February 2016 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[RedBar]

January was a mighty rollercoaster for many, surely February won't continue in the same vein?

[kireb]

Nice error message instead of a Adsense ad:

"Error: Server Error"

"The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete"

Don't know whether this a my provider or Adsense.

[systemaddict]

An interesting article about Adsense and the decreasing values:

[baekdal.com...]

[EditorialGuy]

No complaints here. As usual, we're getting the highest RPM on areas of the site that are highly targeted. (Interestingly, CPC bids produce the most revenue, but CPM bids produce the highest RPM.)

[RedBar]

Why is there no red bar? My stats are ridiculous, way, way too low.

[Aniston Dillo]

Since last few months all publishers are facing with their low income. The reason behind is increase the number of publishers at adsense. Because the competition increase among the publisher, we got low RPM,CPC. Moreover google is taking benefit of that situation, they increase their ratio and cut the sharing ratio for publishers which we can see in their recent profit statement, by this only they overcome apple. So the conclusion is that each day with the increase number of publisher we are getting low income and google getting more profit...

[RedBar]

I'm calling yesterday as a data loss day, AdSense PVs nowhere near matched with mine and they usually correlate, however earnings were up to average owing to excellent EPC values from the USA which was fortunate since my click volume was also way down.

I bet today will be dire!

[nubchai]

Yesterday was my best day all year.

[RedBar]

Completely and utterly flat on its back dead for me today ... Hardly any traffic and so few low-valued clicks that they're not even worth having which is surprising since I've just had my best Monday-Friday in months.

AdSense can be sooooo exasperating at times!

[Vader1206]

Today has been the lowest RPM day for me of the month so far.

I feel like nothing is going by CPM anymore.... channels that get a lot of page views are the ones that are making the least money. But I'm not sure CPC is really the thing, either, as days with fewer clicks have made more money than days with more.

Only solid is that it's consistently sucking.

[ember]

Since last few months all publishers are facing with their low income.

Not all publishers.

Moreover google is taking benefit of that situation, they increase their ratio and cut the sharing ratio for publishers

Not true.

[RedBar]

Good grief, 12 hours and so far zero clicks from the USA and UK, WTF?

[frankleeceo]

@Yesterday was my best day all year.

Same here, only by a slightly margin though. Like 1% difference between this year's high.

Hopefully to see higher RPM this coming week as ad campaigns targeting valentine's day come into effect.

[Ironside]

@Red bar how many visitors are you receiving from the UK and the USA? If you're like me then USA visits will far outweigh UK people who visit my website. If you are not getting any clicks from the US or UK then you're probably not getting many visitors from these countries

[nomis5]

I'm not going to repeat the link but the link by systemaddict above entitled

"An interesting article about Adsense and the decreasing values:"

has a whole pile of useful information in it. Thanks for posting it.

[Mentat]

1. Yes, interesting article, but the drop was unnatural.
When you lose 45% on eCPM in one day, you know that is a Google "optimization".

2. Today is the Super Bowl, so the US people will not stay online.

[Aniston Dillo]

Last year my February average RPM is 1.40 $ and for this February average RPM is 0.42 $ bellow 1/3... are we becoming slaves day by day ?

[filbiz]

Yes, interesting article, but the drop was unnatural.
When you lose 45% on eCPM in one day, you know that is a Google "optimization".

I agree. It's unnatural for our eCPM to drop just like that. I know year by year there is going to be a reduction of earnings due to what the article mentions and it should be gradually. It happened on the past my earnings are gradually decreasing but I compensate it by increasing my traffic. But why are other ad networks stable? only adsense behaves like this with a sudden drop in eCPM. In the past there is an economic recession but adsense is not affected much. But now it's like there is a recession. Maybe the recession only applies to adsense publishers.

[EditorialGuy]

Today is the Super Bowl, so the US people will not stay online.

You might be surprised. Every year, we do very well on Super Bowl Sunday (especially with affiliate revenue). My guess: The people in U.S. households who hate football retreat to their computers to read the news, shop, plan trips, etc. while others in their families are glued to the TV.

[Aniston Dillo]

Request to all plz share your average RPM of February till today so that we can compare with each other.. Thanks

[Ironside]

My lowest page RPM so far this month has been £1.30, my highest however is £3.19. My lowest impression RPM has been 37p, my highest 92p.

