Show Fewer Ads, Make More Money

Sounds counter-intuitive, right? Read on...

[anon123]

So basically the theory is this: Only show Adsense to search engine visitors and you will make more money... Yes, you will show a little fewer ads, get a little less clicks, but make more overall, and here's why:

I just did some research on smart pricing and found out that some people started making more money by only showing ads to people who found their site through search engines.

In my case, about 75% of my monthly traffic are new visitors who found my site through search engines, so I would be showing 25% less ads.

So If I were to do this, it sounds like I should probably expect to make around 25% less money, (since I'd be showing 25% less ads) right?

Not necessarily, for this reason: search engine visitors are the ones who are much more likely to click ads, and buy things from those ads, so they are more valuable to the advertiser, and in turn, those clicks worth more money to you. (e.g. no more 1 to 2 cents per click, or 'smartpriced' ads from Google.)

So you will receive a little less clicks overall, but your CTR should go up, and Google should pay you more for those clicks. Return visitors, or 'regulars', and link referral traffic are more likely to just be looking for content and not to buy anything. If you have a higher CTR, with better conversions for the advertiser, your overall monthly earnings should rise, you should be un-smartpriced, and your CPC should go up.

Using my earlier example, let's theoretically say I was getting around 1000 clicks per day by showing clicks to ALL visitors... If I were to do this, now I'd be getting around 750 clicks per day... But the difference is, I'd rather get 750 clicks worth 10 cents a click then 1000 clicks worth 2 cents each.

Daily earnings:
1000 clicks x $.02 = $20.00 - showing ads to all
750 clicks x $.10 = $75.00 - showing ads to search engine visitors only

Less clicks, but BETTER clicks = more money in the longrun.

I'm going to give this a shot across all my sites for a few weeks because I've really increased my CTR lately, but my overall earnings and CPC are way down. I'm delivering more clicks but I'm making less money, so something doesn't add up, and I'm going to atleast try to do something about it.

Another bonus of doing this is. You won't be disturbing your regulars and certain other visitors, because they won't be seeing ads any more. You may end up getting more links to your site, better ranking in Google, etc.

Your thoughts? Does anyone else do this? Is less ad impressions and clicks, but making more money overall really possible?

[netmeg]

It's a theory, all you can do is try it, but remember that correlation is not causation, and Google is too much of a black box for you to ever determine whether or not it works the way you think, or there's some other factors.

Taking a look at my stats, while a majority of my traffic (and thus earnings) come from Google search, the percentage and the CTRs and EPCs are just as high as my direct and social media visits. And my EPCs are through the roof this year; more than twice what they were last year. I don't see something like this having much of an effect on me.

But my traffic is highly localized and very predictable, YMMV.

[matrix_jan]

For some period in this year(I think it was Feb.) google stopped supporting frame busting. Since most of my traffic comes from image search, Traffic source turned from 70% direct to 80% search engine referrals. There was absolutely no change in adsense earnings. If your website is big enough then google already has some kind of an idea about the amount of your traffic, and "awards" accordingly.

This doesn't mean that if your page goes viral in social networks and gets 5 times the normal traffic, then you won't get 5 times more $$$.

[JCKline]

Let us know how in pans out for you in the weeks to come.

[LavingRunatic]

My biggest money maker this year was an article that went crazy on FB. I would have lost out on all of that cash if I only showed my ads to search traffic.