March 2012 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[HuskyPup]

Well, my February was all over the place, very similar to The Himalayas in profile!

[ken_b]

I've seen NO "Credible" evidence of a "cap" on earnings.

Anyone know of a well paying tinfoil affiliate program?

[snickles121]

There is no cap on earnings. Why would they hurt themselves?

[cr1t1calh1t]

ultimately, your earnings are capped by the budgets of the Adwords advertisers that are targeting your keywords/niche/site, but this is probably not the earnings cap you were looking for...

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday just closed. Back down to 40% the earnings go...

[Mentat]

Yesterday was only 23 hours... DST in US...
In Europe will be on 25 March...

eCPM slowly oing down again...

[netmeg]

(There may, of course, be a cap on your niche. Some niches are far far more lucrative than others)

[jmccormac]

Crawling along today. Guess it they've been twiddling the knobs again.

Regards...jmcc

[nomis5]

No-one here knows if there is a cap or not and that's the simple truth. Those who assert that there is no cap may well just not have reached their cap level - they may well just be lazy and not tying hard enough!

Those who assert there is a cap may just not have got the formula right for their site. They may also be lazy and should try harder.

Truth is we don't know. But we do know this, the advertiser spend tomorrow is limited (or capped if you prefer it) to a certain amount, and that cap is how much the advertisers want to spend. Whether that cap affects your site or not is up for grabs.

[coachm]

Whether there's a cap or not doesn't matter. I think at this point it's pretty clear that as traffic increases, forces are in play that result in income not matching the increases in traffic. This has been talked about so often and for years here, that it's hard to ignore.

[marcus11]

'Whether there's a cap or not doesn't matter. I think at this point it's pretty clear that as traffic increases, forces are in play that result in income not matching the increases in traffic. This has been talked about so often and for years here, that it's hard to ignore.'

Exactly!

[davedm]

I agree with coachm; there is a definite correlation - we've been seeing this for years too.

[marcus11]

If you think about it, every day you are 'regulated' in your numbers by G, they have a 'target amount' or 'average' earnings that they will allot to your site and the algorithms work in tandem to to meet those set earnings max. Now that is not to say that you cannot, over time increase the average earnings of the site and affect overall earnings, however, hour by hour, each aspect; Impressions, CTR, CPC eCPM, etc. are all weighing-in and serving relevant ads and ad prices that all work together to reach that 'average earnings' your site is marked for in that time frame based on historical, market value, seasonality, etc. Example I'm sure many here have seen is that if you drive lots of great pertinent traffic to your audience and they click on G's well targeted ads, CTR goes up and inversely CPC dives down initially to accommodate that spike working together to keep you landing at your averages.

[davedm]

marcus11 - I think it is actually controlled by the way Google fixes the search results. With the mass of data they have about users and queries they have become very good at figuring out user intent. I believe the productive traffic (ie: that which earns Google money) is controlled separately to that which is unproductive.

So, when you traffic goes up by 5% or 10% week-on-week (always such even figures I notice, very odd) that is just the unproductive traffic they are sending changing not the productive.

Either that, or it is all just a massive co-incidence, and my site becomes more or less useful for users in increments of 5% ;-)

[farmboy]

I'm sure many here have seen is that if you drive lots of great pertinent traffic to your audience and they click on G's well targeted ads, CTR goes up and inversely CPC dives down initially to accommodate that spike working together to keep you landing at your averages.

As I've written about before on this forum, my experience is basically the opposite. When I generate good-targeted traffic to my site it seems as if Google gives me a "reward" of sort by increasing the EPC as the traffic/activity continues.

FarmBoy

[netmeg]

Given that many of my sites are seasonal in nature and go from a hundred visits per day to half a million per day in a very short period, I'd be in a pretty good position to be capped if such a thing were going on.

Maybe it'll happen this year.

[ken_b]

marcus11:

every day you are 'regulated' in your numbers by G, they have a 'target amount' or 'average' earnings that they will allot to your site and the algorithms work in tandem to to meet those set earnings max.

Please provide a link to the Google documentation that supports this statement.

.

[ken_b]

Whether there's a cap or not doesn't matter. I think at this point it's pretty clear that as traffic increases, forces are in play that result in income not matching the increases in traffic. This has been talked about so often and for years here, that it's hard to ignore.

All kinds of urban legends get repeated year after year, that doesn't make them true.

[IanCP]

I've always "suspected" whatever your niche, there is a limit to daily budgets.

Once exhausted, you then get the krap penny ads.

Low impression days, you get the usual variable CTR and whatever variable EPC.

