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!

[tidewatcher]

I have recently started with adsense so I guess I don't know how good things once were!

So far, May is averaging better than April as far as daily earnings go (still small however) -- hope it stays that way.

[Play_Bach]

Somehow earnings have come up today to about 90% of what used to be the daily average. Best day in a long time. Hope it continues.

[HuskyPup]

Interesting, I love these new country performance charts.

Overall Page Impressions and click volume still down but that's not surprising owing to UK holiday however the US clicks and EPC returned to almost normal levels meanwhile the UK and Canada's were both well down, as in ~50% down.

Hopefully this bodes well for a stronger May...Get bidding all you UK AdWorders:-)

[HuskyPup]

Ah, just found out Canada had a General Election Monday, that would probably explain things.

[JoePublisher]

@HuskyPup are you doing anything about non existent CTR for poorly performing countries (i.e. blocking them) or are you just monitoring the situation carefully and gathering more data?

What's your opinion about getting more impressions and a lower CTR verses lower impressions and having a higher CTR in Adsense. Is it a wash, or will one higher variable give you a greater earning potential over a longer period of time?

1. Greater impressions in more countries gives you the 'possibility' of a click (increased income, but random): which if blocked can never happen.

2. Greater CTR in targeted countries could trigger a smart-pricing improvement / reward (or indefinitely forestall a smart-pricing penalty). And looking at the data I would not be loosing (at the moment) hardly any income at all by restricting Adsense ads in non-targeted countries.

Obviously it also comes down to: 'are your visitors converting or not for the advertiser once the ad is clicked on', but my targeted visitor profile suggests that they should (I only ever get very minor monthly adjustments in money earned at the end of the month and smart pricing does not seem to affect my site, but this is an unknown variable).

I'm not an Adwords user, any Adwords users have an opinion on when targeting a site (when the site matches your quality rating of course) are you looking at total number of Adsense impressions the site shows per month, only impressions shown in your targeted country (if that data is available), or are you looking at the CTR of the site etc.

Perhaps I should start an Adwords account to go look into this myself ...

[HuskyPup]

are you doing anything about non existent CTR for poorly performing countries (i.e. blocking them)

<explanation>

Nope, I found your earlier post to coachm interesting however this doesn't apply to me since I am a global specialist construction materials supplier and we get, and supply, direct to many countries including many of those from which we do not earn any AdSense revenue whatsoever.

Essentially my sites are B&M sites yet only supplying projects/wholesalers/etc who buy in bulk and we export direct from our factories worldwide from several strategic locations.

AdSense was a gift made in heaven when it arrived since it enabled our customers' customers in many countries the opportunity to advertise on our network of sites direct to Joe Public whereas before AdSense our inboxes/faxes/telephones were non-stop from people asking where our products could be purchased.

Obviously I am not the normal type of publisher, and to be honest when I first added AdSense in August 2003 I did look at it simply as a means to try and earn extra income to cover our site costs etc, little did I realise when we went sitewide across all sites just how much it would generate.

There you have it, I'm totally the wrong person to ask or give advice since I accept all traffic from anywhere simply because I do not know what the next big enquiry may be...and as it just so happens this morning an enquiry for an extension to an existing airport in China from a German architectural practice loacted in China!

I'm fairly sure we haven't exported to Antartica however there are not many countries our products have not reached plus it is very useful for many of our customers, and again their customers, to have our essential technical data available 24/7/365.

<end explanation>

[JoePublisher]

@HuskyPup,

got it, totally understand the chain you are in in terms of Adsense. Thanks for the 411. IMHO Just wait till the big oil companies get 'permission' for Antarctic exploration, I'm sure your business will expand ... :)

[HuskyPup]

@JoePublisher

I've seen the stuff they require, I don't feel we'll be bidding very soon:-)

[sabrebIade]

May 1st was HUGE, like before Panda.
May 2nd, back to "normal"
Today, looks like it could be huge again.
Adsense is bi-polar.

[HuskyPup]

EPC fine today however CTR way down primarily to a very poor performance so far from the UK at 25% of the last 7 days but the surprise has to be an excellent CTR and EPC from China.

[netmeg]

While my overall earnings are running around 160% of last year, my traffic is up way more than that; CTR couldn't be lower. Seriously considering removing AdSense for the first time. Pretty sure I can do better.

[Play_Bach]

> Seriously considering removing AdSense for the first time.

That's a surprise netmeg, I thought you were doing well with AdSense? Not a good sign for the program when folks like you are leaving. Sorry to hear it.

[netmeg]

Well it's more than last year, but considering how much more traffic I'm getting, the CTR is just horrendous. I have essentially the same placements; I think it has to be the ads. I was planning on using direct ads mixed with AdSense, but I think I'm just gonna go all direct and see what happens.

[Play_Bach]

> the CTR is just horrendous.

Mine is too, but traffic is also way off (not sure why, don't think it's Panda - could be Facebook sucking eyeballs for all I know). Ad targeting on my site is definitely an issue from what I see with a gumbo of categories all thrown together. How can that possibly be good for CTR? Unless there's a big shortage of advertisers in my niche (possible, I guess), having so many ads that clearly are not "content related" like they used to be makes no sense. Hopefully Google will return AdSense back to the well-targeted program it once was.

