November 2015 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[RedBar]

Good luck!

[nubchai]

Let the games begin.....

[Chronos Slayer]

Doesn't looking so good so far today, but lets see. I thought Q4 would be a good Q but guess not.

[RedBar]

If the last few days are anything to go by I shall not be able to make the minimum this month, not even a small daily beer now, total failure G, nothing less.

[eek2121]

October was a record setting month for me. Hoping November will bring the same.

Goals: Raise revenue even more by making more content. I've been slacking...didn't realize it until last month. only made as half as much content as last year. Part of this is due to moving halfway across the country. I need to grow my traffic. Also, build up my youtube presence more. Adsense is great, but those Red dollars are going to be amazing.

[trebuchet]

Nothing to report here. October was average from start to finish, and the first day of November was the same. I'm contented rather than ecstatic or miserable. Clawback at the end of October was only 1.5%, which is (you guessed it) average.

[netmeg]

Meh. This is typically my lowest earning month so this is typically the month I devote to planning for next year. My expectations are managed.

[frankleeceo]

November first and today seemed to have a slow start. Hope it picks up later in the month.

My clawback for october is a bit higher than usual at 2.5%. Probably because I played around with site layout in the month that induced some accidental clicks from long time site users.

[regiborg]

rpm for day of today is of 0,11,the same crap

[LuckyD]

November 1st spiked 20% up for me. Netmeg, I was always under the impression that November RPMs should go up in preparation for the holiday season. I work both the publisher and advertiser side, and by CPMs reflect that as well.

[netmeg]

Netmeg, I was always under the impression that November RPMs should go up in preparation for the holiday season. I work both the publisher and advertiser side, and by CPMs reflect that as well.

Yea but I'm not in that particular holiday. I won't have a really decent day again until New Year's Eve.

[ember]

November 1-2 were outstanding. High epc. Today back to normal.

[avalon37]

Been seeing ad serving issues starting yesterday - appears to be isolated to mobile. Ads not showing or taking forever to load. Come on Google, the tinkering should have ended by September.

[Sillysoft]

Got the red bar on report page. Hopefully that means a lot still hasnt reported because otherwise having a pretty bad day.

[Ironside]

Sunday and Monday were also very good, Monday in particular, probably the best day in a month. Today has really been slow, I've now got the red bar as well. Hopefully earnings will recover later

[Yayabobi]

Does anyone do anything different this month? Or in general? Do you change u your page setup...try new things or just wait to see what happens?

[People Publisher]

October was very bad, now its good going rpm around 0.60 , CTR is above one.....

[nomis5]

Does anyone do anything different this month? Or in general? Do you change u your page setup...try new things or just wait to see what happens?

Yes, November and December are the two lowest months for my main site. Currently I'm going through each page, starting with the most visited, and:

1. Adding code to display my own non-Adsense ads if the normal ones are blocked.

2. Optimising each page for size, especially image size because the site is image intensive.

3. Adding or deleting ads so that the number and placement fit my newly created criteria.

4. Moving ads around to maximise their chance of being viewed. I'm not trying out new ad formats, that has always failed for me.

5. Reading each page, correcting grammar, improving expression and general updates to reflect any new information.

6. When I research new information, I'm filling away in the back of my head who and what the competition is. An excel spreadsheet I started to create a couple of months ago recording changes in the ranking of competitor sites has clearly shown to me that two sites manage to stabilise their page view numbers in the "dead" months. They do this in complete contrast to the other major sites in my niche. I keep trying to analyse and think about how they do that.

I can't do all the pages in one month but I'm going to do as many as I can.

I did take two days out in mid-October to specify exactly what I would do when I revisited each page in November / December. Those two days have enabled me to concentrate my efforts in areas I believe are worthwhile without getting side-tracked - a particular weakness in the way I normally work.

[Yayabobi]

Wow nomis5. Very impressive and professional way to work with AdSense. Many are under the impression that adsense is a "passive" income stream. Just place a snippet on your page and watch the money roll in. What kind of lift (in percentages not absolute numbers) do you get from your operations? Can you quantify it? Do you do this kind of optimization every month or just during your weaker periods?

