Does traffic source affect smart pricing?

Any correlation between traffic source and CPC?

[nicheboy]

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster here...

Firstly let me preface this by saying I've watched the "ad auction" and "smart-pricing" videos on the AdSense YouTube channel. From what I understand smart pricing applies to an account as a whole and traffic from a single underperforming (poorly converting) site can drag down the CPC for your whole account.

My question is, have any of you who use analytics in conjunction with AdSense ever noticed a significant difference in the CPC you get from clicks from different traffic sources? For example, in my experience social media traffic typically yields a lower CTR, but does that also translate to lower CPC in the form of smart pricing? Is there any evidence to suggest that smart pricing is that granular in action? Although I have recently hooked my analytics account up to my AdSense account I don't yet have enough sample data to draw meaningful conclusions.

Any insight would be welcome (and interesting)...

Regards,
James

[netmeg]

Nobody knows, but personally have always thought that traffic source affects pricing. It certainly does in the domain parking industry (heavily hooked into PPC); Yahoo always had traffic scores, I'd be somewhat amazed if Google didn't. It stands to reason that if I suddenly got a bunch of Asian traffic on my targeted-to-Michigan website, the advertisers (and Google) wouldn't want to pay me top dollar for those clicks.

[bramley]

Hmm, there seems to be an implication that the price paid for a click on a particular ad could vary between sites. Really? A click is a click.

[koan]

Really? A click is a click.

It's an old issue (search the forum), but no, it is definitely not.

I can't see in the video, however, where it says a particular site affects all the other sites in the same account. That wouldn't make much sense.

[HuskyPup]

Rowlocks!

The click value is guesstimated by the Crapsense algo of where the user "may be".

Otherwise known as Smarting Pricing created by kiddies who have absolutely no freaking idea how the real world works since they have never, ever, ever, had to work in it.

Now do you really want to know why their algo sucks?

[edited by: HuskyPup at 1:31 am (utc) on Apr 25, 2011]

[HuskyPup]

Oh...and apologies nicheboy...welcome to WebmasterWorld :-)

[incrediBILL]

Of course the traffic source would impact the payout.

Would you rank traffic from some lame banner exchange as highly as a surfer performing queries from a SE?

Nope.

Makes sense to discount traffic sources with questionable value.

[CMidd]

get an adserver

Don't show adsense to people coming from Social Media, International, or any place they might impact your CTR or EPM. Show alternate networks or affiliate offers instead.

[CMidd]

in my niche Facebook traffic doesn't click ads. i could send 10,000 hits to a page and facebook users will view the page for less this .30 seconds, close the window and go back to facebook. I stop adsense from showing from refer facebook.com and instead show super call to attention affiliate offers and that works!

My traffic in that niche is 70% from facebook, but Facebook accounts for a small percentage 5% of my adsense earning, but 80 percent of my affiliate commissions.

Seriously consider a adserver.

[incrediBILL]

If you want facebook traffic to click put Farmville ads up ;)

[CMidd]

I make a ton from faceook, and Facebook does convert "higher then Adwords"

But unlike adwords you need to think less about keywords, and think more about your target audience.

You need to know their driving points, what they want and need, what's current in their lives etc. I can easily get a 10% conversion ratio from Facebook and that's all free traffic from 1 post on my niche Fan Page at the right time.