Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I know little about smart pricing that google use, so it would be great if we can share tips on how to get better earning per click.
I know that we're served the best priced ads on top of our pages, and that's great. But I keep noticing large fluctuations day to day, sometimes 200% the average epc, and the next day half that epc.
Let's say I have 3 ad units displayed on all pages, site wide. Unit A, displayed on top, earns me 90% of my total revenue, while units B and C, displayed near bottom of pages, together earn 10% only. Does it improve my EPC for unti A if I removed B and C from my pages? or will I just lose 10% of my earnings?
Case Study
Had a section of a site take off, ranking #1 for a number of phrases. Traffic went nuts, off the charts. Each page had one ad unit. CTR was under 5%. Added two more ad units and CTR went up, earnings tripled.
Case Study
Freebie page attracting lots of visits but under 1% CTR. Had a single-ad ad unit on it. I was experimenting with making a rounded edge ad unit that looked like a chiclet. Experiment a failure, lol. Added a 728x90 banner across the top in a contrasting color. Idea was to maximize the amount of ads shown in a single ad unit without dominating the page with ads. CTR and earnings shot up.
Case Study
Noticed a section of a site had a huge eCPM but not much traffic. Added more content over the course of many evenings of work. Took a long time but the section showed promise. Several weeks later the traffic to those pages shot up by a huge margin and that section of the site rose to among the top three earners.
However I noticed that CTR was lower than a similar section. I noticed the other section used 728x90 banners near the top, something I removed from this section. Experiment failed. Added the banner plus two other ad units and CTR and earnings went up even more.
Revisiting ad units and playing around with placement and number paid off. Earnings overall are way up.
I know that we're served the best priced ads on top of our pages,
You have it wrong. You are served the best ad available, that google determines matches your page, based upon the CPM return on that ad across the network, as well as that ad's history on your site. The CTR on that ad is just as important as the EPC.
I don't focus on EPC so much as total earnings.
This is the most important lesson you can learn. My two top earning categories of pages are just the sort where some people complain about the "three cent clicks". Those pages have low EPC, and their CTR is about the same as most of my other pages, but they draw a LOT more traffic. That traffic more than makes up for the low EPC. It also happens to be topics that I enjoy writing about, so I figure my time is better spent writing new copy than worrying about EPC.
On the other hand, I have some pages that deal with a medical condition. No, not mesowhatever, but one that struck my family. The ads on those pages earn me over $1 per click, but there are only a couple dozen visitors a month, and they have a lower CTR than average. It's a pleasant surprise to see those clicks come in, but even my photo galleries make me more in the way of total earnings.
