April 2013 AdSense Earnings and Observations

The rollercoaster ride continues

[JCKline]

I'm hoping April brings more than flowers, as March ended pretty poorly on my end. What's to come...

[Tpain2327]

Be careful, it's my understanding that it's up to you to make sure that sites are not frequented by underage people. I'm not sure how you actually do that but it scared me enough to stay away from that.

Please update us on how that works for you.

[Saffron]

Just when you think it can't get any worse it does :( I'm seeing the lowest CTR ever this month.

[Slashus]

lol @ gambling ads. Google AdSense says, "Here's some ads to get you banned for life..."

[Play_Bach]

Earning 1/10th what I did in 2009 (and that's on a good day!). Anybody else?

[glitterball]

Is it possible that earnings are down due to fallout caused by Ebay's study?
It's surely focused a lot of attention on companies' adwords campaigns, where previously that spend may have been blindly accepted.

If that is the case, the only way we're going to make money is if we short GOOG shares!

[edinburgher]

Earnings still ridiculously low. I'm sure part of this is due to poor ad targetting, whether due to algorithm changes, Goog problems or just lack of relevant inventory.

Out of interest I've just looked at the craft site listed as the latest Adsense success story. So far I haven't seen a single ad I'd consider relevant to the page content, just the same generic garbage I get on my sites. And no, it's not "interest" based.

[Mentat]

Something is broken @ Adsense this month.
Lower eCPM every day!

[Saffron]

This is my lowest day in years :( My traffic is around the same as it has been for the past month but clicks dropped significantly. I'm now earning 1/3rd of what I was in December.

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday earnings were back up to a more "normal" level. So far, April 4, 5 and 8 stick out as unusually low earning days. Hopefully, something got messed up on those days reports and corrections are on the way. Anybody else?

[HuskyPup]

Arghhh, damn and blast!

Nope, not Google's fault, I was just having my best day in ages and my server went down for 6 hours right at the best earning part of the day.

If it's not one thing it's another.

[Lame_Wolf]

and my server went down for 6 hours right at the best earning part of the day.

Ditto.

[HuskyPup]

DDOS attack ...thanks a bunch:-(

[Black_H]

Unbelievable is happening here in Brazil the same thing, there is something wrong with the reports are very low

[avalon37]

Huge CPC increase yesterday on one of my sites...CPC tripled ! And today, on my other site, CPC prices have doubled. Google staggering the payouts? Think someone suggested that above.

[JCKline]

So far still dismal.

@Tpain2327, I'm aware of this and the site is geared toward adults 18+ and I still block gambling ads. I'll give it a couple of weeks and see.

[Slashus]

Google AdSense, "It's that time of the quarter again, lets F everything up for the publishers and give no information about what we're doing. The only ones we hear about anyway are the ones that are having a bad day (to no fault of our own - just look at HuskyPup - he admitted it was a DDOS attack). What are they going to do, quit? lolololol we have all their balls in a vice-grip so tight - we could reduce their RPM 300% by dumping Taco Bell ads on all their sites and they still wouldn't go anywhere..."

[Pepito]

and my server went down for 6 hours right at the best earning part of the day.

Yesterday my server, in UK, went down as well :-(

[Slashus]

I have goodyear tire ads showing across a bunch of sites today, all sites with arrows. All sites have nothing to do with automotive in the least and I have not visited any automotive/tire sites on my computer and no one else uses it. CTR is in the toilet beyond belief and therefore my earnings. (Just now blocked them)

Thanks AdSense algo! You're really working well to optimize the ads on my sites! Thanks for teaching us in your blog posts and in person at AdSense in Your City never to use the block url function because your algo does such a great job optimizing revenue for our sites. I totally believe you.

PS: Lets see if I still have arrows next month after this great targeting!

[edinburgher]

I'm convinced poor ad targetting is a significant factor in my revenue fall. On a recipe page on a food related site of mine I currently see text ads for: "learn to speak english", "static caravans for sale" and "golf swing tips". Yes, there are also some well targetted ads, but those three slots won't be earning anything for me (or Adense).

[Play_Bach]

Yesterday never recovered.

[Lame_Wolf]

I'm convinced poor ad targetting is a significant factor in my revenue fall. On a recipe page on a food related site of mine I currently see text ads for: "learn to speak english", "static caravans for sale" and "golf swing tips". Yes, there are also some well targetted ads, but those three slots won't be earning anything for me (or Adsense.)

Would you prefer those "fat belly" adverts instead ? Afterall, they would be more related to what you are presently getting.

Joking aside, I am totally with you.

[glitterball]

Having gone through old stats, I realise that I have seen this happen before (total collapse in CTR and earnings) back in 2010.

I fixed it back then by changing the ads from my company's adsense account to my personal account. Suddenly the CTR and earnings improved. Unfortunately I don't have that option any more (to change adsense accounts).

Another observation is that I get credited with some clicks at a certain rate, only for that rate to be reduced massively a few minutes later. Irrelevant ads being smart-priced down?

[edinburgher]

@Lame_Wolf: *grin* Yeah, the site does get attacked by them but they go straight on the block list along with all the "one weird trick" and "mom of 97 looks 12" ads. I'm willing to take any hit to my earnings that might cost me.

[HuskyPup]

What an absolutely miserable week and today's already looking to be the worst, almost pointless checking stats they're that bad.

[td22]

Do you guys with poorly target ads have 3rd party ads on?

What about interest based ads?

[Play_Bach]

8:30am here and already beat yesterday. Hope it continues, because there's a LONG way to go!

[Slashus]

It would be helpful if they passed us a timestamp for when each click originally occurred.

[edinburgher]

@td22: I currently have both 3rd party and IBL switched on. I've tried switching them off but this doesn't seem to make any significant difference to anything. Unfortunately the fog of reporting delays and interacting factors and algorithms makes it almost impossible to properly test anything.

[JCKline]

Still DEAD

[jost]

I havent really had the wild swings.

Just that suddent 50% reduction, and its stuck there.

Im going to start calling google, G-evil. 100% evil, all the time.