June 2015 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[RedBar]

Here we go again!

[trebuchet]

I am not suffering. I come here to sniff the breeze, not to vent. Despite the plunging CTR and a few stinking days, my monthly RPM hasn't fallen below 80% of its average and my monthly earnings haven't changed significantly. My traffic is healthy and most of it comes from desktops, negating the low earnings that seem to plague mobile ads.

I wouldn't advise anyone to get into Adsense unless they are prepared to work exceptionally hard. It's not the money pit it once was. The days of tapping into some high paying niche and earning big bucks with a 20-30 page website are over. The big earning niches are overworked and crowded. It's more about content, traffic and volume than striking gold.

[RedBar]

Ok, newbie observation and question here!

Also, every single ad unit on my site is now responsive.

I went to your site and checked out your 728 x 90 banner ads and, sure enough, when I narrowed the browser window they punched straight through the side however when I looked using a couple of smartphones they were responsive, as you say, and looked fine.

My question is that I have responsive sites and I use a 320 x 100 at the top of articles and a 300 x 250 at the end. When I first did these a year or so ago they were the only ones I was happy with their display however is the 728 x 90 now auto responsive to mobiles?

I ask because I can't see anywhere on the ad units page where it says it is or am I missing something?

Ok, I know I could simply chuck up some code and try it however it seems a bit remiss of G NOT to say it is responsive.

[Ironside]

I create all my websites using Joomla!. So what I do is use special modules that you put your AdSense code in, put them where you want on the page and you can customise your AdSense. I just put mine onto responsive and they seem fine. I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but if you look at a lot of the information on the Internet nowadays, most of it is completely out of date. Most of the information about AdSense layout really doesn't talk about responsive layout. A year or so ago I would embed 336 x 280 units within my text so it wrapped around the units. More than 50% of my visitors are now using mobile devices or tablets, so I don't think it's worth going to the trouble of embedding the units. For the last few months I've been using a very helpful website that lets you test your website on all the different mobile phones and tablets. I have actually doublechecked that they are accurate by asking people who I know own some of these phones, and they are spot on, so what you see is what people are actually using the phones will definitely see.

Assuming that you have embedded the Google analytics code into your website, you can go to Google analytics and watching real-time as people come and go to our website. It will tell you what percentage of them are using mobile devices, desktop or tablets. You can also go in and see which mobile devices they have been using which is extremely helpful. It seems that more people browse my websites from mobile devices than they do desktops or tablets. I get more revenue from the USA, even though I'm in the UK. That's probably because both of my websites are.com. It seems that iPhones are the most popular cell phones. IPads are also very popular. Surprisingly Samsung are well used as well.

So going by the information I have gathered from real-time on Google analytics, I think it's probably worth my while making sure that my ads are definitely showing up on mobile devices properly.

Here is that useful website, it's not a paid website so I don't suppose I'm breaking any regulations by pasting the URL. It's completely free to use, in order for you to get full advantage, you have to create a registration. You can do it through Facebook quite easily and gain access straightaway. All you do then is just put in which website you want to check, you can even check other people's websites if you want.

[mobiletest.me...]

[Ebuzz]

When I first did these a year or so ago they were the only ones I was happy with their display however is the 728 x 90 now auto responsive to mobiles?

As far as I know, if you see the ad unit in the page source code having dimensions of any sort, it means the ad unit is not auto responsive. It's most likely to be a responsive unit. If the space given to it is 728x90, then it fills up that slot and takes up the pixel dimensions (so it may "appear" to be 728x90 on your desktop screen).

year or so ago I would embed 336 x 280 units within my text so it wrapped around the units. More than 50% of my visitors are now using mobile devices or tablets, so I don't think it's worth going to the trouble of embedding the units.

I know what you mean. This was one of the best ways to position the ads - inline with text wrap (floating either left or right). But now with responsive units, the square shape cannot be duplicated on desktop (complete with text wrap) within the content area, unless you add in special CSS code to the Adsense unit. This is permitted by Adsense, but it's complicated for those who are not familiar with CSS, and breakpoints, as well as the specifications of the Adsense code. However, a drawback to this is, you also increase your pageloading speed with all those added CSS rules, even if you know how to modify the ad code to work in this format (inline with text wrapping).

We just lost a very effective ad positioning with the advent of mobile responsive design and browsing on the web. There is very scant info on dealing with this too. I think it's strange that no one is talking about it.

[EditorialGuy]

Experience adsense publishers would be advising a friend to get into this at this point? You would tell them it's a great idea?

That would depend on the site's topic and audience. Still, AdSense ads are like affiliate links: It's easy enough to join the program, test the ads, and decide whether the ad revenue is acceptable.

Also, I'd advise the friend to think of AdSense as a "set and forget" solution. If it works as a source of passive income, great. If not, try something else. But don't let AdSense become a time sink: Focus on building content and traffic instead.

[netmeg]

Also, I'd advise the friend to think of AdSense as a "set and forget" solution.

