June 2011 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[HuskyPup]

Do we need to depress some of us for another month or, as coachm wrote:

It's funny at this point. I'm rooting for it to go lower, since I'd hardly lose any more money. Let's break a record!

Game on!

[m0thman]

What is the general feeling, is it a CTR problem or a CPC problem, or both equally?

[HuskyPup]

It's very evident from my stats that post-Panda 2.1 my CTR and click volume have fallen dramatically, my EPC for the USA and UK has remained ok but actual clicks from both areas are down substantially.

Clicks from other countries are still there however removing Australia and Canada out of the comparison and the EPCs are, quite simply, 33% of the top four going down to 10% on average.

Without a reversal or a re-run of Panda, neither of which seem to be be an option for Google, the programme for me has died a very quick death.

If someone had said this to me a month ago I would have thought they were a doom-monger, post-Panda no one should rely (I don't) on AdSense for anything other than extra beer money. Anyone who believes it is a reliable and on-going income really needs their bumps feeling.

[netmeg]

("really needs their bumps feeling" - is that a UK thing? I dunno what it means, but it sounds great)

No question CTR is down everywhere. I'm doing (on average) much better than 2010, but sometimes the day to day can be a little rocky. The EPCs are up substantially, and I guess that's what's making up for the CTR.

But long term, unless there's a way to get CTR back up, everyone's gonna suffer, Google included.

So even if you're doing well, you should be looking around at what else you can do. I sure am.

[m0thman]

Has anyone else seen a gradual decline in CTR over the last 3 or 4 years?

[Leosghost]

<slightly OT >

("really needs their bumps feeling" - is that a UK thing? I dunno what it means, but it sounds great)

Yep.. UK expression..in everyday language ..means slightly crazy, deluded..


Origin..
Not as exciting as it sounds ..:)
[en.wikipedia.org...]

</slightly OT >

[ken_b]

What is the general feeling, is it a CTR problem or a CPC problem, or both equally?

For me, it is a CTR decline, CPC/EPC is doing great.

But between the slow but sure decline in CTR over the years and recently getting nailed hard by Panda etc, well...... it isn't pretty.

[HuskyPup]

Taking it from 05/05/05 when they combined their metrics I've steadily gone from a 7% CTR until Panda at 1.5% and now to my recent less than 1% ... yep, not pretty.

[azlinda]

It is no coincidence that so many of us have experienced a drastic drop in CTR. That many people who have historically clicked on good ads would not all of a sudden decide not to do it. Something is drastically wrong at Google.

[Atomic]

Has anyone else seen a gradual decline in CTR over the last 3 or 4 years?

Mine had been dropping steadily for a couple years. But over the last month it has nearly doubled while. CPC has also increased during the same period.

[Atomic]

I want to add something I find interestng.

Over the last few years my CTR has dropped stadily. Sure, some action on my part almost certainly played a role in that. Over the last 4-6 months I have been removing ads and separating the remaining ads from content. My ads were almost always left to display image/text ads. Something I would try out text only.

Recently, I decided to shake things up by going to image ads only and left it like that for a week or two. The results surprised me. CTR and eCPM both increased. Even so, I decided to put the ads back to displaying image/text. The result is that Google seldom serves me text ads anymore. It seems they have figured out that image ads work better on my site. What I have to ask is: why did I have to show them? I thought their algorithm was optimized to figure that out. That's been their mantra for...well...forever.

My anectodal evidence seems to challenge this. Personally, I don't think they know which ads will do best. They may have some interesting ideas on which ads may do better based on probabilities. But they clearly don't know which ads will do better. How could they?

If we webmasters don't figure this out for ourselves, AdSense will just continue to serve decent but mediocre ads to us and we never realize our potential.

[netmeg]

That many people who have historically clicked on good ads would not all of a sudden decide not to do it. Something is drastically wrong at Google.

