May 2011 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[HuskyPup]

For me, so far today 1st May, it has continued in the same vein of the past few days.

I've never experienced such bad endofmonthitis before, here's hoping for a kick-start Monday or Tuesday or whenever anyone, asides from us lot, go back to work!

[zarathustra2011]

Sunday was a little quiet, but had my second best day yesterday.
Whilst my traffic remains the same as last year, my earnings have increased by changing ads and placing them in slightly different positions. I find a much greater fluctuation in earnings than I used to get, however my lowest paying days are now equal to my previous daily earnings last year, and my best days are 50% up. In the past week I've had about 3 days where earnings have seen a 50% increase.

I'm keeping up with this forum in case the Panda gets me later (I never take anything for granted), and have been interested in reading the results of those who have tried alternatives to Adsense. I'd prefer to have a backup plan, even if I never have to implement it.

[zarathustra2011]

Sorry - for some reason it double posted (Mods feel free to delete this one!)

[thechromeguy]

I'm glad people are still earning a lot, Atomic how bad is your earning fluctuation?

[Atomic]

Not as extreme as it was in April, but there are still days that only reach 50% of average. Right now the biggest drops are on the weekends when 20% of visitors are using smartphones vs 8% on weekdays.

[thechromeguy]

I'm still getting a lot of fluctuations enough to affect my network. I wonder if the global implementation of Panda will improve our adsense income in the comming months or a comming doomsday.

[HuskyPup]

The last three days have been consistent for me with earnings averaging 50% with click volume still down but at 75% of average.

The US and UK EPC is still good however the really bad metric for me has been quite a few countries with lots of 0.01-0.05 clicks dragging everything down.

Better than it was but still a long way to go however unless they run Panada again and things are changed upwards I have this feeling I will not see much more improvement soon.

[m0thman]

Last two days completely down the toilet, about 20% of a normal day earlier this year. Thought it might be because I have been fiddling with my block list. Anyone else seeing it that bad?

[Play_Bach]

> about 20% of a normal day

That's what I had yesterday too, but in my case I'm pretty sure changing layouts was largely the reason for it. Now that I've restored the old layout, I'm hopeful the numbers will come back up as well. If not, you'll be sure to hear about it ;-)

[m0thman]

Yay. I've scored a part time minimum wage job. At least I'll be able to put bread on the table until (hopefully) the whole thing gets sorted.

[HuskyPup]

Ouch! Today is diabolical again...more than 6 hours gone and not even 10% of my NEW average...penny clicks rule and everything looks hours behind!

It must be all that money they've earned and counting?

Did they give the hamsters a decent funeral?

[azlinda]

My earnings are down $15.00 from 1 1/2 hours ago! Wonder what's going on now!

[zarathustra2011]

Have to say, looking like a bad day for me too. Reckon my luck has run out now.

[azlinda]

My earnings are going up a little, then coming down, then going up, then coming down. I have honestly never seen anything like this before. Earnings are like an elevator today.

[Play_Bach]

Earnings are double what they were all day yesterday, which is to say I'm at 40% of average. 9.5 hours left to go.

[azlinda]

It's almost senseless for me to continue to use AdSense.

[Atomic]

My esrnings are low, too. Yet the ads are the same as what I usually see. I'm guessing the clicks will straggle in later tonight or within the next few days.

[kd454]

Adsense = dead, never seen it like this before.. sux.

Last two days completely down the toilet, about 20% of a normal day earlier this year. Thought it might be because I have been fiddling with my block list. Anyone else seeing it that bad?

I have never seen this bad in the last 2 years.

[Play_Bach]

Three hours later, earnings unchanged. Stuck.

[azlinda]

I've come to the conclusion that something is definitely wrong at the plex.

[thechromeguy]

20% down, but earning from search save the day.

[azlinda]

I'm 75% down.

[zarathustra2011]

Same page impressions and ads but fewer clicks and low ctr means i'm 50% down today by comparison to yesterday. Terrible day.

[zarathustra2011]

I just ran a comparison chart under performance reports for the same period last year in May. Interestingly nearly all the peaks and troughs align with with one another including a steep decline on the 25th May 2010. Not sure why that would be, the only time I see a slight drop off of traffic is at the weekends.

[thechromeguy]

Anyone making good money yesterday? Stats from my german friends looked great yesterday.

[zarathustra2011]

I just don't get the reporting. So far today I've had more clicks than normal for the time of day, but it's paying absolute peanuts - never have I seen it so low. I check my website and the text ads are all the usual ones, that are relevant to my site, and which normally pay out pretty well.
I'm wondering whether the CPC gets revised during the day or not for those ads already clicked - if it does continue in the same vein then I'm certainly going to be done for.
Perhaps too early to be a doomsday prophet yet. :) I wouldn't even mind that much, but it's just I have to live off my Google Adsense earnings for a couple of months.

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday earnings never got any better than they were at 2:39pm. Odd.

[zarathustra2011]

I saw something similar Play_Bach except I'm on on GMT+1 hour. Hit the pillow, and it was lower than normal, woke up 4:30am to give the baby a bottle, and checked it on the android phone, and scarcely any difference. The night normally brings good earnings by the time I wake up, but yesterday was very bad.

[HuskyPup]

@zarathustra2011

Check in the new Interface Performance > Countries and see how your main target countires are doing.

For me the US and UK EPC were fine, but read my caveat, otherwise Wednesday was garbage for me with a very low CTR and EPC from everywhere, in fact the lowest CTR since these new reports were made available for the UK.

Caveat: The click volume was that low it makes me wonder why anyone is even advertising. I'd get more response in one street just by knocking on doors!

I don't know how many of you have seen this 2.12 min video from Matt Cutts however note at 1.14 he admits "had heard a lot of complaints",

[youtube.com...]

possibly those of us hit by any of the Pandas possibly may have a bit of hope that they're trying to do something about it. Certainly Panda 2.1 slashed my earnings by 50% however I reckon I am, like many others, US collateral damage, and have to assume nothing is going to return to "normal" and that if I want to earn money from publishing will have to go down the DIY route.

Will I do that? Doubtful, I don't need all that hassle, AdSense was the perfect plug and play for me therefore next month in Germany when I'm at one of our biggest trade conferences in two years, I'll be discussing with many of my widget world's movers and shakers to recommend we all contribute towards creating a "World Trade AdSense Alternative" advertising platform.

Just my 0.02...YMMV!

[zarathustra2011]

The USA is by and far my best performing country by a country mile. Second the UK with Australia a very close third. The click rate for the USA is quite low at the moment, but then I think a lot of Americans are tucked up in bed right now. I can't see any unusual activity to explain yesterday's low revenue. Hoping it's a one off blip, as I do sometimes get those from time to time.
Today the clicks are going up, but paying pennies. I have one site with a single ad, that rarely gets clicked, but when it does it pays out a lot. Today it got clicked and it paid out 2 pence! lol.

[Automotive site]

Can anyone tell me the value of blocking low performing countries i.e. countries that result in a pittance per click. Some of the South East Asian countries are indeed very low paying. But what's the point in blocking them since its not going to divert traffic to higher paying countries? They are going to get the traffic anyway (since search and other traffic is independent of adsense. So any click is a click, right? Or am I missing something?

Do these lower value clicks drag the overall ecpm down of higher paying countries?

To be honest, I have always treated adsense, as Huskypup says, as a plug and play. I've never really blocked urls or tried to analyse data other than occasionally play around with different locations for the ads. I have always prioritised on content and trying to increase traffic. And the good thing is the majority of traffic comes from the US and UK.