[HuskyPup]

the CTR is just horrendous

Using the new AdSense interface I assume you have checked through Performance > Countries if your CTR is reducing in your traditional markets and it's not being diluted from non-performing/irrelevant countries to you?

Without doubt AdSense should have given us these metrics years ago, it would have stopped a lot of speculation as to what was going on, possibly that's precisely why they are giving us them now.

[karkadan]

My numbers were good, but then, 2 hours later, like everything is slow... numbers pretty down... LAG?

[netmeg]

Using the new AdSense interface I assume you have checked through Performance > Countries if your CTR is reducing in your traditional markets and it's not being diluted from non-performing/irrelevant countries to you?

My traffic on this site is and has always been almost completely exclusive to Michigan. I not only don't get different countries, I don't get different states.

[jmccormac]

That's an amazing turnabout Netmeg. You've always been one of Adsense's staunchest supporters here. Has there been any shift in the demographics on your sites (less well targeted traffic/adverts)?

Regards...jmcc

[netmeg]

Oh I'm still a supporter, and I still have AdSense on a bunch of other sites. But for one of my flagship sites, it doesn't look like it's a good match anymore. My demographic (near as I can tell) is the same as it's always been, my traffic is way up, search engine positions better than ever, lots of FB likes and shares. It's an event site, so it was never optimal for AdSense (people aren't coming to it looking to buy stuff) and I knew that, so maybe it's just finally hit the tipping point. Considering my traffic, I don't think I'll have a problem getting local advertisers (just putting the direct ad server finishing touches together). Because of personalization, I can't tell what ads other people see, but they're probably the same ones I see - mostly Groupon and Living Social type deals.

It's also possible some of the usual local ads I've had in the past aren't running in AdWords anymore. Michigan is in pretty poor shape economically.

I'm not blaming Google, things are always changing. You have to learn how to roll with it.

[jmccormac]

The Groupon and Living Social are the nearest thing I've seen to continual Adsense spam. They seem to dominate the keywords to such an extent that smaller advertisers just can't compete. Traditionally, information sites did well on Adsense because the users searching for the information make decision in seconds and have a higher bounce rate - Adsense used to appear in this decision window. However as Adsense drifted away from its original contextual nature towards being just another banner advertising system, less of the right adverts were getting in that decision window (or at least that's my theory). The danger for Adsense is that more publishers will move to their own solutions in an attempt to restore the contextual nature of the advertising on their sites.

Regards...jmcc

[edited by: jmccormac at 9:39 pm (utc) on May 3, 2011]

[HuskyPup]

mostly Groupon and Living Social type deals

I've wondered how much effect this geo-targetting may be having, I see ads on my sites based upon my ISP's location, not my location, maybe it's time for AdSense to let us weed out this type of advertising?

[koan]

it doesn't look like it's a good match anymore

Still, you have to wonder why sites that were good match for 5 years suddenly aren't anymore, when the only things that change is from Adsense's side.

[netmeg]

But I don't think that's true at all. There's a hundred things that could have or did change; no doubt on Google's side but everywhere else too.

[Automotive site]

Its very bizarre. My health site has taken a beating over the last 3 or or 4 days (really since beginning of May). CTR and ECPM has more than halved over those days. It was so consistent for so long. And the site is a semi-high quality site which ranks well and gets plenty of genuine comments from people. It is bit of an authoritative site that has been linked to by some major sites like Wikipedia and even a well-known doctor has published an article on the site (without soliciting) because he thought it was a good resource, especially in the area that he specialises in. The site gets around 65% of traffic from US and UK, followed by a good amount from Canada and Australia.

Without going into specifics of how much the site use to make, lets just say you could rent a single room in a decent London location, pay your monthly food bills and other misc. costs and still have some left over.

This is why you should never rely solely on adsense. Luckily, I do have a job and other sites that earn a good amount. Even though this site could make plenty from other sources, I just do not have time to integrate other income streams. But I suppose I should.

[Automotive site]

By the way, I am in the UK and I am also seeing a lot of this Groupon ad. That could be a factor. It seems to be plastered all over sites and on all types of niche.

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday earnings well above average. Best day since April 19th. Yay! Thanks Google :-)

[JCKline]

Seems stuck today.

[jmccormac]

Stats seem ok here (Ireland).

Regards...jmcc

[JoePublisher]

As an 'early adopter', using the new 'country' statistics as a means of blocking poorly performing countries, I am now showing Adsense Ads in just 17 targeted countries (down from 179).

After one week: Traffic Up, Impressions Down, CTR Up, eCPM Up, Earnings Up, Advertiser Placements Up.

Far too early to tell if this is a trend, a blip or something I would have seen even had I not blocked countries. Also, bearing in mind a lot of mid to small sized publishers have removed a lot of real-estate space on their pages from displaying Adsense, because of the Panda Update, I can't be sure of anything yet ...

[HuskyPup]

Traffic Up

That's strange, are you comparing week to week or just the last couple of days whereby traffic has been up after Easter and wedding weekends etc?