adsense inventory terrible for November start

did the best advertisers just kill their budgets?!

[amznVibe]

The good news is that one of my websites had more visitors than ever before today.

The bad news is that I was watching the ads and they went from the decent ads in October to absolutely terrible ones at midnight November 1st.

I am used to terrible rates at the end of the month as budgets dry up but wow this was a bad day for me. Click rate was half of what it is normally.

[rubenski]

All time low here. Traffic and clicks are ok, but CPM is way down (-50 / -60%) I am at the point where I consider removing Adsense. But as always I conclude there is no single competitor around that could make me what Adsense makes on it's worst day. I am hoping for better times and I am investigating alternatives such as affiliate programs while I wait...There is little more you can do I am afraid.

[steve40]

As a publisher and Advertiser it has been interesting to see the changes that have occurred over the last 6 months , I have one campaign that has not had any changes in 18 months , and I spent some time today looking at detailed stats re: search cpc and content cpc and the changes caused by smart pricing have been quite significant

not exact figures but idea of smartpricing in action
max click set at $1.00
accross search over 6 months
65 cents month 1
68 cents month 2
78 cents September
85 cents October

accross pubisher network
62 cents month1
71 cents month2
51 cents September
42 cents October

This campaign is targetted at an area that I would expect the CPC to increase going towards xmas
This is only a small campaign with $3,500 budget per month so may not be big enough to prove anything but i believe it does provide some indications

I believe these changes were bought in for the advertisers benefit as they were losing confidence in allowing adds to run on content sites ( at one stage I seriously considered turning off content for this campaign due to poot ROI )

So although many publishers have seen a decrease in earnings per click this may help to bring many advertisers back to tick the content box again

When all said and done if the advertisers can not make a good ROI on content they will turn content off

just my ramblings
steve

[WallyBob]

I made some changes to my URL filter at the end of October and was expecting to see increases in my earnings. Realistically my earnings have stayed the same but my cpm has increased- about 20%. (My visitor numbers are down from my advertising- about 18-20%) Which made me wonder if the end of the month advertising budgets and then the elections were to blame.

Hoping to see my traffic increase soon and the earnings increase because of the increase in CPM.

[walrus]

Great rambling Steve!
That helps to explain the "low side of normal" i'm seeing as well.
So in essence the ups and downs people have always experienced in earnings will basically be hitting new lows but in the long run should be better for advertisers and publishers.

[joebiff]

Could it be that the AW Content promotion ending had anything to do with the limited inventory?

[walrus]

<Could it be that the AW Content promotion ending had anything to do with the limited inventory?>

So that explains why these dives are a bit deeper than usual.

[signup1]

Could it be that the AW Content promotion ending had anything to do with the limited inventory?

what do you mean? the $50 new account credit?

[joebiff]

No, G ran an AW promotion starting in August and I believe ending Oct 31 (someone correct me on this). If the promo ended on Oct 31, then advertisers withdrew from the content network (AS in other words) or reduced their outlay for the content network.

[howiejs]

Steve - thank you for sharing.
I have seen the same thing on this side

[Never_again]

We have had a 33% drop in CPM beginning exactly on November 1st. In our case, it appears to be the result of major advertisers dropping from content sites. When you do a search in Google on one of our primary keywords, you see these top advertisers. Until November 1st, they were well represented on our site via AdSense. This is no longer the case.

[signup1]

"No, G ran an AW promotion starting in August and I believe ending Oct 31 (someone correct me on this). If the promo ended on Oct 31, then advertisers withdrew from the content network (AS in other words) or reduced their outlay for the content network. "

What is the promo about? 50% off? Smartpricing?

I want to know the details so I can calculate how much it affect me. So far, I am down 70% on CPC since Nov1.

[alpski]

Ones things for sure this CPC decrease is not increasing! It's been really low for me everyday since November 1.

Like others said I have had all the major competitors drop from adsense on content sites. And as an adwords user i have tracked it. Last month a bid of $0.09 wouldn't have got you 10th place. Now your 2nd.

This is really hurting my earnings which are down 75% - 80% of average. A huge drop for me. I guess my niche was one of the worst hit.

I think we all should ask, why have so many adwords users dropped all on the same day?

[signup1]

I agree with you. I paid 0.05 for top 10 now.

LOOK at the
[finance.yahoo.com...]

Everybody is shorting GOOG now.

I have heard "The profit margin is very bad." from some industry insiders.

Also look [finance.yahoo.com...]

On the other hand, CJ's parent [finance.yahoo.com...] is doing great.

The hype of Adsense/Adwords is over. I will write a detailed report later. I am working on it.

[alpski]

Hey nice post signup1.

I see google stocks down 7.34% today!
Thats a biggie. Looking forward to your report!

[amznVibe]

For whatever the reasons, my daily earnings are now HALF of what they were in October.