Multiply your impressions X 10 and the budgets are still exhausted for your niche, you still get the krap penny ads.

Just my suspicion.

[Slashus]

AdSense advisor came here some time back and said there's no such thing as a limit and to look elsewhere for performance that seems to emulate a ceiling.

But according to many people here, he must have been sent here to lie about their scheme in regard to your accountz in an official capacity. As a result, you have an excuse to not work any harder on your sites because it's pointless anyhow because of the ceeeeiling.

Totally makes sense.

[marcus11]

Ken B, I'm sure you know that Google's proprietary inner workings are, of course, not available in documents nor are they something that G would publish as documentation, so we are left to speculate on how the system works. My speculation is based on seven years with G and a comfortable living having been made year over year and certainly not some sophomore excuses to grow the sites. I'm just asserting that there are controls at work to 'manage' your earnings and in my experience some metrics seem to work inversely to a goal, whether I drive G's own paid traffic to sites or some crappy link farm traffic (something I would not recommend nor have I done) to my sites. The mere fact that there isn't an immediate positive proportional revenue affect to my bottom line suggests that the system 'manages' those new traffic sources puts a value on them (usually below my expectations) and then dictates which lower paying ads to display, thus moderating the value of clicks as G see fit. As I mentioned before, my favorite metric to watch this play out is where, high value traffic spikes and CPC drops during that flow of new quality traffic, because if CPC didn't drop, you would make more than the system wants to see you make for that day.

While these are my personal observations, they, of course, may not be everyone's experience, which is why I enjoy reading and learning from what others share here.

[netmeg]

The controls at work are not to manage your earnings, but to manage the advertisers' spend. It is not the same thing.

[ThatsBoBo]

There is no ceiling. Why would there be? There may be a limit to advertisers' budgets for any given day or other time period, but I see no reason why Google would do anything to make a publisher earn less unless the publisher was doing something against TOS or pushing low quality traffic (smart priced).

Publisher earning less = Google earning less.

[Slashus]

I for one would like to thank marcus11 for spreading his backward, counter-business and well-thought out conspiracy theories.

No offense, but if your sites are in my niches (or everyone that wants to be believe in the tooth fairy cough ceiling) - thanks for the extra advertiser spends on my sites you're not getting by believing in your "ceiling" and not growing.

It's what netmeg said:

The controls at work are not to manage your earnings, but to manage the advertisers' spend. It is not the same thing.

So when you get giant spikes in traffic which blows through the advertisers' budgets just as fast (you have advertised online before right?) - where do you magically get more advertiser spend on your sites?

I mean, the ads are still showing right? Well, maybe your advertisers might dramatically lower their cpc because you're blowing their whole budget? Or maybe their spent for that hour/day/week/month now and have to wait - maybe from the guys/gals that spend only pennies per click? Which aren't (very well) targeted for your site anyway? Resulting in vastly lower cpc, ctr and/or both?

But wait! There's more!

Maybe you think Google should look at the history of your site, average out your ctr/epc and then (even though you blew through your advertisers' budgets with your spikez) pay you ANYWAY that average out of thin air? But then attribute those earnings for free to the adwords advertisers that have already paused/reduced all their campaigns! Yes, that makes far more sense.

It's great to ask a question and get an answer - but then to rebuttal over and over and over and over why we're all wrong... is just a waste of our time. It's just hard to not say something when you see juvenille proclamations like this. I'm done talking about this forever though. Believe in the easter bunny and continue being scared to be more successful.

[jmccormac]

Last week was OK as was the weekend. Looks like the trainee twiddlers are back to play with the controls.

Regards...jmcc

[Lame_Wolf]

@marcus11
Which is it ? One minute you are saying that there is a cap, and the next minute you are saying "Now that is not to say that you cannot, over time increase the average earnings of the site and affect overall earnings"

Make your mind up please, I am running out of popcorn. :)

[JCKline]

Bleak once more...

[HuskyPup]

All I shall write is that I am heading for my worst month ever since the creation of AdSense and implementing it across all sites ... What's that, 8 years?

And this is my busiest time of the year!

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday earnings closed at 70% of average. So far, not one average earnings day all March - every day has been under or well under.

[jmccormac]

Nothing today so far. Perhaps the Adsense hamsters have been moved to deal with Google+ quality.

Regards...jmcc

[JCKline]

There's a hamster on the corner outside my home with a cardboard sign. Squinting to read the poor handwriting, it reads "Wil worc for Gooogle pluz"? Odd.

March was "in like a lamb and going out like a dead hamster".