Is your click rate down?

# of clicks have dropped a lot

[shallow]

I see many people in these forums asking if their income is down, but my question is if your click rate is down? If so, do you attribute it to the bad economy?

If so, when did you start noticing the drops in clicks?

Mine are down about 20-30 percent from last year, even though traffic to my site has increased slightly.

Thank you.

[tim222]

Not neccessarily. Think it through. Here's an example: DIY home repair niche.

Well yes, as always, it depends on the niche.

[HuskyPup]

Who walks into a department store without the intent of buying?

Heavens! I've done that so many times I couldn't tell you and I know of many people who, especially on a grey, rainy day, do it as a matter of normality.

Obviously there is a big difference between the MB type of shopping and UK shoppers:-)

[signor_john]

If that's the case then shouldn't page views be down, rather than CTR? It's kind of like saying, why are they on my site at all if they can't afford the goods?

Two things to consider:

1) Most of us aren't running e-commerce sites. People aren't necessarily visiting our sites to buy things.

2) Studies have shown that the research-to-purchase cycle begins with information-gathering; active shopping is the last step.

Now for some simulated real-world scenarios:

A DIGITAL CAMERA: John Doe is interested in replacing his aging 2-Megapixel camera one of these days, so he spends a lot of time browsing sites like DPReview, CameraLabs, etc. to see what cameras interest him. However, he won't have reason to click on an AdSense dealer ad until he's ready to buy.

A CARIBBEAN CRUISE: It's the beginning of August, but Jane Buck is already fantasizing about in cruise in the Caribbean next winter. She reads cruise reviews, browses cruise lines' Web sites, and lurks in cruise forums while dreaming of a week of sunbathing by a ship's pool. If and when she decides that she can afford a cruise, she may click on a travel agent's "Caribbean Cruise Discounts" ad and book passage. Until then, she has no real reason to click on an ad.

[indias next no1]

hi,
my ecpm, ctr, earnings down nearly 1/3 from july 31

[HuskyPup]

my ecpm, ctr, earnings down nearly 1/3 from july 31

Don't forget that many parts of Europe are closed for 3 weeks summer holiday now if you have substantial traffic from there.

Holidays = closed campaigns = lowering of CPC for advertisers = also fewer visitors = also lower earnings

I'm not saying this is the answer however for many it's a possibility.

[bgd2006]

I've been seeing a different trend the last few weekends. Traffic goes down on Saturday and Sunday, which is to be expected because people aren't screwing around on the Internet at work. However, my CTR increases slightly and eCPM goes up dramatically (Approximately 50% higher). Then they crash back on Monday and generally go higher during the week.

I used to dread the weekend earnings because of the traffic drop off but now I dread Monday where I have high traffic and lower earnings.

I did see a nice selection of new ads over the weekend which gave me hope that maybe some new advertising money is coming into the market.

[tim222]

signor_john, if CTR is economy-driven, then (on the flip side of your examples) we should see increased profitability in sites with themes such as:
AdSense tips
How-to-make-money-from-a-website
Get-rich-quick

I wonder if that's the case? Or... (as I suspect) are those niches hurting more than others?

[shallow]

My web developer looked at my site and told me the ads are not showing by design; set up that way so that not too many AdSense ads showed on a page simultaneously.

Ok, I'll take that as a given; let me also take as a given that people are clicking less on ads because of the economy and that Google made some changes to the clickable area of ads so clicks are not registering before.

Then I'm still faced with the fact that I can pinpoint to the exact day that my click through rate went down 50% or more. My income is down hundreds of dollars a month from the same time period a year ago. All this while traffic is up by at least 10% compared to last year

If the drop were gradual, I probably wouldn't be here trying to understand the situation.

But I can only come to the conclusion that the ad placements are not working as well as at my previous site.

Can I be wrong about this or have others experienced the same precipitous drop in CTR and income as I?

Any further thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

btw, my bounce rate has increased by 12-15% too.

[farmboy]

My web developer looked at my site and told me the ads are not showing by design; set up that way so that not too many AdSense ads showed on a page simultaneously.

Ads are not showing by whose design? Is your web developer suggesting that AdSense is not showing ads by design? That doesn't seem to be a programming issue as much as a business decision issue. Does your web developer have some special insight into the business decisions of AdSense/AdWords?

AdSense seems to constantly suggest having more ads on a page simultaneously.

