Speculating About AdSense Earning Limits

Not talking about magic, but evidence

[explorador]

Hi there,

It's been discussed before but not always in the best way. There are advocates on G having earning limits, others support the opposite idea, what's important is focusing on evidence and what can you do about it (if there is anything to do). Besides remember G Adsense has been way unstable since what? 1 year? 1.5? If you don't like the title then for the sake of the discussion let's stick to the magical limit no matter the hour.

I spent a lot of time without watching the earnings specially daily, it's about mental health too, but lately, 5months solid I've been seing a weird trend on my daily earnings. Let's say I'm earning 10 webmasterworld dollars per day and that's almost an stable average. Well, when I reach that amount clicks stop no matter the hour of the day.

Let's say I check earnings at 7AM and surprise, I already have 9 webmasterworld dollars, the natural idea is "for the rest of the days there are many clicks to come", wrong. Day goes by and it only moves from 9 to 9.5. This is real and has happened several times in the afternoon, also at 10AM and a few times at 7-8AM. It's like "this user has his quota of the day". How come there are no clicks for the rest of the whole day?

You can call me crazy if you want to but, several days reaching your usual daily earnings at 8AM and suddenly no clicks for the rest of the day? and the very few go down to 0.001 seeing 10 clicks summing up like 0.05? That's weird. It's also like click value adjusting magically to your usual daily earnings.

[frankleeceo]

I check my stats almost hourly. Too much to a fault.

What I see is that sometimes during early hours some high earning clicks are made, then adjusted downward.

Example:

My daily avg is 10 webmaster dollar. At 8:00 am I could receive some really high click which push the total to 8 webmaster dollar. At 12:00 it adjusted to 4 webmaster dollar. At 3:00 pm it's then 8 $. At 5:00 pm 7 $. Then midnight reach at 10$.

Try checking the stats more closely and see if in your example it gets adjusted downward? Nowdays I just almost know clicks get adjusted if they are insanely higher than usual.

Another of my speculation however: Google does have a predetermined earning as a baseline for their test with publisher ads.

They test things around and setup a base, so that even if they screw up, the publishers have a "base pay" which they will shuffle things around to make up. And if their test does increase earning, they reshuffle again and adjust publisher's pay to that base pay as well. Google's way of A/B testing their ad servings across all of our sites, without handing out dough or keeping money if they fail.

So "limits" may really well exist..both to protect earnings and hurt earnings at the same time. Normalized earning.

[hannamyluv]

I think for many AdSense users, it would be helpful if they looked into how advertisers can use AdWords.

The scenario you lay out could be explained by an advertiser who has targeted your site (or your site is particularly targeted to their chosen keywords) and has either put a spending cap on the campaign or has targeted certain times of day to run.

I have never seen any evidence of capped earnings with any site I have run, both large and small.

[RedBar]

No upper limits, I've been there as a member of the old UPS club in the days when AdSense was relatively new and searchers used to click on ads to see IF they could get better deals.

Over the years and various zoological algo updates I have seen a catastrophic reduction in both traffic and earnings. The huge drop in CTR, 20% of what it used to be, and traffic at 10% of what it was, only signifies one thing if one is reliant on Google, disaster.

The traffic reduction has mostly been due to Google's image grab, about 80% this year alone, therefore in my 20 years' experience it is all about the volume/quantity of qualified traffic.

I was thinking the other day, they've Pandalised and Penguinised us, this year with images I've been excruciatingly Pythonised...!...Fortunately I have a real-world business which bears absolutely no resemblance to the fantasy Google world of Mountain View.

[martinibuster]

Images don't generally convert.

CTR isn't always a reliable metric because some ads are display and you get paid by impression. So if your site generates traffic through images and is showing display ads the CTR may go down but the most relevant metric, earnings, is the one to keep an eye on.

A step to improve your earnings
Any publisher who feels they aren't earning a fair amount from their AdSense should get proactive and register on affiliate networks and seek out the affiliate pages for the advertisers you feel SHOULD be displaying on your site. Cut out the middle man and go direct.

Now you are earning based on pure performance. Quality of traffic is more important than ever because not only do the visitors have to click, they have to BUY or perform some other action.

If anything it will be a learning lesson for you about what your site is REALLY worth. You may find out your site is a crappy converter. Or you may find out your site was hiding a pot of gold. Get proactive. If you feel you're not getting your fair share then take some steps to get your fair share.

I've done affiliate work for years, before AdSense came along and trust me there is nothing that can teach you how to convert like looking at CTR and conversion stats in an Affiliate control panel. It can be time consuming keeping up with different offers and updating code, etc. but join the right ad with the right domain or content and the money starts pouring in. PLUS, you have more freedom to create links that encourage clicks.

If you feel you're not earning enough on AdSense, go affiliate. If you have never done affiliate work, DO IT. Even if you go running back to Google's AdSense apron strings the experience of affiliate work will have made you a better marketer and I believe will set you on a path to focusing on content that earns better.

