January 2012 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[Habtom]

I had a good run in 2011 - managed to add one more figure to my monthly AdSense earnings.

January historically is not a bad month for me. What are your hopes and plans for January and the new year?

Half an hour too early according to WebmasterWorld server clock :)

[Play_Bach]

> The main ones are India, Philipines and Indonesia

If AdSense allowed us the option to select which countries to show ads to (i.e., "Please select which countries you want to show AdSense"), I'd jump on it in a second! Not likely something Google will do, but if by a miracle they ever do do that, India, Pakistan and China would NOT be on my list to show, that's for sure.

[JCKline]

@Play_Bach, unfortunately Google would never go for it because way too many publishers would block these countries...but we can dream!

[HuskyPup]

According to Performance Reports > Countries, I have had visitors from 201 different countries of which about 40 I have not earned anything from AdSense however my B&M business has actually exported to some of them.

The countries I have earned the least from BUT have had a significant percentage of visitors are Paraguay, Venezuela, Colombia and Puerto Rico.

[Habtom]

@Play_Bach, unfortunately Google would never go for it because way too many publishers would block these countries...but we can dream!

Can't you just use Geolocation APIs for this? Why do you want to block the countries you mentioned?

[farmboy]

Are the country preferences dictated on the AdWords side of things? In other words, if an advertiser doesn't want clicks from people in Chikakistan, can the advertiser prevent his ads from showing in Chikakstan? (Assuming Google knows where the visitor is located)


FarmBoy

[Habtom]

can the advertiser prevent his ads from showing in Chikakstan?

Yes, it is possible. Trust me, even the people in Chikakstan know this is technically possible.

[HuskyPup]

can the advertiser prevent his ads from showing in Chikakstan?

From when I did AdWords one could specify not only a country but also a specific region or even suburb. A friend of mine had a job training site and he used to specify a certain area of one city for ads.

I assume it's still the same but I'm sure netmeg can clarify just how "tight" one can get.

[HuskyPup]

Chikakistan

Just thought, is that near Elbonia? :-)

[farmboy]

Chikakistan. Just thought, is that near Elbonia?

Yes, just prior to the great war of Chikakistanbon it was one country. After the war, it split into two countries, Chikakistan and Elbonia.


FarmBoy

[farmboy]

A friend of mine had a job training site and he used to specify a certain area of one city for ads.

Uh. Oh.

My experience with Google is they have a hard time knowing where I am and frequently get it wrong by hundreds of miles. I take any claims of their being "tight" with a grain of salt.

FarmBoy

[HuskyPup]

Yep, Google search is convinced I'm 200+ miles south west of where I actually live however writing that I have noticed that p-o-r-n sites know precisely where I am located (a town of 16,000) therefore I have to assume that Google surely has the same or a similar technology:-)

[farmboy]

FWIW, today is a holiday in the U.S. although primarily just for government employees, bank employees, etc.


FarmBoy

[netmeg]

I assume it's still the same but I'm sure netmeg can clarify just how "tight" one can get.

Tighter than you think. In fact, I have had problems in the past with clients who want to specify a ten or twenty mile radius around their business (which you can do in AdWords) and then find they don't get enough impressions, let alone clicks, to make it worth paying me to manage it.

The geo based targeting in AdWords is a lot more precise for the Search pages, of course. Not entirely sure how accurate it even can be for Display (our sites).

Had a good weekend, but it was a trifle odd. Mobile earnings were like ten times what they'd normally be this time of year, but the mobile traffic stats didn't match up. More reason I think they don't update everything in real time so much.

[Lame_Wolf]

Another
Day
Spent
Earning
Nothing...
Same
Everywhere?

[Reno_Chris]

Not the Same Everywhere -

January is on track to be my highest month ever - about 20% higher than the next best.

[snickles121]

CTR is still way below for me.

[HuskyPup]

I'm pleased to report that after last Wednesday and Thursday's utter foul-up by Google that earnings since Friday have returned to post-Panda 2.1 normal.

In fact I've actually seen an improvement from the 47% I was averaging since last May to 62.3% for the first 16 days. It's still all down to my CTR averaging 58.4% whilst my EPC is 125%.

[azn romeo 4u]

I think you might be too optimistic. 1 week worth of observation is way too small of a range. But glad to see you are doing better.

[zerillos]

crapy day here...

[Jonathan]

CTR plummeted inexplicably around January 12th, and has not yet recovered.

[HuskyPup]

1 week worth of observation is way too small of a range.

Realistically it was only the two totally out of kilter days last week that were the downer for me, all my metrics had been running pretty much as I expected them to with the kick-off being 9th January. When Wednesday and Thursday's foul-up happened I had to start considering AdSense removal however they appear to have got mine sorted with CTR, EPC and eCPM back to where they were.

[snickles121]

CTR and EPC still getting worse here. My advertisers must really be broke.

[snickles121]

I finally got a click dump. Seems like clicks are greatly lagging page impressions lately.

I also am trying a experiment to help with CTR. Since my adsense ad colors are based on the colors on my site, I am switching the color on my adsense link titles to the color on the adsense domain names and vice versus. This helped last year and I think it might help my recurring visitors with ad blindness.

I'll post back if I see any difference.

[Play_Bach]

So far today at 1/30th of what I used to make on AdSense. Yay. :-|

[newborn]

So far today at 1/30th of what I used to make on AdSense. Yay. :-| ...

Yep I second that... CTR has gone man..

[jmccormac]

Absolutely dire. Good thing that the rules forbid the use of profanity or this post would be a lot, lot longer.

Regards...jmcc

[andrewshim]

Good thing that the rules forbid the use of profanity or this post would be a lot, lot longer.

you know that many "bad" words? :O

oh crap... how do you make a "shocked" emoticon?

[zerillos]

Targeting is ummm... "Broken"...

[HuskyPup]

So what's going on today?

Exactly one week since the last foul-up and I see another one happening today with very low CTR and EPC resulting in USD 1.50 so far...Just how many more dumb-a$$ stunts are they going to pull before someone knocks their heads together?

[jmccormac]

Low traffic today. Even Googlebot has largely disappeared.

Regards...jmcc