Thanks for the thoughtful answer.

[Yayabobi]

Also @nomis5. Won't doing #1 put you in risk of getting banned by adsense if you run advertisers that aren't adsense compliant.

[Kaszinky]

I have a classical page layout, with a leaderboard on top and square ad on the top right of pages.The code for this square ad is therefor near the end of the HTML code. However, for an unknown reason the leaderboard shows 25% active views whereas the square ad is at 70%. I am not explaining this difference. Scrolling and skipping the display of the leaderboard; can't lead to such big difference. Until last September, the leaderboard was the higher source of revenue by far, now it earns only cents. Nothing has change on my site, or in my traffic, and when I visit my site from different IP, ads are being showing normally.

So to answer Yayabobi, this month, I am getting ride of the leaderboard ad will keep only one 300x250 square ad. And see what is going on. I'll certainly get a recommendation from Adsense showing immediately, that I should put more ads to earn more...

[RedBar]

Shouldn't we be having a red bar again?

Google's metrics are way out compared to my actual numbers, of course earnings will be way down again.

[breeks]

Trying to improve Adsense earnings is like flogging a dead horse. No amount of tinkering will ever get this horse to move again.

[EditorialGuy]

What Trebuchet said. It was a typical October for us. Not bad, not stupendous, but okay for this time of year.

[RedBar]

No amount of tinkering will ever get this horse to move again.

Unfortunately I have to agree, some industries have moved on from this type of advertising since it clearly does not work for them however I can see that some are perfectly suited for AdSense ... 'tis a pity my widgets are not any more.

[magician]

Seeing lot of google ads today, primarily google adwords :(

[nomis5]

Also @nomis5. Won't doing #1 put you in risk of getting banned by adsense if you run advertisers that aren't adsense compliant.

As far as I am aware that is totally within Adsense TOS.

I would really listen if you could quote your source that it is not compliant.

Remember, those alternate ads will only be shown on pages where Adsense doesn't appear,

Even so, they would, as far as I know, be entirely Adsense compliant even with other Adsense ads.

More information would be appreciated to back up your point.

[EditorialGuy]

Many are under the impression that adsense is a "passive" income stream. Just place a snippet on your page and watch the money roll in.

Yep. That's how it's always worked for us, and it sure beats trying to second-guess Google and the marketplace. (I do block categories that don't meet our advertising standards, but that's it.

A couple of thoughts:

1) I wonder how many AdSense publishers shoot themselves in the feet by not leaving well enough alone. (To quote an old expression, "A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.")

2) I suspect that a lot of the unhappiness about AdSense is misplaced unhappiness about the growth in mobile and the resulting decline in EPC., CTR, and revenue on sites that have seen their audiences migrate from desktop PCs, laptops, and tablets to smartphones.

[nomis5]

What kind of lift (in percentages not absolute numbers) do you get from your operations? Can you quantify it?

I can attempt to quantify some elements of what I said. Previously I had a similar site where I unintentionally drifted into serving a large number of affiliate ads - the type of"alternate" ads I mention above. Those I served alongside Adsense ads for several years without any problems. Certainly nothing that broke the Adsense TOS. At the point I sold the website I estimate that that the affiliate ads were about 35 - 40% of my total income, the other 60 - 65% coming from a mix of Adsense and other similar ads.

I see no reason that I can't do the same again and with a bit more effort increase the % earnings from affiliate ads. I am about 3 months into the exercise and expect it to take around another 15 months to get to that point. To date it is working to plan.

The "tinkering" with Adsense might get me a small increase but that is not the real objective of the exercise. I don't expect any significant increase from Adsense on a page by page basis any more. Possibly even a decrease caused by adblockers.

[Yayabobi]

As far as I am aware that is totally within Adsense TOS.

I would really listen if you could quote your source that it is not compliant.

Remember, those alternate ads will only be shown on pages where Adsense doesn't appear,

Even so, they would, as far as I know, be entirely Adsense compliant even with other Adsense ads.

More information would be appreciated to back up your point.

I may have misunderstood. Are you not serving these ads through the adsense tag?