The Worst Adsense Xmas Ever

ending the worst year ever in my five year association with Adsense

[Scurramunga]

From an Adsense revenue point of view this has been BY FAR the worst December ever (for me) in a year which can only be described as by far the worst ever.

Without quoting exact figures, I can say I am earning a mere fraction of what I would normally this time of the year. Even my first Adsense year which was previously by far the slowest (before this year) was better performing.

Merry Christmas

[HuskyPup]

Certainly it's been my worst month since I reached my recession low in May 2009 and one of my worst Decembers ever, on a par with December 2007.

I never seemed to recover much after Thanksgiving Day however yesterday I saw a good bounce back and most especially with my EPC which had been slashed to the bone for the past couple of weeks.

No doubt this weekend will be another massacre!

[HuhuFruFru]

For me these few days around december 24th were by far the worst in the years 2009/2010.

[Swanny007]

Looking at the month as a whole (OK, month to date), it's been my best month ever. And I've been with AdSense since June/03. The few days around Xmas are always low but the rest of the month has been good.

Q4 is always strongest in my niche. Ask me again in Q1 how it's going ;-)

[Mentat]

Sorry guys, it seems that I have your money.

It was a great Xmas in terms of adsense $$$ (24-27.12), but today it seems that the low revenue is coming...

[dataguy]

I wouldn't complain about my AdSense revenue if my traffic wouldn't drop off so sharply for the holidays. CPM is down a little from last year, but the drop in traffic is what really hurts.

It's the same every year for me, though. After years of this, it's hard to keep from cringing inside when it gets to this time of year. I guess that makes me kinda like Ebenezer Scrooge.

[manny123]

I think it may be content/niche related. Like Swanny007 and Mentat, this has been my best month ever. CPM has been climbing for the past few months and has peaked for now. I anticipate ad spend (and therefore, CPM) to drop off a bit in January but we'll see. Sorry to hear December has not been good for you.

[netmeg]

My 2010 is more than twice the best year I ever had, even though December is running almost exactly as it was last December. No complaints from me.

[sid786]

Sorry guys, it seems that I have your money.

It was a great Xmas in terms of adsense $$$ (24-27.12), but today it seems that the low revenue is coming...

What goes around comes around... I have your money. Jk. But today is going solid in terms of revenue!

[Scurramunga]

Thank you to all for your input. The fact that some of you are doing well is very good to hear and also very encouraging.

I would have to agree that overall Adsense performance will vary according to niche. In my case I can say that my niche falls under the non essential category, therefore is prone to volatile demand changes in time like these. In recent weeks I have also given much thought to the rise of ad blockers, which I suspect have been eroding my ctr over the past three years or so.

[manny123]

In recent weeks I have also given much thought to the rise of ad blockers, which I suspect have been eroding my ctr over the past three years or so.

Have you come across a way to quantify this? I wouldn't mind trying to identify the impact it may or may not be having on my site. I don't often run into friends, colleagues, etc. that use an ad blocker but that does not mean it is not an issue.

[Scurramunga]

manny123,
It's just a hypothesis at this stage and I haven't tried to quantify it. Reading through this and other forums some people seem to have collected some relevant data. I do know is that my ctr was far stronger three years ago than it is today and yet for my niche today there still exists a diversity of Adsense advertisers and compelling ad copy. I know people also attribute declines in ctr to ad blindness, but then again discussions regarding ad blindness have been going on since i first joined Adsense when my ctr was very strong. Of course one cannot discount ad blindness as an issue either as I am sure that there may be a combination of factors at play.

[koan]

have been eroding my ctr over the past three years or so

I have to say this is my main problem also... serious CTR decline in roughly the same time frame, among many different sites, topics, traffic and layouts, with a historical record low this past november-december. I'm not convinced it's ad blockers though, I think it's a mix of ever more restricting methods that Google use to count real clicks and Adsense being on every crappy sites out there, leading to ad blindness.

My strategy for 2011 will be to redesign some sites and use bigger ad formats, even if it degrades user experience a bit (last pieces of idealism slowly eroding away, lol). I guess they're not leaving me any choice.

[HuskyPup]

My earnings are now 13.75% down on the same December 1-28 period 2009 and possibly heading for my worst month ever since 2003.

In statistical terms so far I am 39% down on my January to November 2010 average which is way out of line with previous years.

[netmeg]

If it were ad blockers, wouldn't your impressions be way down too, not just CTR?

[elsewhen]

christmas 2010 was slower than expected for us, but primarily because it happened to fall on a saturday (which is by far, the slowest day of the week for us).

[Scurramunga]

If it were ad blockers, wouldn't your impressions be way down too, not just CTR?

Yes you are probably right, but I am not 100% sure

I think it's a mix of ever more restricting methods that Google use to count real clicks and Adsense being on every crappy sites out there, leading to ad blindness.

Quite plausible. About three years or so ago when the decline first began there was a sudden ctr drop and I remember at the time discussing it here and in other threads:[url]
[webmasterworld.com...]

At the time it was obvious that such a change was not due to ad blindness or blockers as it was a swift and sudden ctr drop. However even since this sudden drop in 2007 I have seen further gradual decline. It is this gradual decline which has me thinking more and more about ad blockers.

