March 2014 AdSense Earnings and Observations

This May be my Last Month

[JCKline]

I'm starting the March earnings thread as it may be my last month with Non-Sense.

[ember]

Do you really think that Google won't pay us? Two million publishers, some fairly large and well known, not paid?

[littlecubpanda]

Just making sure I'm not the only one. Certainly it will come through on Monday.

[Lame_Wolf]

Ok now I'm worried.

Why?

It's either late... or, they've altered the payment date again. Stop fretting.

[webcentric]

Figured it was only a matter of time before we went from PIP discussions to PNIP discussions. Like discussing the fact that today is not Wednesday.

[fearlessrick]

Today is definitely not Wednesday, due, I'm sure, to climate change.

[JCKline]

completely dead weekend here. Almost poorly identical to February so far.

[ember]

Today is definitely not Wednesday, due, I'm sure, to climate change.

Funny.

[Danwebsol]

Actually, PIP started a few hours ago(on Sunday)

[RedBar]

Another two new record low set for me yesterday, not ONE single click from the UK recorded, in fact not one single click from ANY European country furthermore G's UK PVs were 31% of average, another new low.

This all seems to be reated to new image SERPs and the demotion of many sites with watermarked images or one helluva coincidence and that doesn't happen in my books with G.

[MrSavage]

Best day yesterday in months. Not sure how many month, but a few at least. Reminds me of how great Adsense can be and has been for me in the past.

[EditorialGuy]

Yesterday was good for our site, too.

For us, AdSense has been like a yo-yo lately. (Much more so than in the past.)

[spreporter]

Best day yesterday and today looks fine

[extremist]

yesterday was a great day, and today also looks great.

[webcentric]

Not sure if anyone's noticed but G has been experimenting heavily with textual leaderboards recently. Just saw them go from cramming 6 ads in a single 728x90 on one day to 5 the next. Either way it's ugly and every time they start popping up, it's not been a good sign on the revenue side of things.

Yes we've seen this type of format in the past (4 across wasn't bad and two across used to work great for me) but 5 and 6 ads in that kind of space makes it look like Google got invaded by a bunch of two year old typesetters or greed has finally lead to madness. Take your pick. This particular "experiment" has definitely caused a yo-yo effect in my account recently (by that I mean one day mediocre, the next great, etc).

[avalon37]

The month is almost over so I'll add my "final" observations.

1. Worst CPC payout month in the last 18 months
2. 2nd worst CTR - last month was worst ever. But since CPC dropped even lower this month, the RPM for me was about the same as last month. Luckily traffic picked up this month and will earn a bit more money.
3. Ad Relevancy: Worst month ever. Sure, this is somewhat subjective - CTR does back this up though. I've never seen as poorly targeted ads by Google. I believe this is 99.99% of their earnings problem - which in turn is our problem as well. I'm not confident they will "get this" or correct this anytime soon. I predict another month full of terrible testing on Google's part.

[webcentric]

2nd worst CTR - last month was worst ever. But since CPC dropped even lower this month, the RPM for me was about the same as last month.

Seems to me that you'd have to have had a drop in Ad views also (if my early morning math is correct). If CPC and CTR dropped but you have a similar RPM, that must mean less ad views e.g. less visitors visiting your pages with ads. So are you losing traffic?

I predict another month full of terrible testing on Google's part.

I think G has tested a great many things since rolling out the "new" text ads but I also think that this testing may be coming to a resolution. Why do I say this?

Because in the very early days of this testing spree, I saw things that came and then disappeared but are just recently being reintroduced. One example is the favicons. They came, some saw them and then they just vanished. Now they're back.

When talking about testing, it's probably important to note that testing doesn't just involve testing how well something monetizes. Testing also needs to incorporate browser tests (making sure these things work in all browsers). I think that explains why people have been seeing this in one browser and that in another on and off for awhile now.

Also, some features we've seen come and go probably need user interface changes on the Advertiser side. It's possible to roll something out in test mode before actually committing the features to a user interface (one example might me an option to opt out of having favicons show with your ad -- who knows?).

I think things that once appeared as tests are now being rolled out in earnest but at the same time, testing continues. Time will tell.

Earnings are increasing here so I don't necessarily see this process as a problem. I see it as a sign that G is committed to success and will do what it takes to stay on the cutting edge of this industry. I will not be surprised if this turns out very well for G. On the other hand, I won't be surprised if the whole mess falls flat on it's face either. Again, time will tell.

[netmeg]

I'd be extremely surprised if Google wasn't always testing. Always.

Overall my month looks pretty good. There will be a huge clawback at the end of the month because they never took out the extra 925 or so clicks from that one huge clickbomb day, but I'm prepared for that. The rest of the month has been a lot more stable, and overall I'm pretty sure I'm up over last year.

[HowYesNo]

downfall since september, too many invalid clicks, ctr is poor, cpc 3-4c, not good at all

[super70s]

they never took out the extra 925 or so clicks from that one huge clickbomb day

Why don't they correct that in your stats as soon as they know the clicks are invalid? It seems like they're just asking for a lot of emails from upset people who don't know what's going on.

They don't even correct it in your payment history as far as I can comprehend that complicated thing.

[dallmon]

Friday, Saturday and Sunday my cpc doubled, ctr quadrupled. Very small sites, total visits just broke 10k last week. Here it is Monday and cpc and ctr are back down to normal levels. Still, revenue 30% more than last month.

[JCKline]

Pennies yesterday, pennies today. Just awful.

[netmeg]

Why don't they correct that in your stats as soon as they know the clicks are invalid? It seems like they're just asking for a lot of emails from upset people who don't know what's going on.

They don't even correct it in your payment history as far as I can comprehend that complicated thing.

I do not know. I wish they would, because yea, now it's in my history (and also one exploded day from last month) for all time. I suspect there's different kinds of invalid clickery and it's handled in different ways.

[DirtyHarry]

CPC ▲ 21% This month so far VS same day last month
CPC ▲ 36% Last month VS month before
RPM ▲ 18% Yesterday VS same day last week
RPM ▲ 18% This month so far VS same day last month
RPM ▲ 30% Last month VS month before

[ember]

After a slow start this month, the rollercoaster in the middle and then a return to slowness, the last few days have been outstanding, similar to the early Adsense days.

This business is not for the faint of heart.

[webcentric]

This business is not for the faint of heart.

Touche! Just like any other roller-coaster I suppose ;) Today's looking great. Can see for miles up here.

[JCKline]

CPC is less than a dime all day. WTF!

[netmeg]

Having another click explosion day, but can't find anything in the stats or logs to back it up. So more earnings that will be deducted from my payout but left in my earnings history, I bet.

(I know this because the earnings showing up in AdSense are not reflected in Analytics - usually they are, barring the three hour time difference between AdSense and Analytics reports.)

[webcentric]

Having another click explosion day, but can't find anything in the stats or logs to back it up

I'm guessing that you Blocked AWS coming through proxies but thought I'd mention it just in case. I've seen AWS IP's in X_Forwarded_For in recent days. Nothing major but it does speak to a potential hole.

[netmeg]

Yes I do, but also those types of clicks go into GA (temporarily at least) The ones I was getting yesterday didn't make it into GA, but stayed in AdSense. Another reason I think there's more than one type of bot and invalid click behavior.

[RedBar]

A question for those who are seeing a good increase in earnings.

How would you describe your sites, educational, informative, niche widget, corporate, ecommerce, unique, main stream, anything else?

Do you have many images or is it mostly text?

I'm trying to get a grip on why some of us have experienced a disaster, for various reasons, and why some are seemingly doing so well.