site targeting figures?

does site targeting ever give zero return for you?

[leadegroot]

I'm confused - for one of my sites I've been viewing the site-targetted results and I find I'm being paid zero.
I probably will send a query to Google, but I thought I would ask here first (you know, with people who won't give me a canned response ;))
I've run an 'advanced report' for this site, and clicked the checkbox for 'Show data by targeting type' When I do so, I see that perhaps 1% of my ad impressions are site targetted.
But the 'site' row reports zero. Zero on the ECPM and zero on the earnings.
I am confused - with several hundred site target placements, shouldn't I see something there?
My other sites show income for site targeted ads. Why would this one site not?

(Regular readers will possibly recall I had a 'newbie' level question about Site Targeting a long time ago. I guess I still haven't figured out how it works :( Any help is appreciated :))

[martinibuster]

Is it possible there aren't enough impressions? Site targeting works with CPM or CPC. If they're paying by CPM then it's possible there haven't been enough impressions shown to merit some earning at the rate they are bidding. Low bid impressions are typically shown late at night/early in the morning when competition is lower.

OR it could be they are paying by the click and the ad isn't generating clicks.

[ann]

Do you have the 'allowed sites' feature enabled? and if so is that site listed in there?

Ann

[leadegroot]

martinibuster:

Is it possible there aren't enough impressions?

I would have thought it would be high enough.
For the month of Jan I have > 700 site-based ad impressions on the site in question, 1 click and 9 cents in income. When I exclude the channel with the click its slightly less impressions and 0 income. I would have thought that sort of number would be enough to return something!

Site targeting works with CPM or CPC. If they're paying by CPM then it's possible there haven't been enough impressions shown to merit some earning at the rate they are bidding. Low bid impressions are typically shown late at night/early in the morning when competition is lower.
OR it could be they are paying by the click and the ad isn't generating clicks.

Ah, thanks for that. I was under the impression that 'site impressions' were always CPM.
If not, that would explain it.

ann:

Do you have the 'allowed sites' feature enabled? and if so is that site listed in there?

No, I don't have it turned on. (Hasn't been a problem for me)

I think that site impressions being CPC is probably the answer.
Why they are considered 'site impressions' when they don't pay CPM, I don't know, but it makes sense.

Thanks guys! Site impressions aren't a significant %age of my ad impressions so it wasn't worrying me, but I was confoozled :)

[joelgreen]

I have the same. Hundreds of site targeted impressions, zero earnings, and what surprises me even more - zero eCPM. The only answer to this is CPC site targeting. I'm looking forward to seeing that "review/approve your site targeted ads" feature announced by Google a month ago.