Travel websites

is it normal to get a low CPM?

[LilyTousi]

I have many sites about travel destinations. For my most visited webistes the CTR is pretty good, but CPM is low. Most of the ads displayed are closely related to my content, so no problem here. But I regularly see in my stats 100 clicks giving approximately $5-$6.

Is anyone here who also has a website related to Travel/Tourism? I'm wondering if it's normal for this industry that you need to get tons of clicks to be able to make a decent revenue with adsense? Any suggestion on how to get more profitable ads?

[denisl]

I run two travel related sites based in Europe and would normally expect 100 clicks to be worth around 20 - 30 Euros

[swa66]

A lot depends how niche your topic is and how many advertisers are competing for the space.
Usually in the first half of the day I see better numbers and in the second part of the day (day as define in PST time) I see worse CPC.
That fluctuation means I even out on a day somewhere inbetween the numbers posted above.

Since the niche I work on is small -advertising wise-, and I kinda dominate it, I long ago discovered that running less impressions of adsense (and more affiliate/direct advertising brings in more adsense money (in total dollar amount, not just in CPM etc).
My explanations is that nobody wants free screensavers and even more crap ads you get once you exhaust the inventory of the decent advertisers it seems.

I probably should test that every so often to be sure it's still true, but it might well be that you can earn more (in absolute terms) by having less impressions.

[LilyTousi]

I'm running adsense on my webistes since only 3-4 weeks now, I hope that with time advertisers will compete for the space!

Two of my websites are the only complete content sites available on the web about these particular travel destinations, so if I undertsand what you're saying swa66, these 2 sites in particular have a greater chance to bring more money with time.

[swa66]

Improvement over time on new accounts: I've no idea, been too long in the program myself.

Over long periods of time: it's always been on a downward slope. Ad blindness.

More competition: how targeted are your ads at this point: they don't get very targeted ever in my experience.
Advertisers compete over your site: there is an option fr that, and when it happens you'll feel good, but it doesn't last forever in most cases.

I was saying that if you're dominating the scene you can use up the good ads all too easy, and that doing less so (sending a smaller % of your impressions to adsense) might make sense to optimize it.