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 :)

[snickles121]

Not here, traffic is good but CTR is not.

[davedm]

Does anybody else wonder if:

1) AdWords sales are pushing search ads over content network (after all, Google is now totally focused on keeping people on their properties now rather than sending to us independent publishers.

2) Google are taking a bigger cut than before - following on from "disappointing" quarter results?

We've seen seasonal dips before, but this seems very wide spread and deep...

[snickles121]

Im seeing bad dips and it is taking its toll on us this time because we have far less traffic than last year at this time. I just looked at past years and my ctr and epc for me does not return to normal until the second quarter or around April and then continues at good results until January.

I doubt they are taking bigger cuts.

Also, just review this forum for last year at this time and you will see that we all yelled about the same issue. I just like complaining because it relieves my stress.

[JCKline]

The last two days have been looking better for me. I hope it continues.

[Play_Bach]

Another depressing AdSense day here in the works. :-(

[td22]

I keep expecting the switch to be thrown back on any day.

[ElvisFan]

I do have a theory that I can't really verify. However, I do believe the reason my earnings have dropped off since Panda is that fact that over four sites and 700+ page ads are not being displayed 24/7 when I tweak them I have several reasonable days... and then back to square one..

[Habtom]

ElvisFan, I think you have a suspicious mind :), but I guess you are right. There is at times huge stats difference between the Google Adsense report and my server page views (robots and all non human visitors excluded ... sometimes it is up to 3 times)

[HuskyPup]

I keep expecting the switch to be thrown back on any day.

Ah they were the old predictable days before they replaced the hamsters and the switch was changed for a GDial which they turn down whenever they feel like it...you think I'm jesting?

[Play_Bach]

So far, just another 10% average earnings day. :-(

[snickles121]

Ctr and epc above normal today.

[zerillos]

stats stuck? mine are seriously lagging

[jinxed]

Impressions up, revenue down for the last few days.

[HuskyPup]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Yep, my overall EPC is down however my USA/UK/CA/AU EPC seems to be holding ok nevertheless their click volumes are down and at the same time "other" countries click volumes are up but their EPCs are generally much lower therefore even though I am seeing more than average clicks overall revenue is down.

Swings and roundabouts come to mind here.

[WordsnCollision]

Been an off week to say the least, impressions are normal but everything else is down 40-50%. Just the usual January blahs or something more ominous?

[HuskyPup]

Whatever is happening today with the USA I do not like it one little bit, my CTR therefore clicks is way, way off average so far plus my EPC is at 28%, eCPM at 19.6% and actual earnings 6.3%!

India is out-performing the US magnificently.

Fubard beyond belief.

[Mentat]

lowest day of the month...

[HuskyPup]

Overnight I had a US click dump which helped deliver a 126.1% click volume resulting in 100.7% of average January earnings.

Man, these metrics are all over the place this month.

[Mentat]

Something is cooking again in the Plex :(
Today eCPM is incredible LOW.
Normal views and clicks...

[Play_Bach]

Stats stuck again here. No movement for hours and hours.

[snickles121]

EPC and CTR high today, traffic down. Either way its a catch 22.

[HuskyPup]

On Saturday I had my second-highest Page Views for this January but at the same time also my second-lowest CTR and eCPM resulting in another well below average day.

Apart from Monday 23rd January I have not had an average earnings' day for 12 days now even though 6 of those days have had above average click volume...are they all out on the ski slopes with the hamsters?

[WordsnCollision]

Having a day of higher than average page views and lower than average (often MUCH) lower CTR and eCPM is not unusual (at least for me), and it's easily explained. If one of my pages gets discovered by a social media site or is linked to by a big site (like Cracked did yesterday), I'll get a big boost in traffic. Unfortunately, those types of visitors aren't searching for products to buy and click Adsense ads at a much lower rate. A sudden flood of non-search traffic could also trigger Google's 'Smart Pricing'. It's a double-edged sword.

[snickles121]

My page views are down this weekend, but ctr and epc are great.

[HuskyPup]

If one of my pages gets discovered by a social media site or is linked to by a big site

I don't think I've ever been linked to like that, certainly not by something that increases/surges page views by say 25/50%.

The biggest increase in page views I have are for a two keyword term for people searching for my widget images, certainly the CTR on those views is much lower and after several months of Google not indexing that section of the site correctly they have at long last got it right after I blocked them with robots.txt what they were serving.

The funny thing is that Google.co.uk has always served the correct url whereas .com has been making a mess of it for several months.

Fingers crossed it stays this way.

[Slashus]

A sudden flood of non-search traffic could also trigger Google's 'Smart Pricing'. It's a double-edged sword.

So wrong it should be erased.

Smart pricing happens when your ads get clicked and provides less than the baseline roi to the advertiser based on their metric. Not simply for getting a bunch of traffic. Hal Varian (Google's chief economist) says every site is "smart priced" depending on that metric. Go to youtube type smart pricing and watch his video on the official "InsideAdSense" channel of Google to find out more about it.

[johnnie]

Thank you Google! My topic was featured on the news and today's profits have soared to €250+ :D

[HuskyPup]

Oh, just looked at Sunday's figures, best earnings and CTR since last Monday...on a Sunday?

Clicks were at 128.6%...Confused? You will be after this month's AdSense:-)

[Play_Bach]

Last day of a very disappointing AdSense January. Hope February is better.

[Mentat]

For me february is the lowest month of the year...