January 2011 Adsense earnings

Adsense earnings analysis -

[chrisdonahue]

Hello Everyone: I ported the thread located here: [webmasterworld.com...]
as we were off topic in a few areas.

I'm highly interested in continuing the discussion about what other Publishers are seeing in 2011 with regard to their adsense earnings over years prior.

As I indicated, I noticed a substantial drop in earnings during the first few days of January 2011, after a record breaking December 2010.

Anyone noticing this trend is encouraged to share their feedback.

[Scurramunga]

ASA - It is almost a statistical impossibility for so many people/companies across so many forum boards across so many different industries to be witnessing entirely the same EPC collapse at the same time when not one of them have experienced anything lke this since the introduction of the programme.

It would be interesting if we knew exactly what proportion or how many WebmasterWorld members are affected. Maybe it's time for a new thread titled something like 'Poll: Are Your Adsense Earnings Unseasonally Low'

Then we ascertain roughly the extent of each fluctuation/collapse and present some statistical evidence to ASA, albeit from our small sample group here at WebmasterWorld.

[indyank]

yes it is very low today...probably the worst among the bad jan days....

[cien]

Scarramunga, yeah, we need that poll...

[frank72]

Today is very, very low for me, too. To make half earning of what I used to make in December now I need almost two-times clicks than December (moreor less). Ridiculous! Thank God that my clicks and traffic have increased since then!

You know what is my fear? I fear that this may be the new "normal" adsense earnings!

Some of you guys said that when we complain we do not post anything here and made a joke about this.
Well, that's quite true and this is what it has to be. Only in this way we let Google know our concerns and issues.

If millions of people buy the same car which has got the same issue on its brakes and nobody complains, the company will continue making that car with the same problem, right?

I have checked other old posts here on WebmasterWorld. Last Janaury people complained about low earnings as well, but the situation was not as dramatic as itis now. Nobody spoke about so low earnings. There is something new at stake here, something unprecedented.

Again, my theory is that we are all smart priced because of a Adsense algo change.

[Scurramunga]

I fear that this may be the new "normal" adsense earnings!

This is what usually happens. the revenue bar drops, only this time it's hit an all time low with a big jolt. As for posting for the purposes of complaining this is not entirely true, not for me at least as during the first six months of my initial success I posted around telling everyone how good Adsense was for me back then. I am only telling it as it is.

[astrobiologist]

Maybe it's time for a new thread titled something like 'Poll: Are Your Adsense Earnings Unseasonally Low'

My January earnings to date are very similar to last year's over the same period. In fact my Jan earnings over the period 2007 to 2011 have fluctuated less than 15%. Traffic has tripled in that time, while CTR has gradually declined, more or less offsetting the traffic gains. But I simply haven't experienced the falling-off-a-cliff that others obviously have.

[DaStarBuG]

I am not seeing any changes in earnings and I am no AdWords Advertiser.

[eniac]

Webmaster A has daily 100-500 visitors and says %50 revenue decrease or increase.
Webmaster B has 100k visitors daily and says %50 revenue decrease or increase.

So, it is not enough to say your earnings change unless you provide hom many visitors you have daily or monthly.

Another example, Webmaster A has 1000 usd daily, and its revenue decrease to 500 usd. which is 50% change
Webmaster B has 10 usd daily, and its revenue decrease to 8 or maybe increase to 12 ( just because very low visitors numbers). Other people can see realy decrease but this webmaster can say his revenue is increasing. Maybe at that day, somebody clicked 1-2 more ads. If 2-3 more or less clicks can effect Webmaster's statistics or daily revenue, I think it is useless to share his statistics with us.

[SnoopyLoo]

Google is seriously messing up with some of us IMO.
My CTR and CPM is down 60% since Monday for no apparent reason at all. Last month was a record breaking month with a stable growth in traffic and CTR/CPM for me but on Jan 1st it started to act like a fool even though the traffic has changed (still going up) and page views are still also going up. On one day I'm doing $#*$! and on the next I can be down 60% and up gain to "normal" CTR/CPM the day after. But like I said since Tuesady it took a nose dive and there's no sign of recovery. I checked and double cheked but nothing seems to be off: The ads being served are exactly the same as last weeks in all major regions. The traffic sources and nvigations behaviour on the site are also the same. So how the hell is my CTR down 60% and my CPMin the toilet when nothing has changed at all?

[netmeg]

Cause it's never ever "nothing has changed at all" Nothing may have appeared to have changed on YOUR end, but given everything that has to be in place at the precise moment of a click, TONS of things could have changed.

[ember]

Most of us are saying that nothing has changed on our end. It is obvious that something has changed on Google's end.

