New Design; More Ad Units - Drop in Revenue

[anand84]

Less than a week back, I made a major site-wide design change. The new design brought in more ad units as well as a more Adsense friendly design. I have been seeing an increase in CTR right away. But I am also seeing a significant drop in earnings. The average cents-per-click seems to have almost halved.

Is this a common phenomenon when you introduce more ad blocks and possibly new channels? Will be interested in listening to any similar experience from other webmasters.

[HuskyPup]

The average cents-per-click seems to have almost halved.

I have not changed a thing and I'm seeing similar right now, for the last few days my EPC has been at the year's low which is quite strange when the first few days started so well.

[tranquilito]

The eCPM decreased for me too ( November is the worst month ). They made some tweaks for sure :)

[tristanperry]

Could be smart pricing? (Doubtful though if the traffic sources are still mainly the same)

Also remember than new ad units won't always increase revenue. This is because more ads will be shown (including the lower paying ads). And naturally, if more users are clicking the lower paying ads, your CTR might be up but your EPC might be down.

Consider testing and removing some of the ad units and see how it goes?

Some people maximise AdSense revenue with just 1 ad block. Others maximise it with 3 ad blocks + 3 link units. Que sera sera.

Personally I've seen revenue per click *rise* a fair bit in November (after having a poor October, whilst some people reported a good October). Is a PITA but is sometimes just the way the AdSense rollercoaster works. As I say, try testing different ad layouts.

[Lame_Wolf]

They made some tweaks for sure

Maybe they have, but I am seeing the opposite effect.

[anand84]

Looks like it is more of a coincidence then. If so, I am just wondering if the advertisers are holding back before unleashing all their budgets for the holiday shopping season..

@Tristanperry
Great points. In my case though, the new ad blocks are a couple of link units. And they have not contributed a great deal to the revenues so far. So I think my drop in revenues might be more due to the general trend that others have been seeing.

[Rockyou]

well test test test atleast for one week to come to any conclusion. For some users link unit pays 33% revenue.I don't use link unit at all, I am happy with ad unit. ask Lame_Wolf he is an expert here.

[rajivatre]

IMHO its a case of new channels.
I made sitewide design changes on 18th OCT.
We also gave names to the channels in order to identify better which pages are working.
Earlier there were no channels to track each website and major pages in it.
Now I see for last 15-20 days revenue has gone down significantly. CTR is almost equal to prior to changes but eCPM or RPM (whatever they call) is tanked.

Thanks
Rajiv

[Lame_Wolf]

I am happy with ad unit. ask Lame_Wolf he is an expert here.

I am pleased you are happy with your ad units. But to call me an expert is really pushing it. There is nothing special to what I do, and even if you were to copy exactly what I did, you will get different results. Even I get bad days from adsense (just not at the moment).

[netmeg]

I often experience a temporary drop when I redesign. I think Google (and maybe the advertisers) have to re-learn the site. Because a lot of my stuff is seasonal, I've learned to make the major changes during my slowest times so that I can have time to recover. Probably needlessly lost income till that occurred to me (d'oh!)

[maximillianos]

I noticed G is squeezing more ads into our 728x90 ad units. Typically we would see 3 ads of normal font. Now we are seeing 4 ads with tiny font. Our earnings are down we think due to this trend.

[SEOPTI]

I'm sure it has nothing to do with your design change. Starting Tuesday last week something happened. They tweaked CPC or adwords bidders disappeared within minutes.

My main site CPC dropped significantly. I'm talking about a few hundred dollars daily.

[HuskyPup]

Starting Tuesday last week something happened.

Tuesday was normal for me, Wednesday one of my highest click days of the year however with a much lower than average EPC, Thursday normal but since then a consistent 17.5% lower daily earning average.

Checking 2009 I saw a very similar scenario but prior to that year nothing so evident.

Insofar as my widget trade is concerned it is getting to the point, from the retail supply position, that it is nearly now too late for Xmas deliveries therefore I may possibly be seeing a lower promotional effort by advertisers.

[expat123]

>> I made a major site-wide design change.

It's very dangerous to make a major change, imo. I would only do it gradually and incrementally and have a rollback plan in place.

[ken_b]

I've learned to make the major changes during my slowest times so that I can have time to recover

That's a very important point. Can make a huge difference, which I seem to have learned the hard way.

But any major site redesign can be problematic for a while as things readjust.

If you renamed any of your channels, that could ad to the problem.

[netmeg]

I actually keep calendars for this, and have particular types of changes (urls, content, design & layout) scheduled through the end of 2011. Analytics has been a godsend for this sort of thing.