Back on topic, I think hannamyluv has hit on a good explanation for the phenomenom. AdWords can target by time periods, which is useful because an advertiser may want to hit people at work or school and not after work hours. That's called Dayparting. Here's more information dayparting:

SearchEngineWatch Dayparting [searchenginewatch.com]

Google Support [support.google.com]

[RedBar]

Images don't generally convert.

For some that may possibly be so however I have been around the block more than once and know how much I used to earn from images in AdSense, however since their scrape of last January it is a completely different scenario for all image galleries no matter one's subject matter, of this there is no doubt and has been written at length by many.

Affiliates just do not exist in many of the more mature industries, that's a matter a fact, not speculation, and for those of us with real-world businesses and in a competitive environment, one's product naïvety would soon be exposed.

[martinibuster]

No offense intended, but it doesn't surprise me that you are complaining of lower earnings AND there is a lack of affiliate programs. There's a connection there.

A scarcity of affiliate programs in a particular generally indicates a lack of money. Etsy and eBay have programs that support small businesses. Even Orvis has a fly fishing affiliate program.

Re images, I prefaced my statement with the word, generally, because obviously there are some exceptions, like creative arts niches, which can be monetized through a shutterstock affiliate program.

I've spent years analyzing niches to determine whether they're worthwhile to enter. I'm offering you the benefit of my experience. If there aren't many ads directly related to a niche AND there aren't affiliate programs associated with it, there may be some money in it, but the pool of buyers and sellers aren't going to be there in enough quantity to support a robust income.

[martinibuster]

No offense intended, but it doesn't surprise me that you are complaining of lower earnings AND there is a lack of affiliate programs. There's a connection there.

A scarcity of affiliate programs in a particular generally indicates a lack of money. Etsy and eBay have programs that support small businesses. Even Orvis has a fly fishing affiliate program.

Re images, I prefaced my statement with the word, generally, because obviously there are some exceptions, like creative arts niches, which can be monetized through a shutterstock affiliate program, as one example of many.

Please do not take offense. I am trying to help, if not you then someone else who may come along and find inspiration. I've spent years analyzing niches to determine whether they're worthwhile to enter. I'm offering you the benefit of my experience. I don't do this out of ego, I do it to help people improve. Just step back and analyze seriously if the niche is done and maybe it's time to move on to a different one, expand the portfolio.

If there aren't many ads directly related to a niche AND there aren't affiliate programs associated with it, there may be some money in it, but the pool of buyers and sellers aren't going to be there in enough quantity to support a robust income.

[ember]

Besides remember G Adsense has been way unstable since what? 1 year? 1.5?

This is not true for everyone. My revenue is up since last year.

How come there are no clicks for the rest of the whole day?

Advertisers in your niche may be running their ads in the morning hours only. After that, less relevant ads may run, resulting in fewer, or no, clicks.

[Andem]

Besides remember G Adsense has been way unstable since what? 1 year? 1.5?

I second ember. There have always been fluctuations, but I'm not seeing a downward trend currently. I did see that during the financial crises a few years back, though.

[Clarence]

It's been discussed before but not always in the best way. There are advocates on G having earning limits, others support the opposite idea, what's important is focusing on evidence and what can you do about it (if there is anything to do). Besides remember G Adsense has been way unstable since what? 1 year? 1.5? If you don't like the title then for the sake of the discussion let's stick to the magical limit no matter the hour.

I spent a lot of time without watching the earnings specially daily, it's about mental health too, but lately, 5months solid I've been seing a weird trend on my daily earnings. Let's say I'm earning 10 webmasterworld dollars per day and that's almost an stable average. Well, when I reach that amount clicks stop no matter the hour of the day.

Let's say I check earnings at 7AM and surprise, I already have 9 webmasterworld dollars, the natural idea is "for the rest of the days there are many clicks to come", wrong. Day goes by and it only moves from 9 to 9.5. This is real and has happened several times in the afternoon, also at 10AM and a few times at 7-8AM. It's like "this user has his quota of the day". How come there are no clicks for the rest of the whole day?

You can call me crazy if you want to but, several days reaching your usual daily earnings at 8AM and suddenly no clicks for the rest of the day? and the very few go down to 0.001 seeing 10 clicks summing up like 0.05? That's weird. It's also like click value adjusting magically to your usual daily earnings.

I don't think you have a full grasp of Adsense. Behind Adsense is Adwords, a place where advertising pay for advertising. You need to do some research into Adwords. Even consider running a Test campaign for you self.


What would you probably do if you ran a test campaign? Would you give it an unlimited Budget?

Would you bid super high, and allow as many clicks as possible?

No you would probably set a reasonable budget like $10.00 a day.

After you budget was spent up, you ads would stop running.


FYI: There is a earning limit in each niche. The earning limit is How much the advertises are willing to spend daily for advertising.

FYI: when the budget of all your relevant advertisers is used up, the space will be filled with garbage impression Ads.


But here is a tip for you:

First: You just realized your advertiser don't spread their budget though out the day, so your goal should be to drive as much traffic as possible as early as possible to be the first to get the budget.

Second: You you realized you are wasting ad space later on the in the day, you need to invest in an Advertise, and schedule Adsense to run in the morning, then replace it with something else in the evening (Affiliate Offers, Email Opt, Another Ad Networks, etc".