoy

[ecmedia]

Agree with The Contractor. The web is global and depending on where your visitors are coming from (ad rates are highly geography dependent), your income will vary. This is also going to be different for (literally) each page.

[poodwaddle]

I was referring to Adsense time. I receive a good chunk of internetional attention in several languages. Oddly enough, Spanish pages seem to do great, but even these drop off throughout day. I have considered that might be because of location of users. My best rates come before 6 am Adsense time. That would suggest a European audience. It steadily drops off throughout the day. This is not a dropoff in click rates. To those who report the opposite, I am curious if you were also referring to Adsense time?

[farmboy]

My best rates come before 6 am Adsense time.

I'm on the east coast of the U.S. which means it's 9AM here when it's 6AM "AdSense time". The business day is just getting started and so are my visitors. Seldom is that time of morning my best time of day for AdSense.

FarmBoy

[netmeg]

Yah me too, I'm on the edge of Eastern time.

One thing I know from the AdWords side - I have a couple clients who absolutely will not allocate more budget to AdWords, even when I recommend they do it - and they typically run out of funds for the day anywhere between 3pm and 7pm (Eastern) If that type of thing is multiplied thousands of times across advertisers, it would certainly be one reason why earnings go down as the day goes on.

[coosblues]

My CTR rate has been down for the past two days to record lows and today is looking as my worst day ever. Visitors have remained constant and I'm wondering if the Ads are not displaying to certain regions? On average, my CTR rate is down about 70% so there is more to this than smartpricing!. EPC is down about 50% so the two combined have reduced me to mere pennies. I'll ride it out - ideas?

[Chrispcritters]

My analysis of this over the past three months is the following: (for this post assume advertisier, publisher, and website visitor are all in the same time zone).

Early AM Hours
Advertisers running accelerated campaigns have money to spend
Publisher competition for advertisers is lower
EPC high

Mid Day
Publisher competition for advertisers increases as traffic volumes increase.
EPC starts to decrease

Evening
Some publishers have expended their daily budgets so pool of advertisers decreases, EPC decreases

Once you start throwing in different time zones these numbers may shift. In my case I see a significant drop in EPC from 4PM to 8PM local time.

If you have a site that gets a more even distribution of traffic at times which would otherwise be off-peak times for other sites, there are more publishers competing for that ad space thus higher EPC.

[edited by: Chrispcritters at 9:32 pm (utc) on Oct. 18, 2007]