It's the economy stupid!

is this the cause of lower pay per click?

[annej]

I finally took the time to take a careful look at the trends in my AdSense earnings. Overall earnings seem to be down about 1/3 while my impressions are up about 1/4 mostly because I keep building my site. I'm comparing dates between this and last year to make sure it's not just variation in seasonal changes in visits and clicks. Earnings per click is down about 1/3.

I know a lot of people are blaming smart pricing but given the economy right now could it just be that advertisers are bidding less? I suspect some small businesses are just giving up.

[coachm]

I think it works both ways, so it's hard to tell where the overall trend goes.

Some businesses, who have acceptable profit margins over time will INCREASE advertising and marketing budgets to try to increase their market share, even if the actual market pie is shrinking due to (let's say) less consumer spending.

It's also going to depend a lot on the sector/industry. But increasing market share in tough times is a fairly standard event.

[annej]

In my topic it looks to me like the really well know businesses in the field are still going strong and the spammy stuff is here and there. But small business advertisers are dropping off. I imagine that is bringing the bids down.

[coachm]

Could be. I know as a small business, we're increasing our marketing budgets to stimulate sales, rather than cutting back. It may be that small business advertisers are cutting back, but frankly, that seems like a fast track to going POOF!

[indias next no1]

my ecpm is low and ctr too, i don't know whether the world economy affecting my economy

[Januuski]

Remember, bad economy is good for advertising. We have more advertisers from those that did not have to advertise in the past just because they were busy and did not have to advertise. Now all the sudden the economy is slow and they all want to promote their businesses.

Perhaps GOOG is keeping bigger portion of the revenue. Just kidding, we all know that GOOG is keeping just small fraction so it must be the economy hehehehe.

[netmeg]

Anecdotally, of my top six Adwords clients from last year, one went out of business (the owner retired), one is using the same budget but now that we have analytics installed finally will probably increase, and the others have all increased their budgets. For whatever that's worth.

[farmboy]

I know a lot of people are blaming smart pricing but given the economy right now could it just be that advertisers are bidding less?

I don't think the economy is as bad as many conversations, news reports, "experts", etc. would have you believe.

But that aside, hypothetically assuming the economy is terrible and AdSense earnings are related, then I hope the economy stays down. My EPC and CTR are both on a sustained strong upward trend. (Knock on wood)

FarmBoy

[makes a little sense]

My clicks are significantly reducing over a period of several days and this is impossible when compared to hundreds of weeks from previous years. Something is wrong, and I haven't had any explanations yet which would tell me why. Economy has nothing to do with people being on a computer and clicking on an ad of interest. Advertising I understand. But reduced clicking, I don't.

Unless everyone is out trying to find a job.

[annej]

Although lowered earning per click is the biggest factor for me I am seeing some lower click rates.

I have two sites that have been around for many years and I'm finding the click through rate is down on one and about the same on the other. I'm going to try a different ad layout for the site that is down. At least there is something I can try to hopefully help click through rate.

I can't do much about earning per click. I wish I could tell if it's the economy or something else. I can't imagine any reason my smart pricing would be down. It's a long established site with no real changes.