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 :)

[Reno_Chris]

Must admit I've had a very fine AdSense year in 2011, and I am working on building my site so that next year is even better! Looking to hit my first triple digit day in 2012, came very very close in 2011, I'll work hard to see it does in the next year.

[andrewshim]

December 31 started like a bang for the first four hours. Then it just hung for 20 hours and ended up the worst day of the whole month. Sigh. I hope 2012 doesn't turn out crappy.
Happy New Year all...

[zarathustra2011]

Happy New Year everyone, and hope 2012 is a prosperous one.

Had a fantastic December 2011, and a good start to the first day of 2012.

[WordsnCollision]

Yesterday was a terrible, terrible day - the worst since the dark days of Panda 1.0 back in April. Thankfully metrics are on the rebound today and I've already passed Jan 1st's total.

Comparing my previous 4 full years, year by year, I see two clear trends: impressions, clicks and CTR shrink while CPC, RPM and revenues increase.
My guess is I'm doing a good job of counteracting ad-blocking and ad-blindness with better content and less reliance on social media for traffic.

[philipjterry]

I've redefined my company as a 'content management firm' - which has helped me frame the bigger picture... I'm also going to experiment more with outsourcing using a basic technique of feeding precise lists of questions which the staff then go away to find answers - then my job is to pull it all together in one cohesive well written fashion. I'm also going to experiment outsourcing weird jobs and tap into weird skills which could give me that edge which is needed in todays ever escalating competitive world.

[JCKline]

Yesterday was bad, as expected being New Years Eve. Today seems just as bad, which I again expect. I pray for tomorrow.

Happy New Year! It's cocktail time somewhere in the world, so that being said, good-bye for now.

[Play_Bach]

Stats stuck. Click count frozen all day.

[philipjterry]

Why drill into daily earnings? I only look at monthly performance for a realistic picture...

[andrewshim]

Oh wow... absolutely lowest Jan 1st of all time! Sigh...

[wolfwolf]

I am relatively new to Adsense, about 3 months. Had the best day on December 31st until 3 Pm, then something happened and I was flooded with bad very low converting traffic and most of the money I had done earlier in the day was erased. CTR dropped by 40% in only one hour. Today January 1st the CTR is about 25% of what it used to be all December. Any idea what happened here?

[WordsnCollision]

Clicks, CPC and RPM all lower than normal and VERY sluggish in the PM both today and yesterday. Have to ascribe it to partying/hangover syndrome which "hopefully" will fade away by Monday morning. If not, and it continues, January will be a very bleak month.

[HuskyPup]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld wolfwolf

Oh wow... absolutely lowest Jan 1st of all time!

Yep, my second-lowest day ever even though traffic seems to have been normal'ish, only beaten by Xmas Eve however I did rather expect it therefore not a surprise.

Today's stats seem to be way behind, maybe the hamsters are still recovering?

[farmboy]

Had the best day on December 31st until 3 Pm, then something happened and I was flooded with bad very low converting traffic and most of the money I had done earlier in the day was erased.

When you say your money was erased, do you mean you saw an estimated earnings figure in your account and it was significantly reduced later in the same day?

If Yes, and you know you're getting bad traffic, I think that kind of tells you what the problem is, depending on what you consider "bad" traffic.


FarmBoy

[Reno_Chris]

On Jan 1st. I had my best traffic day, and second highest earnings day. I must be doing at least something right, or perhaps I am the blind squirrel who accidentally tripped over an acorn.

[HuskyPup]

Oh dear oh dear oh dear ... Unless there is a mighy click dump soon I'm heading for my worst-ever day, CTR is at a level I've never seen before and EPC is 50% of recent averages.

I'm seeing some great UK image ads from the second-largest diy chain in Europe so hopefully it is simply stuck stats but I doubt it, methinks I'm being $hafted again!

[Frost_Angel]

2011 was a great year until April 12th. Then it's been a snowball of $hit.
I've never recovered. Traffic went from 150,000 a month to 65,000 - and of course, with that - adsense started sucking the big one. I am hoping after nine months of tweaking, reworking, removing, updating, changing and basically giving my site mega surgery that 2012 will be the road to recover. However - if yesterday is any indication - OUCH. LOL

[actstudio]

The end of 2011 was fantastic. Huge amount of visits and a high CPC( €0.25 ). Now it turned into a nightmare CPC is almost €0.05 I hope it's getting better fast.

Is this happening for you too?

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday wound up the best earnings in over two weeks, go figure. Still only about 60% of average but at least it's better than the 10-30% days that most of December turned in. Here's to hoping the upward trend continues!

[HuskyPup]

An absolutely dire start to the New Year only salvaged yesterday by an advertiser who bid USD 3.00 click as opposed to USD 0.30.

So far 2012 the 1st and 2nd v 2011

Earnings 59.5% however without the advertisers mistake I reckon about 24%

Actual clicks 30%

Very, very messy and I have this horrible feeling it's going to get much worse than my most pessimistic of predictions. I'm giving it until after the 9th and then will have to make a decision.

[ThatsBoBo]

Earnings are doing really well out of the 2012 gate.

[netmeg]

Everything going well. December started out slow but finished with a bang (see what I did there?) Looking forward to a killer 2012.

[wolfwolf]

Hi Farmboy,
To answer your question, what I meant is that I had a good CTR and a good estimated earnings. Later on after 3 PM as I got this wave of low converting traffic all of a sudden, it took the nice surplus ( adsense - adwords) I had and reduced it, as the expenses on adwords side suddenly jumped to the limit, but I got very little back in return on the adsense side. First three days of the new year show that adwords and adsense are completely even. Does not seem to get better on the first working day today. So I will have to make adjustments. The only positive thing I see, is that it seems that there is much more traffic suddenly available. Any advice from some senior members? Thank you. :)

[farmboy]

all of a sudden, it took the nice surplus ( adsense - adwords) I had and reduced it...

So are you basically practicing arbitrage?


FarmBoy

[wolfwolf]

I am using adwords to get traffic to my site and use adsense to get revenue from clicks. It can be plus or minus or even. Depends on the fine tuning and on the CPC. The higher the CPC the more probable is it that it will be a plus on my end.

[HuskyPup]

So are you basically practicing arbitrage?

Precisely my thoughts when I read that.

@wolfwolf - You do know that Google banned thousands of accounts a few years ago for arbitrage no matter how successful or useful they were?

[wolfwolf]

No I did not know that. I am new. :(

[jpch]

January stated out down about 35% for me so far on RPM with traffic and CTR actually going up. I did notice my CPM Bids have fallen from about 25% of impressions to 10%. Hopefully this is just a short term January effect and RPM will get better as month progresses.

[ember]

Wolf, arbitrage is going to get you thrown out of Adsense pretty darn quick.

[netmeg]

The arbitrage thing is a fine line. I have used AdWords to drive traffic to sites with AdSense with no problem.

You basically have to make Google think it's a regular site that just happens to have a few ads, rather than an ad site that just happens to have a little bit of content. If you aren't sure where you are, stop the AdWords till you get it figured out.