I don't think this is true at all. For one thing, there are a lot more ads everywhere. People are getting blinded (or in some cases annoyed) by them. Maybe the ad that they would have clicked on on your site two years ago they clicked on the site they visited just before yours. The economy sucks. People aren't buying as much; on the whole, consumer confidence is down. Advertisers change - businesses go out of business, or decide not to advertise in the display network, or realize they don't know how to effective advertise in the display network. Or decide to can online advertising altogether. Or block you from displaying their ads. If you have a lot of return visitors, they probably already know where to look on your pages for the content; unless you do a major layout change fairly frequently, they quickly start to ignore the ads.

SOME of the CTR decline is no doubt on Google. But not all. I don't think even most.

[sailorjwd]

I'll rebutt netmeg's wishfull analysis:

You don't go from 3 digit income a day to 1 digit a day with 100s of different advertisers because of the economy.

My theory is Adsense has pigeon holed our sites into a class of sites with which they's prefer not to do business. This is their way of telling you.

A similar thing happened to me with Adwords. Even with a Google refrig in the corner of the room I was told that my business wasn't a good mix for Adwords.
I'm a widget programmer advertising my widget programming services - go figure.

[Play_Bach]

Slightly ahead of yesterday's total earnings (which wasn't much BTW). Nine hours to go. Hoping to see an average or above average day for a change.

[ianmacdon]

I am averaging 3 cents a click on my youtube site. Pretty dismal.
I would be happy honestly with 6 cents...maybe in a few moinths I guess.....
Ian

[m0thman]

Down the toilet again. Going to try something else.

[Play_Bach]

First day in a long time that my channel and click count totals are in sync. Looks like things may be getting back on track. Yay.

[foxfox]

Any alternative than Google Adsense? I have tried Adbrite/Chitika - They are just kind of jokes...

[Scurramunga]

You don't go from 3 digit income a day to 1 digit a day with 100s of different advertisers because of the economy.

My theory is Adsense has pigeon holed our sites into a class of sites with which they's prefer not to do business. This is their way of telling you.

I agree.

[Atomic]

You don't go from 3 digit income a day to 1 digit a day with 100s of different advertisers because of the economy.

What Netmeg said may not be the cause of your income drop, but I bet it describes most cases. Your personal situation is probably only being felt by a tiny sliver of the total number of AdSense users.

[sailorjwd]

Atomic, Then I guess it could well be the economy then. At least that leaves hope for if/when it recovers.

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday closed at 75% of average. Best day so far this month. Still a long way to go to get back to what once was, but moving in the right direction again. Here's to hoping the trend continues!

[Scurramunga]

Yesterday closed at 75% of average. Best day so far this month. Still a long way to go to get back to what once was, but moving in the right direction again. Here's to hoping the trend continues!

Good news indeed. Here's to your continued success.

Hopefully these hopeless few weeks/months will something we can all put behind us.

[Automotive site]

Has anybody tried BuySellAds?

[HuskyPup]

Saturday just struggled to make my new Post-Panda average, a very low impression day for me altogether however Sunday was about a 75% impression day BUT my EPC was back to normal, unfortunately my CTR was about 70% of Pre-Panda therefore I ended up with about half of my Pre-Panda earnings' average nevertheless it was still my best day so far in June.

Anyone remember Soap?

Confused? You won't be, after this week's episode of...Panda!

[m0thman]

Anyone remember Soap?

Thanks for that HuskyPup. I'm going to have that theme tune going through my head all day now. LOL :-)

[netmeg]

(me too)

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday closed at 45%. Traffic was down too, so not a big surprise that a drop earnings would follow. Not sure why traffic has fallen so much -- getting it back is the biggest challenge I'm facing now.

[netmeg]

In the middle of a crazy click dump, but numbers (both clicks and earnings) going back and forth, up and down - really weird. Can't wait to see how it all levels out.

[ianmacdon]

Good day on youtube too, I am in my top 10 high averages today. Nice to see a return. Funny how fast you get spoiled by good numbers, only to see them go away, and you wonder what you did wrong, if anything. I know the advertisers bid on the spots, so I guess if the CPC is low, then there are few bids...
Have a good one .
Ian

[Play_Bach]

Click count stuck for hours.