The Reason Why My CTR Dropped from 3.3% to 0.5%

[Adsensory]

Hello,

So a few days ago I posted about my CTR randomly dropping from a steady 3.3% for the past few months to a sudden 0.5% CTR. This had cut my earnings by more than 75%. I have tried diagnosing the problem with analytics but didn't notice anything unordinary. The session times, page views, and return users all remained constant except for this CTR! So after contacting a few Adsense publishers and I'd realized that mobile ads on my posts needed to be double clicked in order to register or count as an ad click. So viewers who click the on the text ad will be prompted with a "view site" yes or no. I was told that these new ads would only last a few days before reverting to the regular one click ads. Apparently these ads are only for mobile and it was Googles attempt to filter miss-clicks on mobile devices which makes sense. But 95% of my traffic comes from mobile and this is very bad for my business. Does anyone have anymore information on these types of ads? Will they stay like this permanently?

Thank you (:

[anefarious1]

Hello Adsensory,
Over the last couple of days I have experienced a similar drop in income and on Sunday my CTR for mobile dropped substantially for me. I'm in the same boat in that a big chuck of my traffic is mobile. I was not aware of this new requirement to double click on ads! Can anyone else confirm this? I have been searching for answers as well.

[jpch]

The most recent ad on mobile that I clicked on this morning was still one click. Maybe it's just something they're testing?

[netmeg]

Are you the one using the "affiliate program" to encourage clicks to your site?

[Adsensory]

views not clicks, and yeah could that have something to do with it?

[ember]

could that have something to do with it?

That has everything to do with it. Google is not trusting your traffic and apparently making your users click twice, although I've never heard of that before except on ad links.

I was told that these new ads would only last a few days before reverting to the regular one click ads

Who told you that? Have you actually talked to Google support?

[netmeg]

Since you probably have some CPM ads (we all do), you could be in violation of TOS.

[Adsensory]

This has happened to multiple people I know of and none of us are in violation of any terms. Perhaps because I've been making too much money and Google isn't making enough money off of my clicks.

[netmeg]

Yes, that's probably it.

[ember]

Perhaps because I've been making too much money and Google isn't making enough money off of my clicks.

You really don't want to accept that it is most likely your traffic that's the problem, do you?

I wish you luck.