[HuskyPup]

Never ever in WebmasterWorld's history has there been a post with so many complaints about continued low AdSense earnings...period.

This is something from Google's end that has affected specific publishers' current EPCs by about 50% meanwhile others have remained totally unaffected or are doing better.

What did they do?

It has to be algorithmic or Stupid Pricing, they are the only two options.

[zerillos]

BTW, PR update today ;)

[nethead]

Maybe Eric Schmidt made a deal where he would take 50% of the earnings of 100,000 adsense publishers for the next 1000 years in order to move aside?

[cien]

I just hope he turns the company around because it really got a bad rep. with the evil ice cream man in charge..

[nick28]

Maybe Eric Schmidt made a deal where he would take 50% of the earnings of 100,000 adsense publishers for the next 1000 years in order to move aside?

In 4. quarter of 2010 G made ca. 8.8 Billions and paid 6.65 Billions to publishers and co.
They paid 0.6 Billion more than expected, this is why the earnings rate is lower in january, because they want to compensate for the difference:-)

[indyank]

just thinking loud here without doing any analysis, how could they pay out 6.65 Billions for 8.8 Billions rev. when the max share they give to all (or majority of pubs) is 68%.what you say works out to 75%...

[indyank]

Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google's partners, increased to $2.07 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to TAC of $1.72 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 25% in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 27% in the fourth quarter of 2009.

The majority of TAC is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.74 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. TAC also includes amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $333 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

This might explain the drop to some extent. The goal seem to have been to maintain TAC at 25%.
There is in effect a 2% drop in '10 4Q compared to the payout % of '09 4Q. TAC also includes money paid to distribution partners.I do suspect that google could have paid them more as well.So the rest of the publishers have to see a drop.

While the above might explain drop in adsense earnings for publishers, reading the above with what you see below, might explain the lower EPC.

Paid Clicks – Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 18% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 11% over the third quarter of 2010.

Source for the quotes - [investor.google.com...]

[koan]

This thursday was a record low day in a record low month. Yay.

[indyank]

Koan, How was the traffic for you? Do you see any changes there in the last two days?

[koan]

Traffic is normal, EPC is healthy, it's mostly CTR that is very low.

[HuskyPup]

My earnings are now 24.3% lower than than for Jan 1-20 2010.

Yesterday's EPC was just over 10% off my normal low end average but my CTR was nearly 20% off this month's average making it the 3rd lowest CTR day of January consequently another underwhelming day!

Why do I never get 2/3 outstandingly high days to offset the horrendously 2/3 low? Surely this ought to occur if this is what this programme is about?

[indyank]

CTR that is very low -

I expect this to get more worse as google has far moved away from what it originally did - serve contextual or relevant ads...This whole idea of interest based ads has changed the game and in my opinion it could never be good enough...(but who am i for google and they have a big R&D team to research these? :) )

Infact serving interest based ads is more costlier as google had to spend a lot to track people's interests, which many don't like :) It is not just google but microsoft does it too and FB partnership might be revolving around it...

I am not sure whether there is any publicly available data on ROI bet. Interest based ads vs contextual ads.Would be good to read...

[anand84]

My CTR seems to be more or less same as what it has been. But the EPC is now just 74% of what it should be.

If it is just the EPC that is low - as it is for me - I think there is not much cause for concern since this could be seasonal. But if CTR has fallen as well, then it points out to these new experiments in interest-based or display-based ads since CTR could possibly reduce here.

[Play_Bach]

> it's mostly CTR that is very low.

Here too.

[nick28]

I have seen at my report that Ad coverage is about 70%.
It means that Adsense can't show ads about 30% at my site, although Adsense has the huge ad inventory.
Maybe this is one of many reasons why our earning is lower than before.

[adamxcl]

I've never seen this before until the last few days. At first I though I imagined it but now I'm making notes. Anyone else see there days revenue go down some time late at night. The last few nights, I check Adsense and go to sleep. The next morning, the previous days total is less than when I went to bed. I should also say this is roughly the last hour of the day on Pacific time at the G plex. I'm used to numbers going up with click dumps, catch up, etc. Not going down. It's only three nights now but the drop is about 5% in rev. Almost 1% in CTR, 8% in eCPM. I've never seen or at least noticed this before. Anyone else?

[netmeg]

Maybe Google overdelivered. As an advertiser, I get overdelivery credits all the time. Money's gotta come from somewhere.

[ElvisFan]

Just wondering all those with low CTR/eCPM = low earnings

Do you have Interest-Based on or off?
Third-party on or off...?

[nick28]

Do you have Interest-Based on or off?

ON, my IBA rev. is 3 times more than contextual and my contextual is 2 times more than placement ads.
Yours may differ.

Third-party on or off...?

OFF