US/Euro Earnings

[mhamdi]

My website has the adsense code of two publishers. One is based in North America (USD) and the other in North Africa (EURO). Obviously they are not displayed simultaneously. For each impression, one code is randomly selected to show. we have been monitoring the RPM for the two accounts and we noticed that the earning for the US account are on average 40% higher. Is this normal? I am not sure how the VAT works but the difference is much higher than the 20% VAT.
The codes are displayed on the same pages, randomly, and not based on the location of the visitors... We have been monitoring for several days and the number of impressions are high enough for the average to be significant.

[Lame_Wolf]

1: 20% VAT applies to the UK.
2: There is no VAT - or any other taxes - taken out when they pay you.

BTW, you can have more than one account on the same page at the same time.

[mhamdi]

Thanks for the info Lame_Wolf,
So do you have an explanation for the difference between the two accounts? Can this be justified?

[Lame_Wolf]

Well, Africa doesn't use Euro as a currency... same for the UK.
It could be because Africa is a poorer country and therefore will pay less. Just a guess though.

[leadegroot]

How are you converting the currencies?

[mhamdi]

They are displayed on the same pages for the same visitors then I assume the advertisers are the same, and the country where the account holder resides should not matter unless three is some tax to be deducted.

Leadegroot, I am using the rate: 1 Euro = 1.46 USD
which is higher than what it is now.

[leadegroot]

The only thing I can think of is smartpricing :(
I'm assuming each adsense account has multiple domains, and only this one as common - the other domains in the EURO account are pulling down the price received on this domain.
We don't know a lot about how smart pricing works, but it has been suggested that it is account based rather than domain based.

If Google were deducting some sort of tax would it not show somewhere in the account?

and... I assume you can log into both accounts, and aren't just taking someone's word for it that the amounts are X?

I think this is one for the google forums, not WebmasterWorld, myself.

[HuskyPup]

unless three is some tax to be deducted

Tax has nothing to do with it unless one is in Ireland if I recall correctly?

We don't know a lot about how smart pricing works, but it has been suggested that it is account based rather than domain based.

Nah, I have sites that earn USD 0.01 per click and others on USD 5.00 per click...the best thing the AdSense team did was to give us the performance>countries charts in the new interface. Whenever I feel G's ripping me off I go there and find my main countries are always paying a good EPC however many a time I see extreemly low value clicks from "other" countries.

And I had better clarify that by writing "other" countries often include Germany, France, Switzerland etc as well as the supposedly expected lesser well-off nations.

Which begs a question in my widget industry and an anomaly insofar as I am concerned. I trade internationally and do a lot of business in the Middle East yet my AdSense EPCs from there are very low, some of the lowest in fact, yet it is well-known in my widget industry that the Middle East likes to trade with European suppliers simply because of product availability and quality.

Google really doesn't know what goes on in the real world:-)

[leadegroot]

Google really doesn't know what goes on in the real world:-)

I think its more about 'the auction'.
Advertisers are unwilling to pay as much per click (for whatever reason) for visitors in location X as they are in Location Y.
Either that or there just aren't enough advertisers interested in the vistors from Asia?
Seems unlikely - it only takes 2 bidders to run up an auction.

(Sidebar: I still hate this auction system. Why should bidders get cheap advertising just because the number of bidders is low? The traffic either returns value or it doesn't. But Adsense is still the only game in town. Maybe if it ever gets competition, we'll be able to set minimum clicks. In the meantime, I'll continue to just turn it off in favour of local advertisers when it drops too low. My own auction, if you will :))

[tangor]

I think its more about 'the auction'.

Google's version of what used to be real world advertising "what is the going rate", which the ad companies of the day actually posted. Kind of slick end run by G as regards setting specific rates per x... Hats off... but they got "smart" and added "smart pricking" (sic) to the rate formula and here we are...