[bumpski]

I'd be interested to know for all posters:

XMAS earnings up?
2010 earnings improved?
Have you blocked 3rd party Ads?
Do you allow Placement Targeting?
Do you allow image ads?
Or Text only?
Have you ever requesting CPM blocking?
If so is Adsense still blocking CPM?

Perhaps there is a correlation?

I've been experimenting so much I really can't contribute all answers! (Other than to say earnings are down for Holiday season!)

XMAS earnings up? NO
2010 earnings improved? YES
Have you blocked 3rd party Ads? NO
Do you allow Placement Targeting? NO
Do you allow image ads? ?
Or Text only? ?
Have you ever requesting CPM blocking? YES
If so is Adsense still blocking CPM? NO

Quite a poll eh?

[icedowl]

XMAS earnings up? Yes
2010 earnings improved? Yes
Have you blocked 3rd party Ads? No
Do you allow Placement Targeting? Yes
Do you allow image ads? Yes
Or Text only? n/a
Have you ever requesting CPM blocking? No
If so is Adsense still blocking CPM? n/a

This has been the best December since 2006 for my odd assortment of sites.

[IanCP]

Ah some people are up and some of us are down.

I've gone through months of lowering CTR. Why I don't know. Traffic much the same, sometimes even better, ditto EPC but just ever diminishing CTR.

Oh well.

[IanCP]

If it were ad blockers, wouldn't your impressions be way down too, not just CTR?

Excellent point Netmeg. One I keep forgetting when the subject of ad blockers come up.

[Pepito]

XMAS earnings up? YES 15% w.r.t. 2009 and 60% w.r.t.2008
2010 earnings improved? YES. 35% w.r.t 2009 and - 30% w.r.t 2008
Have you blocked 3rd party Ads? NO
Do you allow Placement Targeting? YES
Do you allow image ads? YES
Or Text only? YES as well
Have you ever requesting CPM blocking? NO
If so is Adsense still blocking CPM? n/a

[HuskyPup]

XMAS earnings up? No
2010 earnings improved? Yes
Have you blocked 3rd party Ads? No
Do you allow Placement Targeting? Yes
Do you allow image ads? Yes
Or Text only? n/a
Have you ever requesting CPM blocking? No
If so is Adsense still blocking CPM? n/a

[ember]

December has been terrible, down 20%, but overall, this will be my best year yet and 1.5 times better than 2009. I am happy.

[Scurramunga]

Poll:

XMAS earnings up? No

2010 earnings improved? No

Have you blocked 3rd party Ads? Yes & No
this year I have tried it all. Blocked for a few weeks/ months and unblocked. One thin is for certain and that is blocking and does not result in predictable outcomes any more.

Do you allow Placement Targeting? Yes & No
Tried it but have not seen any positive outcomes.

Do you allow image ads? Yes & No
Again, this year i have tried it and removed them without any positive trend change.

Have you ever requesting CPM blocking? No

If so is Adsense still blocking CPM?

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Once upon a time I could have provided a ton of anecdotal evidence to suggest that blocking poor quality advertiser URL's will produce positive outcomes as far as my Adsense account is concerned. I can no longer say this with any confidence. Whether this is because 'baseline' CTR has dropped so low to render any blocking attempts futile, I just don't know.

[HuskyPup]

Owing to this crap my graphics guys are already creating replacement ads for current AdSense allocation...mostly they're on holiday and a bit bored however can see that the AdSense World in our industry seems to have collapsed!

I'm prepared to wait but only until mid-January since that would then mean nearly 2 months, as in nothing has been right for me since Thanksgiving Day and certainly since Google's strange removal of many of my images at the beginning of October.

If I have to do that then Google will be banned from all my sites since all they will then be is a leech, they need me more than I need them!

Believe me Google, you are very, very dispensible!

[Scurramunga]

I wonder if interest based advertising has had anything to do with contributing to a trend of falling ctr for affected publishers. I guess it hasn't been around for a long enough to be considered a major contributor.


HuskyPup
I feel your pain.

[HuskyPup]

I feel your pain.

No pain here, my B&M business makes me more in a couple of days than AdSense does in a month, however I do have total frustration as to what has happened the last couple of weeks. Previous years have seen a very consistent trend down towards Xmas then a reasonable recovery up to New Year, then down a bit for 2-3 days and then consistent growth figures right up until the summer with even Easter not really dipping much.

For me this Xmas seems to be a completely different ball game. Is it the severe weather conditions many have suffered, are many still very concerned about their finances, is there something that I've completey missed?

I can understand some companies bidding lower EPCs whilst they're probably on holidays however -33% in click volume v 1st-15th December and -25.6% in eCPM takes some believing.

As I wrote before mid-January will be decision time, I have some new product lines which will go well...and to put this into a financial perspective 1 (one) extra sale per week would generate 4x this month's AdSense earnings for me!

[zerillos]

today's earnings are a joke...
stats stuck?

[HuskyPup]

stats stuck?

I wasn't going to mention it, however since you've asked mine have only moved by pennies in hours and Page Impressions are way off my logs.

To put it into persepective earnings so far are 4%, yes four per cent, of my daily average of beginning December!