January 2015 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[RedBar]

I have something I want to post!

[Mike343]

I had the same problem all day yesterday with not being able to get unit codes. Adsense quality has tanked.

[RedBar]

Possiblly a data loss Thursday from the USA for me with my lowest-ever clicks and CTR at 34.8% of average...or maybe the US was seeing similar non-relative ads as me?

[MrSavage]

I have a sense that things are bouncing back. Yesterday was a much better day and today is starting off in a way that gives hope.

[RedBar]

I'm assuming stats stuck, CTR almost zero with a clicks' value almost the same!

[Mike343]

Same here, ctr is insane low.

[SEO2Go]

I was doing better today until Google pulled it all back, lol. It might be better to check my stats once a day going forward.

[Ammalgam]

Thank God for this forum! When you wake up and feel like North Korea hacked your Adsense account (because the number is so low), you come here to make sure it's not just you.

Love you guys and girls!

[dethfire]

RPM is still trending lower. If Feb is not better I may actually need to look at other options. My impressions are not worth this rate.

[gogu258]

One day relative normal income, 2-nd day almost same traffic (sources, countries) but only ~20% income at the end of the day, 3-rd day ~10% (till this hour). Really nasty roller coaster sensation.

[gogu258]

Oh and "Ad review center" is useless, doesn't matter how many times I "block" non-targeted ads within 5-10 minutes I see them back again (only block Adwords account seems to work), also useless is "Upcoming" tab, it's always empty even if I checked that 24 hours option.

[RedBar]

Blimey, it continues to be unbelievable, I have still not had one click from the USA and my highest number of clicks is from Germany ... Huh? I'm in the UK, my sites are in English and Germany's leading the way, WTF?

[AlexB77]

@RedBar, I am also in the UK, but mu UK clicks are by far the worst, if not US I will have to start thinking about getting other alternatives. It is all in a huge mess, especially last couple of days, number of clicks in a range of 1200 - 1500 but the revenue is lower than when I have had 100 clicks only per day. WTF indeed

[azlinda]

It has ground to a halt. There has been no movement at all for over three hours.

[shri]

@seo2go the guys in the office have taken a new found interest in adsense stats. The question almost every hour is, how much did we go down by.

Hopefully there is some good news next week once the NFL playoffs are done WITH and super bowl advertising kicks in. Slim chance.

The silence from our rep is deafening....

[shri]

And I should add that AdX looks equally bad. There is more going on than just adsense.

Quick question.

I assume there is an even mix of adsense and dfp based advertisers here who have seen a drop. Switching made no difference to us.

[dethfire]

Looking at my ads I see I am showing absolute garbage ads. "Is your gut in danger", "Why was this video banned, last chance to watch it" typs. Absolute garbage adsense. You are embarrassing my site.

[Selen]

Today I took the time to read some forums related to Adsense. My sarcastic conclusion is:

On Jan 2015 the Internet got smart-priced.

I hope it's not permanent though....

[Evan Salamanca]

Higher CPC today. The only change was that I set up Adsense as a line item in DFP (and as the backup) and used that DFP unit in place of an existing unit. Hopefully that change sticks.

[chocobo]

I'm definitely seeing (slightly) better results today. Unless everything gets clawed back once the day rolls to an end. It happened on Wednesday and Thursday...I lost about 25% of that day's total revenue. That really hasn't happened before.

My other ad networks are also reporting much lower ecpms for January YTD. Like down by 50%.

Hellloooooo instant ramen.

[shri]

Yes, wait for a day before you get excited about hourly results. Severe claw back / invalidation processes running every hour or so.

About the smart pricing thing... Isn't everything smart priced with adsense and Adwords? Not sure about AdX.

[Ammalgam]

RPM's have been through the floor this month.

[Mike343]

So glad I am not the only one seeing the the clawbacks and support is clueless.

"-Label your ads: Make sure to clearly label your ad units with either “Sponsored Links” or “Advertisements”. Unlabeled ad units that blend into the content too much can confuse visitors and lead to accidental clicks."

I never had this issue for the past 11 years which is how long I have been using adsense!

[shri]

That's in line with what I was told, after being encouraged to blend :)

The clawback continues after making changes.

[Rasputin]

I've been seeing the january drop as well, but wonder if it is starting to look world economy related...
When I look at CPC for January to date compared with the same period last year I see the USA and Germany almost unchanged, the UK down about 30% and France (our second biggest earning country) down about 50%. Other relatively strong economies eg netherlands seem to be holding up quite well but number of visitors is probably too low to be statistically relevant.
Just wondered if others are seeing the same 'pattern' in the drop in CPC?

[Mike343]

I am just seeing drops across the board and major drops as in 70-80% of revenue gone. My best performing units 336x280 are garbage now and the 728x90 actually beats it out but is still garabe.

[RedBar]

For me it is mostly a US collapse with the last two days CTR averaging 38.3% and RPM 30.2% therefore I can only assume it must be awful ads with nothing worth clicking.

[Rasputin]

Following on from what I said above but also thinking a bit more about currency fluctuations (I earn mostly in USD, GBP and Euros but get paid in euros) it is quite possible that I am also seeing 40% CPM reduction across all countries

The fall un USD and GBP CPC is partially 'hidden' from me when I see CPC in Euros because the USD has gone up a lot against the euro this year and the GBP has also gone up a bit against the euro recently.

If that's not clear, I'm trying to say that if USD CPC goes down 25% but the value of the USD against the euro goes up 25% I should see no change here in Europe in US earnings.

If this is right then people in the US but earning mostly euros would expect to see a very sharp decline - both a decline in CPC AND a decline during to the falling value of the euro (same thing to a lesser extent with GBP).

Point is, it's very difficult to follow trends in international earnings correctly...

...but none of which changes the fact it looks like 'global smartpricing' was introduced this month (although today has actually started much better for me than any other day this month...)

[adresanet]

From what I saw in the last days almost all clicks are removed within an hour or two.
It looks like reset the counter every 10 minutes.

[RedBar]

I'm in the UK and get paid in GBP which has depreciated against the US Dollar by more than 6% since December and about half my earnings are from the US therefore, if my US CPC stays more or less the same, then my US earnings ought to be up however my actual US CPC has dropped by just over 12% this month.

What is even more disconcerting is that my current CPC is 64% of last January plus the last two days' CTR have been an epic fail.

What the heck have they done to suddenly turn off my US visitors?

[Mentat]

Last 3 days have been promising, but today is back to the pit.
Saturday CPC is bottom!

I've delayed the ads for 24 h, so I can check the quality.

In the last 2 days I've seen very few NEW ads to approve, no matter the quality!