This is consistant on a day to day basis for all 5 days in November so far.

So something has changed (and it wasn't my content).

Sigh, well back to researching commision ads as suppliments.

[alpski]

Has this passed becoming a blip and now is it a trend?

Are we seeing a constant low EPC through everyday this year?
I AM!
From Nov 1 till today (6 days) Earnings per click are down 50-75%. A huge decrease.

Has the gravy train left adsense?!?

[steve40]

I believe big G will need to make some moves in the next 3 months to allow advertiser to bid xx for search and %xx for content
we as publishers may lose or gain but we would then know better where we stood ,
I am afraid i do not think smart pricing has made anybody happy
The publishers
as they continue to see a slide in income and don't know why
Is Google taking bigger slice
have advertisers dropped out of content advertising
Is it because G targetting is cr?
Are not enough advertisers feeding back re: conversion data or cannot due to business

The advertisers
Some areas of adwords are difficult to calculate ROI but when coming through serps results they do know the searchers search term was related to their adwords add
From content clicks are more likely due to curiosity
Clicks are through some form of fraud
Are the adds on a site they wish to be associated with
and last but not least
! There must be good business reasons ROI that advertisers are turning off content!
I do not think smart pricing has made anybody happy and I am sure the plex will come to a solution..
but maybe the most obvouse is being missed content advertising is not the same as serps advertising and should have seperate market forces define the CPC
just ramblings
steve

[androidtech]

steve 40,

I believe big G will need to make some moves in the next 3 months to allow advertiser to bid xx for search and %xx for content

I thought they already could do this by creating two different ads or ad groups with the same ad, one with only content matching on and the other with only "organic" search placement on. Then they put different bids in each ad. Or am I missing something?

Thanks.

[steve40]

androidtech
That is a fudge created by some very web savvy advertisers not by google
maybe 15% of advertisers know how to or are willing to spend the time and effort

steve

[howiejs]

I agree, a low percentage of advertisers now how to split content / search partners out

It is a PAIN with a ton of ad groups . . .

I believe this will change in the next 6 months and we will see a BIG EPC hit across all publishers (it will be easier to bid $.05 for all content)

Google is holding off on this as they know it is less money for them also

[novice]

"I thought they already could do this by creating two different ads or ad groups with the same ad, one with only content matching on and the other with only "organic" search placement on."

There is no way to set up an AdWords account for only content matching.

The options are
1)Google only.
2)Google and search network.
3)Google and content network.
4)Google and content and search network.

It would be interesting if Google did set up an option for content match only.

[whizkiddo]

hows it going folks? any good news yet. none on my side. I got the traffic back up by adding the new section I was working on since a long time but the extremely low epc has made me loose my enthusiasm.

[europeforvisitors]

No problems here.

AdSense is an auction-based market, and the ads that display will be determined by supply and demand. So it stands to reason that you may see variation, especially if your site is limited to a few topics (and advertisers) rather than a wide range of subtopics.

[amznVibe]

10 days into November some better advertisers showed up (or came back).
Doing much better now, about 3/4th of previous levels.
But that first week really had me worried and killed some income for sure.

[Macro]

The hype of Adsense/Adwords is over. I will write a detailed report later. I am working on it

signup1, any news on this report?

I don't know about "the hype of Adsense/Adwords" but Adsense is paying very nicely indeed. :)

Apart from the other benefits like regular, on time cheques, easy of use, the ability to have a wide range of advertisers on the quite diverse pages I've got... etc

[alpski]

I was very happy with earnings yesterday average CPC was average of last month, I did well that day. I though the slump was over hurrah!

Today CPC 1/8th of yesterday, and inline with the rest of the month. Not such a happy day, even though clicks are up I have nothing but mere cents to show for each one of them.

You could say I am experiencing the ups and downs of adsense. But yesterday wasn't an up it was the average of last month. and today is just the average of this month, which is 1/8 of last month. I think I have a trend more than ups and downs.

[elguapo]

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, Adsense is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're going to get. As our incomes depend so much on the supply and demand of advertisers, their bidding whims and fancies, we'd go crazy if we constantly think of our EPC. Best is to think of what we can control -- increasing our traffic and our CTR by making sure of the effective placement of our banners. If EPC is sliding, think how we can improve the other variables that we can control.

Adsense is not a put-up-the-codes-and-wait-for-the-checks type of revenue source. I think we know by now that there is a lot of hard work needed to increase, or even maintain our current incomes. It would be nice to have the same high EPC forever, but alas, this is not the ideal world. Would be nice, but ...

[div01]

elguapo, well said.

[amznVibe]

I spoke too soon, day 11 and the good guys disappeared or dropped their bids radically.

I miss October, sigh.

[FromRocky]

The introduction of multi-ad blocks is partially blamed for this declining in EPC, which some of you are experiencing this month.

FromRocky