FarmBoy

[shallow]

I was told it was something we discussed and decided in March. I've asked that the code be tweaked so the ads run the same as in the Blog section.

I don't know if my web developer has any special insights but I do know he is a top notch developer and I'd put him up against most any developer for understanding the ways of the web, including AdSense. That doesn't mean everyone gets it right every time or that there is no room for improvement.

[signor_john]

signor_john, if CTR is economy-driven, then (on the flip side of your examples) we should see increased profitability in sites with themes such as:
AdSense tips
How-to-make-money-from-a-website
Get-rich-quick

CTR is driven partly (and only partly) by the economy. But in any case, the number of unemployed or underemployed people who are looking to make money from Web sites is likely to be smaller than the number of unemployed or underemployed people who are cutting back on their discretionary spending.

[farmboy]

I don't know if my web developer has any special insights but I do know he is a top notch developer and I'd put him up against most any developer for understanding the ways of the web, including AdSense.

I know you wrote previously that you didn't want to build your own sites and wanted to rely on your developer, but I think that arrangement is going to result in confusion and frustration for you here.

An analogy would be a forum where homebuilders discuss home construction techniques. A person who is having a home built comes to the forum and asks why his roof is sagging. Instead, the homebuilder who built the house with the sagging roof should be asking why the roof is sagging.

If he is among the best in understanding the ways of AdSense, trust him. And, please invite him to this forum so that the rest of us can learn from his insight - there are a lot of us who would like to learn the ways of AdSense.

FarmBoy

[tim222]

CTR is driven partly (and only partly) by the economy.

Personally I think it's more of a side effect of a bigger impact of the shrinking economy. The economic problem caused higher unemployment, and I think some of the people who lost their jobs were slackers who were browsing personal websites from work. Those people are probably more likely to click on ads. Meanwhile, the people who are left behind have more work to do, and they're probably afraid to browse personal websites until things settle down a bit.

The economy was already shrinking before the plunge in CTR. For me the drop was around October 2008, around the time unemployment began to rise.

[shallow]

Farmboy, I see what you mean. However, for 4-5 years I did manage my own website and have been using AdSense from the get go. I've always felt comfortable asking questions in webmaster forums, and sometimes make inquiries before contacting the web developer.

In fact, I've been encouraged by my web developer to read these forums now and then to keep abreast of trends.

[londrum]

if your click through rate has dropped by 50% since the redesign and you can't lay it all on the economy, then something is obviously wrong with the redesign. maybe its time to start rolling stuff back to how you had it in the first place and stop paying so much attention to your developer.
it's easy to fall into the trap of sticking with a dead duck when it cost you money to make, especially when it looks pretty, but if it's going to end up costing you money in the long run, just dump it.

[signor_john]

Who walks into a department store without the intent of buying?

Heavens! I've done that so many times I couldn't tell you and I know of many people who, especially on a grey, rainy day, do it as a matter of normality

My wife and I did that in Sweden recently, along with a lot of other people who were just trying to escape a downpour. Still, it worked out nicely for the department store: Umbrellas were selling handily, and my wife bought several pairs of tights.

Maybe rainy days should be good for AdSense, since they're likely to keep people inside at their computers? Come to think of it, maybe every AdSense publisher should have a "rainy day" page with umbrella ads. :-)

[mlduclos]

My ctr is higher than the average by now, however the ecpm drops, due to low EPC value.

[shallow]

I had the Adsense optimization team look at my site, and I'm very grateful.

They point out that my page impressions have dropped by close to 50% since the launch of the site. They further point out that while my overall clicks have declined as well, my daily CTR and eCPM have actually increased over time.

They then ask: Is there a specific reason that might lead to fewer pages with AdSense ads on them?

So it seems AdSense agrees that the problem has been lack of ads showing.

Any thoughts on their assement?

I've now learned that reason more ads weren't showing on pages is because they were set up to rotate. This was done to avoid a spammy look if many ads appeared on a page. But as I recently discovered, many pages showed only one ad.

So rotation was turned off yesterday and now three Adsense Ads appear on each page. I'm hoping and praying they will resume doing as well for me, or close to it, as at my previous site.

As an aside, the bounce rate at my site, which was always fairly high, increased about 12% after the launch.

I suppose there there is still work to be done to improve things.

[shallow]

No additional thoughts? I'd love to hear your opinion if the drop that Google documented is from a poor economy or other factors at the website. Thank you.