[Ironside]

I would agree with editorial guy, whereas there are lots of people who follow football, there are probably an equal amount who hate it and will still be on the computer. 99% of my revenue comes from the US so I will post how many visitors I had compared to normal and whether my revenue for today seems to be affected.

[Mentat]

I do not know if it's the SuperBowl or not, but today is grim/dead traffic and payment.

My RPM in February was 2.56 EUR, but today is 2.15 EUR.

[magician]

I think the drop of 8% in CPC as discussed in the article doesn't cover the true picture. It necessarily doesn't mean that the CPCs are decreasing in US or other developed countries. It's the aggregate CPC and as we know internet growth is higher in developing countries where CPCs are lower, it's causing lower aggregate CPC. Also, mobile is causing CPC to drop further but also bring more user time on internet.

I think the more worrisome thing is growth of just 2% in adsense clicks. This is also not because adsense ads are poor or display marketing is dead. I believe it's because there is a drastic change in how we are using internet now. Today, most users are spending more and more time on bigger sites owned by big corporations (google, facebook, twitter, amazon which have their own ad networks) and less and less time on small publisher websites (who use adsense).

We (small publishers) are like mom&pop stores of digital world which are going to be eaten by walmarts of the digital world (unless we keep up with our game). I have seen very poor websites making tons of money in the past but those days are gone and I think most low quality websites will perish in another year or so (even if they have survived till now). Only quality publishers will survive, which in a way is a good thing, but there's going to be a lot of pain.

[EditorialGuy]

Magician, it would be interesting to see statistics for what types of sites have seen the greatest decline in AdSense clicks and revenue. By "types of sites," I don't mean corporate-owned vs. owned by small publishers, I mean niche sites vs. general news and entertainment sites and true information sites vs. sites where "content" is a code word for "filler."

One of the original rationales for search ads (including AdSense ads) was that well-matched ads were a service to the user. For example, if you had a page about making omelettes, an ad for omelette pans or whisks would add value to the page and not just be an annoyance. I often see highly relevant ads on my own pages (not all the time, but enough of the time to be noticeable), and I think Google may be doing a better job of supplying relevant ads to niche sites or pages than it did in the past. Our own site's average CTR is quite a bit better than it was a few years ago, and any increase is Google's doing, not ours.

Also, let's not forget that CTR is only one piece of the puzzle these days. Not so long ago, CPM ads were essentially "backfill" ads. Today, on some sites (such as ours) they produce more revenue and a higher average RPM than pay-per-click ads do. In the end, revenue--not clickthrough rate--is what pays the bills.

[kireb]

My RPM seems to be in a free fall lately. Super Bowl Sunday traditionally gives me a fantastic value per visitor, but this year I am experiencing a record breaking low. Hope it will all bounce back to 'normal' values.

I stay positive cause my traffic is very stable and my visitors loyal.

[Mentat]

I don't know if is wishful thinking or just my need to find a reasonable excuse for this situation ( low traffic and payment) but we have:
- Super Bowl (last night)
- Chinese New Year (Monday and Tuesday)
- Rio Carnival (Monday and Tuesday)
- spring break in some countries
BTW, this is an interesting ad! :(

[i.imgur.com...]

[londrum]

I'm sure another reason for the decline over the long term is the lack of control we have over the ads now. There was a time when you could really fiddle with the colours and the fonts, and the text size, and actually have them stick, but Google seems to be removing all of those options.
The ones that we do still have don't seem to stick 100% of the time.
We used to be able to fine tune the targeting as well, by putting wrappers around our content. getting targeted ads these days is a lot harder.
All this stuff must have an affect on our earnings.
It's more of a one-size-fits all program now, which doesn't work for everyone.

[Aniston Dillo]

@Mentat Yes that ad is varity, I mean advertiser is wasting its own money ! meaning less ads and may be this type of ads are increasing which makes our income down because no one clicks on those (meaning less) ads.

[webcentric]

Not so long ago, CPM ads were essentially "backfill" ads. Today, on some sites (such as ours) they produce more revenue

This is true for me as well. Targeting has become a serious issue (primarily because my main site has topical but diversified content). Still, I'm seeing Adsense CPM as a decent supplement to my other revenue-generating efforts.

[Ironside]

The Super Bowl didn't seem to affect my earnings yesterday in the slightest, not a bad day at all.

By the way, when you guys talk about clawback, are you referring to making back money that you didn't earn the previous day? For instance, if I expect to make £10 each day of the week but I only make £7 one day, then I hope to make £13 the next day to put things back on track again?