Forum Moderators: martinibuster
probably started around the end of april, before recovering a little tiny bit first week of may, and then heading south. shows no signs of slowing either. i'm now down to about half what i was earning at the end of april. the last two days have been truly awful.
i've seen some graphs about the slump in eCPM for various different countries (uk, spain, france), and they all show drops of nearly 50% from about December 08 to February 09. i'm guessing the economy has only got worse since then.
so instead of another depressing thread about how we are all doomed to die a penniless death, i was wondering if anyone has some good guesses about when the upturn will begin.
i figure that a lot of advertisers plan their budgets quartley and half-yearly, so the earliest that we might realistically expect an upturn is july. probably a bit optimistic though.
If people are not spending, then how come adwords are not cheaper during "crisis"?
Some people are spending, even in niches where spending is purely discretionary. There just aren't as many of them as there were a year ago.
Just as important, AdWords/AdSense is an auction-based system. If advertisers are forced to compete aggressively for the prospects who are still spending, their competition will tend to drive up bids. (That may be why some AdSense publishers have reported significant gains in earnings per click even though their clickthrough rates aren't as high as they were before the current economic crisis.)
We KNOW for a fact adwords prices are up.
My question is simple: shouldn't adsense be proportional to adwords on the content network?
Due to the economy and unemployment etc. people are clicking less, so there is less traffic for advertisers, so they have to bid more to try and get the same # of visits they were getting.
This means your cpc my go up, but due to a lower ctr you get the same or less.
This is just one example, there are more.
So who cares about the CAUSE for higher priced adwords?
Well, you did ask "why."
Knowledge is power. Ignorance isn't always bliss.
Well, just because people are spending more doesn't mean you get more overall. Due to the economy and unemployment etc. people are clicking less
Let me try to get this straight: so you're saying they're spending more on adwords but there are less clicks? So the clicks are more expensive? I mean, one of you is in contradiction....or this thread makes zero sense.
, so there is less traffic for advertisers, so they have to bid more
OK, so clicks are more expensive? Then how are they worth near nothing on the adsense content network?
Well, you did ask "why."
I did not. Go back and read what I asked.
Knowledge is power. Ignorance isn't always bliss.
You don't get invited to parties, do you?
I see Google's earnings are high, adwords are high, only adsense publishers complaining all across the Web. I can't be making this up....
Lets say there we're 1 million clicks on the network a month before the recession, now lets say there are only 250,000 because no one is clicking as they don't want to buy.
Those adwords users are now getting 75% less trafic, so they need to up their bids to get some more traffic from others, they in turn up their bids.
Supply and demand.
before there were more clickers but maybe less conversion, so the price of traffic was lower. Now there are less clicks but the people clicking are probably more serious buyers, so conversion is better, so adwords users can afford to pay more, and have to as there is more competition for the low traffic numbers.
My earnings are the same pretty much, except i have a much lower CTR, but CPC is up a fair bit and the exchange rate too makes things even out for me roughly the same.
OK, so clicks are more expensive? Then how are they worth near nothing on the adsense content network?
If your clicks are "worth near nothing," I can think of at least three possible reasons:
1) Your topic attracts ads with low bids.
2) The ratio of publisher supply to advertiser demand is unusually high for your topic.
3) Your clicks are being "smart-priced," which means you and Google are getting less for those clicks because advertisers are getting a discount from their nominal bids. (See The Facts about Smart Pricing [adsense.blogspot.com] at the official Google AdSense Blog.)
Other factors could come into play, too: Advertisers can block sites if they choose, or they can pick the sites where they want their ads to run.
For what it's worth, some publishers (such as Dave_Hybrid in the previous post) have reported increases in earnings per click during the current economic slump.
However, since consumers aren't spending as much, they don't click ads because they don't plan on buying anything, and publishers suffer from low CTR.
Seems to be my current predicament.
Ads are up by 53.3%
Clicks are up by 90.7%
CTR is up 24.4%
eCPM is up by 13.4%
Total Revenue is up73.9%
BUT the Revenue paid per click is down-8.8%
Rev per click dropped below LY on Apr 24 and is continuing to slide downward.
Has there been another public holiday in the USA this weekend or something?
I wonder what my grandma would call "smart pricing" other people's hard work. She'd call it something else.
