November 2015 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[RedBar]

Good luck!

[Juniya]

November has been the most 'unstable' month so far for sure in terms of earnings via RPM etc. I think for sure though over the weekend, some earnings were affected because of the "terrorist" attacks.

[Mentat]

Well, since Halloween something is changed.
Both # of clicks and CPC are going down dramatically.

This weekend was the lowest point.

Now I'm praying for a "red bar".

[KaseyM]

Seemed to have recovered a bit this month and looks to be on the up.

I also got some new networks on board. We've got Criteo falling back to Sovrn and Sovrn falling back to Adsense. Working well for us.

[themoabird]

@KaseyM - Be careful about falling back to Adsense from Sovrn if you're using the default async option. I was told explicitly by a Google representative that that wasn't allowed, because Sovrn load their async ads in an IFrame. (I don't know whether that's true, but it is what the Google rep said...).

[netmeg]

I hadn't heard that about the SOVRN ads - can someone confirm?

[themoabird]

@Netmeg Under-counting impressions? Or losing them having previously counted them? Or something else to look out for?

[nubchai]

SOVRN addresses Google and IFrames here: [sovrn.com...]

[themoabird]

@Nubchai - Trouble is that blog post isn't entirely clear. It looks like their solution to the IFrames thing is simply to offer a non-IFrames option with the Synchronous tag...

[sovrn.desk.com...]

(It's possible that FAQ is out of date, but I couldn't get a clear answer from their support people about this issue, so I don't passback to Adsense via the Asynchronous tag - better safe than sorry.)

[netmeg]

@Netmeg Under-counting impressions? Or losing them having previously counted them? Or something else to look out for?

No, I misspoke; it was another network, not SOVRN that I had all the trouble with, that's why I removed what I wrote.

My only issue with SOVRN was that I could never get the fill rate above 65 or 70%, and that was unacceptable.

[KaseyM]

We pass back through the synchronous tag as per the FAQ suggestion. They said they have a lot of publishers doing that same thing all with a clean record.

Yeah the fill rate is lower on these networks which is why it's key to keep passing it down.

[guyfromars]

YoYo, Wrost RPM AGAIN this month, this is going Nowhere....

[Mentat]

It's like today is a big US Holiday... horrible payment.
50% CPC! Incredible!

[magician]

For us, CPC and CTR has been abysmal since Oct beginning and is continuing in Nov as well.

[frankleeceo]

this month's rpm is about 10% higher than october.

[Ironside]

Not sure what happened yesterday, payment was about half of what I normally get in a day. Today doesn't look much better. However, it's still early in the US so hopefully we have a good 12 hours to make up some money.

[Ironside]

How is everyone else getting on today? Yesterday was very disappointing, today looks like it's going the same way.

[nektotigra]

Today looks disastrous so far. RPM is about 10% of monthly average, still not a single click from US or UK visitors.

[MrSavage]

I had a few days of hope but holy smokes things have gone bad. Real bad. I'm really quite flabbergasted at this. Overall earnings are so pitiful for me these days. My other revenue sources have replaced this but I really do wonder what the heck happened. The ads must be complete trash because nobody wants to click them. Obviously.

[Ebuzz]

Don't let the good days fool you. It's common this year to have fluctuations of several hundred percent. Record low days, mostly poor days, and a few good days which can be many times the record low days.

In all my years with Adsense, I've never seen such instability except at the beginning when starting out. And that was a very long time ago.

To me it's clear Adsense has changed. A very significant negative change.

[Bobb11]

Today is CPC is low. Everything is low. And in creating adsense AD i have some problem. I dont see any review when i create new ad block and changing color of text...Have you same problem?

[RedBar]

Friday's clicks 20% more than Thursday yet more than double the earnings and my best day of the month, go figure.

[EditorialGuy]

To me it's clear Adsense has changed. A very significant negative change.

it isn't AdSense that's changed so much as it is the world that's changed.

Programmatic media buying, the growth in mobile, and the popularity of ad blockers (especially for mobile) are just three obvious reasons why the AdSense of today isn't the easy-to-ride gravy train that it was in 2003 or 2004.