See now, I'm on the other side of that. I think if I'd set it and forgot it, I wouldn't be doing as well as I am. I put an awful lot of work into it, I also know the Advertising side backwards forwards and sideways, and I test test test everything like a mofo. It's true that most people wouldn't put the time or effort into it that I have (including on niche, content and traffic) but if you really want to succeed with it, I think that's what you have to do. And most of all, you have to *keep up* (with all the changes in AdWords, AdSense, the marketplace, the economy, your competitors, the technology, other marketing channels, etc etc etc) and that can be the hardest thing of all.

All that said, I have always been pushing diversity and moving your eggs around to different baskets. I'd never advise someone just starting out now that they could create a sustainable income stream from AdSense sufficient to support themselves into the future. Cause you don't control it and you never will. I could live off my AdSense if I wanted to, but I don't want to, because you never know. So I kept a handful of consulting clients, and that way I keep my skills up. Because you never know.

[ember]

I actually do live off of my Adsense income but I've been diversifying the last couple of years and now would be okay if Adsense goes away. It can still provide a great income, but I wouldn't put all of my eggs in its one basket.

[EditorialGuy]

See now, I'm on the other side of that. I think if I'd set it and forgot it, I wouldn't be doing as well as I am.

Every site is different. In our case, affiliate links generate more revenue than AdSense does, partly our highest-traffic topics are a perfect match for affiliate revenue. And as a mom-and-pop operation, we have to choose between things that we consider important (like creating new content) and things that are of lesser importance (such as monitoring advertisers for a global audience).

[Mentat]

Back to the topic, for me Saturday is brutal (low)

[OvniSpur]

Just another person here to say my AdSense income has recently been dropping like a stone. My RPM fell from $6.00 to $3.90 over the course of the past month. CTR and CPC are both down, and I haven't been able to find any problems on my end. I'm hoping it's a temporary low ad inventory, but I don't know. I have a high number of impressions, so I don't usually see much fluctuation because everything has an opportunity to even out.

Does anyone have any recommended reading for diagnosing AdSense fluctuations?

[Whatagreatdayitis]

I'm seeing a sudden increase in RPM.

[Ebuzz]

Looks like Adsense has done a lot of cosmetic "improvements" lately. Which does absolutely nothing to improve the program. The most important thing by far and away, the Performance, continues to suck, at a new low level now.

Oh yes, my CTR is pretty "stable" now, adjusting at a new record low after as much as 70% of the clicks that I am supposed to get, fail to "materialize" and I presume this is the aftermath of the major adjustment that they carried out early this year. It's too obvious not to notice.

I am sure everyone has seen the new homepage now, Wow, nice videos about the "success stories", which have been changing for as long as I can remember. I wouldn't want to be featured there even if I was a "success story".

I know Tim Carter from Ask The Builder would have a lot to say about that. In case some you have no idea who I'm talking about, he was part of the first "success stories" featured on Adsense, but after Panda 1.0, his site tanked badly (and I presume he was removed from the "success stories". As we all know, once traffic goes down, Adsense goes down. And now, you need A LOT more traffic if you want to earn the same or more....

[webcentric]

I went to your site and checked out your 728 x 90 banner ads and, sure enough, when I narrowed the browser window they punched straight through the side however when I looked using a couple of smartphones they were responsive, as you say, and looked fine.

The reason for this is that responsive units do not resize when desktop viewport resizes (this has been the case from the beginning). To get the proper ad size after resizing the viewport on desktop, the page has to be reloaded (F5). Responsive units do resize on screen-orientation change (on mobile devices) but changing your browser size on desktop is not the same thing for some reason. Must be a mobile-specific feature. I don't see this as a big issue because (I for one) never look at the Internet on desktop in anything other that a full-size browser window. Changing browser window size while browsing seems a bit useless to me.

[EditorialGuy]

Back to the topic, for me Saturday is brutal (low)

For me, Saturday (yesterday) was a near-record day. Odd, since affiliate sales were more sluggish than usual.

[avalon37]

Responsive CPC prices down significantly for me this month.

[avalon37]

Also, I still don't understand that basically 95% of all the responsive impressions are text ads. My industry is fashion - a huge category of advertisers. Why is no one running image or rich media responsive ads? Or Google just not displaying them? It makes no sense.

[trebuchet]

Terrible couple of days in terms of CTR. Less than half the average and 30% of last June. Higher EPCs have kept RPMs respectable, sort of. People either not clicking ads or (more likely) clicks are not being counted. I would give my first born to know how many clicks are being held back or pruned and on what basis.

[Ebuzz]

Terrible couple of days in terms of CTR. Less than half the average and 30% of last June. Higher EPCs have kept RPMs respectable, sort of. People either not clicking ads or (more likely) clicks are not being counted. I would give my first born to know how many clicks are being held back or pruned and on what basis.

I just don't want to mention that I received some very high paying clicks this month, because I'm simply so much more concerned about this slash of CTR that it is really inconsequential, and I would rather have a much higher CTR than a bunch of high paying clicks.