For that matter, advertising revenue is tougher to earn in general than it was not so many years ago. Back in 2010 and 2010, our rep firm was begging for inventory on [topic] that it could sell for CPMs in the $20 range. That rep firm is now out of business.

[Yayabobi]

it isn't AdSense that's changed so much as it is the world that's changed.

Programmatic media buying, the growth in mobile, and the popularity of ad blockers (especially for mobile) are just three obvious reasons why the AdSense of today isn't the easy-to-ride gravy train that it was in 2003 or 2004.

Very well put. I would also add publisher coalitions, facebook (cause it is a competitor for ad budgets), smart pricing, and banner blindness to your equation. The modern publisher needs to be savvy, sophisticated, and super committed to their monetization, user experience, and generating quality content. If you can find the balance between the three you will succeed.

Otherwise, you should probably try arbitrage tactics to keep making good money (no judgement here).

[Ironside]

I am absolutely convinced that there is a connection between the increased use of mobile devices and our drop in earnings. The more smartphones advance the more people will use them to access the Internet. Unless Google themselves address this then I just don't see how earnings can ever do anything but drop. Maybe AdSense has had its day? Maybe something else is in the pipeline, something that will be made specifically for mobile devices. After all, I suppose AdSense has brought in billions of dollars for Google, they're going to want to keep people happy so the money keeps coming in, or one would hope very would have that attitude.

[avalon37]

Advertisers are much smarter today. Facebook is cutting into Adwords. Google's search partner and display network has always been a pretty poor ROI for advertisers. I mean I'd guess 75% of everyone here is proficient at Adwords right? Do you spend any of your own money on search partners or the display network? Adwords is feeling the pinch and see's the future and they are crapping their pants with what Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc have in terms of advertising potential...things are only starting for them. I got a call from my Adwords account manager pitching search partners because of that miniscule deal with Yahoo. And who in the world wants more Yahoo traffic anyway? AdSense is only going downhill - the targeting and ad experience is bush league compared to Facebook and emerging platforms. They know it. YouTube is Google's future for display. I predict in the not too distant future that Google will fold AdSense into YouTube. Ever notice when you login logout of AdSense the URL is "accounts.youtube.com"? AdSense as a brand is barely holding on folks.

[Ironside]

It makes sense for Google to concentrate on making money from YouTube, after all you'll probably find more people are using YouTube on a daily basis than searching Google itself. They are going to want to put advertising where they know people are spending a lot of time. I read somewhere that the family who uploaded that video called "Charlie bit my finger" have made something like £100,000 from the video, that's probably down to advertising on the page. I bet that Gangnam Style video has made over $1 million through on page advertising for its owner

[londrum]

adsense has other benefits for google too, like allowing them to get data on users. that's worth money as well. every website with adsense on it, is another way for them to have eyes on what people really like. if you take that away, then presumably their targeting gets a little bit worse on their own properties.

[ember]

RPM is up for me this month. EPC is increasing, which means that advertisers are bidding more, not less on the Adwords display network. Pageviews down a bit, but that is seasonal. Not everyone is doom and gloom about Adsense. Depends on your niche, traffic quality, etc.

I mean I'd guess 75% of everyone here is proficient at Adwords right?

Doubtful.

[EditorialGuy]

Not everyone is doom and gloom about Adsense. Depends on your niche, traffic quality, etc.

When people ask me if they should put AdSense ads on their sites or blogs, I usually tell them that AdSense is likely to work best if their visitors are researching purchases. The person who's looking for a chicken coop, bakery equipment, or a cruise to the South Pacific is more likely to click on a relevant ad than someone who's reading about a police shooting in Ferguson, Donald Trump's latest utterances, or Kim Kardashian's hip size.

Some topics or types of content are simply harder to "monetize" than others are.

[RedBar]

Since the Friday 13th terrorist attacks I have seen my 4th, 5th and 10th lowest PVs of 2015.

Anyone else?