It's a joke that the new Adsense homepage is probably going to be looking slick and all (they look like they are testing it out now and again and will roll it out soon), because seriously, none of these cosmetic changes matter - at all.

[RedBar]

I do not comprehend the massive daily swings in EPC from the USA this month, the lowest being 48.6% and the highest 235.1%.

Last Thursday was 145.9%
Friday 56.7%
Saturday 129.7%
Sunday 81.1%

It never used to be so variable therefore why now?

[RedBar]

To get the proper ad size after resizing the viewport on desktop, the page has to be reloaded (F5).

Doh! I'm now forgetting more than I've ever learnt:-(

Changing browser window size while browsing seems a bit useless to me.

I do it all the time when testing responsive sites to ensure everything works as designed AND good new, for me at least, I decided to try their responsive code at my page end and it seems to work perfectly from fully-open browser down to mobile-sized on a refresh plus it's working fine on a smartphone.

For me it's too big an ad to have at the top of the screen therefore I'll stick with my 320x100 for the moment. Do they have anything like a 300x100 AdLink?

[Ironside]

Hey guys, because like a lot of people my earnings have been slowly getting worse I decided to move a few ad units around. One of you guys suggested that I put the text link unit above the menu, rather than below it. It seems to have made a bit of a difference, I'm certainly making a little bit more money from this ad unit now. However, what is puzzling me is I'm getting let's say 2000 page views, but only 150 impressions on this particular unit. Now if you compare that with a 728 x 90 banner I have at the bottom of the page, the page views and impressions are corresponding with each other. I don't understand it, this link unit should be visible as soon as somebody opens up the page, whether that's on a desktop, mobile device or tablet. However, they have to scroll to the bottom of the page in order to see the banner. Anyone got any theory on my this is happening.

Have a quick look at the rules and I'm not sure if I am permitted to show you an example by posting a link to one of the pages which has this link unit included on the page. Obviously it would be helpful if you could see what I'm talking about, but hopefully you will get an idea from my message alone.

[Ebuzz]

@Ironside

Link units only count impressions when they are clicked. After getting clicked on, the visitor sees a choice of ads. If those ads get clicked, only you earn something. It is a two step process.

The CTR of link units are always going to be higher than normal ad units.

[Ironside]

Of course, silly me, that makes perfect sense now. With the larger units, they are already advertising without being clicked, the link units are just words that mean nothing unless you click on them, thanks for clarifying that, should have realised that myself.

[webcentric]

I do it all the time when testing responsive sites to ensure everything works

That's the only reason I do it pretty much (CTL + SHIFT + M in Firefox for example). Still have to reload to get proper ad sizes when testing. ;)

[RedBar]

One of you guys suggested that I put the text link unit above the menu, rather than below it.

Be very careful when doing this and get approval from the AdSense team that it's ok and keep the the approving email.

Why? When AdLinks were first introduced them I tried them above my traditional inverted "L" navigation and asked for approval, they said no but to put them below the "L",

Nav Nav Nav Nav Nav Nav Nav
AdLink Adlink AdLink AdLink
Nav
Nav
Nav

Conversely they didn't have any problem on another site when I put the AdLink at the top 90 degree corner of the "L" on the LHS:

Space Nav Nav Nav
AdLink
Nav
Nav

[Whatagreatdayitis]

Has anyone noticed the new ad campaign put out by Mozilla which promotes private browsing?

My CTR is improving to 2.5%. That's a good sign. RPM is getting better. Search results are getting better. Whatever Google is doing, I hope it continues.

[RedBar]

Has anyone noticed the new ad campaign put out by Mozilla which promotes private browsing?

Nope, where and when? I'm in the UK.

Or was it with the recent Firefox update which I never read?!?!

[EditorialGuy]

Yesterday (Sunday) was the best AdSense day we've had in years. I'm wondering if an advertiser somewhere is running a site-targeted campaign for one of our niche subtopics. Or maybe it's just a fluke? It's unrealistic to hope that it will last.

[Whatagreatdayitis]

RedBar -- The ad campaign is showing up on Yahoo and it's very prominent. This bothers me a little bit because the ability to suggest ads based on browsing habits is what Google does, and we as publishers benefit from targeted advertising with higher CTR and a better overall user experience. I could start charging visitors who use my site, but I don't have to because it's largely supported through advertising.

[Ironside]

Even though I've always had link units on my sites, I've really never paid much attention to them, I've always been under the impression that the majority of my money comes from the larger rectangular and banner type ads. However, I recently relocated 200 X 90 link ad and placed it directly above the left-hand menu. It certainly seems to be the best performing ad as of late. Out of 51 impressions at the time of writing this message, I've had 10 clicks, that is a lot more than any other ads. Will be interesting to see what we end up with at the end of the day.

I think I'm going to have a look at some different positions I can put these link ads in, after all you are allowed three alongside the regular AdSense unit so I don't even have to remove any others.