March 2016 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[Mentat]

January and February [webmasterworld.com] have been a disaster for most of us.
I believe that we expect a "Spring miracle" for this month.

[marsradio]

@Avalon: Here's my hand raised...And if it were in front of Google, I'd probably have only one finger standing tall.

[kireb]

I've had 4 days with an RPM just over 2 dollars, which is a slight improvement but not even close to last years' March RPM.

[RedBar]

My last two days' USA click volume has been an absolute joke contributing only 19% to overall earnings whereas until 20th March the USA has made 50.5% ... For me when France out-performs the USA something is fubard again ... Dire days indeed.

[jbayabas]

I'm happy that the other network is matching my adsense earning. So my total earning is somewhat livable.

[Whatagreatdayitis]

I think the decrease in revenue is attributable to many factors--in addition to whatever failings may exist at Google. The rise of mobile devices, mobile apps, ad blockers, ad blindness, and websites that haven't adapted to ongoing change all contribute to this decline. The speed of the decline is a little shocking. I kind of knew the day would come when people stopped clicking. I mean, who really clicks on an ad? I rarely do, but if just two to three percent of your visitors click, you'll do alright. Sites that require subscriptions seem to be doing well. I subscribe to five different online services; however, those subscriptions are all dependent on my ad revenue. The dominoes will fall.

The Adsense revenue collapse feels vaguely similar to the tech stock bubble of the late 90s, if anyone here was around to enjoy the rise and fall of the dot-coms. That was a good ride.

[MrSavage]

No improvement on my end. I am now embarking on ad removal, which means 1 ad each page. Net something mentioned having some decent results lately with some ad removal. Maybe I won't show blank space if I take this measure. Call me stupid but if option A is a slow death (little uprising) vs. option B an immediate death (worse PR), I think option A is a more wise choice. I have to theorize at this point. Slow declines with no communication and making earnings dreadful will have people move on and slowly adjust with perhaps less anger than just receiving a pink slip. I just don't think Google could drop publishers without there being widespread PR issues. How could they dial things back without an uproar? This.

[JustForAdsense]

It is absolutely something with Google. Guaranteed. Our earnings collectively tanked and we're obviously all in different niches. I'm in a very stable niche and I know advertisers are paying noticeably more than my current "68%" to display on my pages. This was far too imminent and widespread to even try to throw any blame towards adblock users, etc. They've been an issue & will continue to be an issue over time, but this - again - was far too drastic and widespread; across the board.

[Mentat]

The movement should be gradual, but is not!

On my sites, the CTR was stable since 1st of January ~ 1.1% , CTR 60% of normal, but since this Monday my CTR is constant 0.9%

This non-communication is nerve-wracking.

[EditorialGuy]

To suggest publishers who are seeing revenue declines are in the minority is "out of touch".

Avaon37, I'm not suggesting that publishers who are seeing revenue declines are in the minority or in the majority. I have no way of knowing, and neither do other members of this forum.

I'm simply saying that, if AdSense is no longer working for you, insisting that your personal experience is universal won't solve your problem.

[avalon37]

EditorialGuy, I don't believe my personal experience is just that - "my personal experience". I believe it is representative of the whole/statistically significant. Congrats that you've not seen a noticeable decline in CTR and RPM - assuming that I believe you. Time for a show of hands if you are up, down, same.

[MrSavage]

I've seen one reputable poll from about a year ago (a few people here are so eager to dismiss such a poll). I would say 20% or less were as good or better than previously. Google isn't stupid enough to kill off 100% or 90%. They still need skin in the game and they need their advocates on forums, comment sections, etc, to dispel myths out there. I've seen this with my own eyes in fact! It's PR and keeping big voices happy is about the only key. The big voices can speak of the promised land. Those big voices can advise their family memebers and best friends to start websites that rely on Adsense because afterall, it's wonderful in 2016.

I still hold out some hope (diminishing by the day) that this is a temporary situation. I'm not investing more time in Adsense reliant sites until I see or hear something promising.

[ken_b]

I just checked my stats. I'm about 3% up from last year at the same date. What I have noticed is that CTR is down a bit, but EPC is up enough to make up the difference over a longer term.

Short term fluctuations can look scary at times, but over the longer term it seems to have worked out well enough for me.

That said, my earnings are well down from the pre-Panda/Penquin peak, but that's a traffic volume issue and has nothing to do with AdSense.

Still for a site mostly running on auto pilot I sure can't complain.

.

[EditorialGuy]

I don't believe my personal experience is just that - "my personal experience". I believe it is representative of the whole/statistically significant.

You're simply guessing, but even if you're right, so what? AdSense isn't working for you, and venting won't pay the bills.

Change happens. Half a dozen years ago, we had a rep firm that was routinely bringing in CPMs in the double digits for display ads. Nowadays, ads that once were sold over three-martini lunches are being sold via programmatic media buying, and rates have suffered as a result. What have we done? We've adapted, putting more emphasis on affiliate sales (which are doing extremely well for us) and relying on advertising--more specifically, on AdSense--as a secondary revenue source.

Bottom line: If a revenue source is no longer productive for you, the best solution is to find a more profitable alternative.

[avalon37]

EditorialGuy, this is the March 2016 AdSense Earnings and Observations thread. Feel free to go ahead and start an AdSense/Publisher optimization thread or Self Help thread.

[Roman Abramovich]

For anyone interested here's my story and why it's not us, and Adsense must be totally screwed up. I get around 3000 unique visitors to my website each day, this has been consistent over the past 7 years or so, AND IMPORTANTLY remains still the same, traffic is good, no problem here.
For the past 7 years I have been earning on avg £10 - £30 a day with Adsense, sometimes with traffic spikes up to £60, but on avg £10 - £30. This all changed from January 2016, my earnings dropped to around £5 a day, I thought OK, at least it's not traffic related, must be advertisers not spending, and things will pick up again. February dropped to around £3 a day, same as above, traffic to site strong.
March it dropped to around £1 - £2 a day, and some days I experienced for the first time in years no actual clicks!
Throughout all this I have made no changes to my ads, and traffic is good so I think something is seriously broken.
I got my last payment this month and have now removed all adsense ads until I find out what has happened.
Something must be wrong, and I have no idea what it is, so happy I found this place. Will keep an eye out to see if something changes in future, but I am not giving Google advertising space when I am clearly being cheated.
I also find it suspicious that they post a dodgy article on what to do if your earnings are low at this time. All the usual #*$! about seasonal etc, we know how our earnings work, they must think we are all stupid.
I also know about the changes they made to Adwords on their results pages, but that is not going to do this to Adsense in such a sudden way. I am still seeing top companies in my results who have been advertising on my sites for years, so nothing on the outside appears to have changed apart from the revenue, and numbers of clicks seem really really dodgy.

[RedBar]

putting more emphasis on affiliate sales

I wonder how many website subjects have suitable, or even any, affiliate sales opportunities? Certainly not mine and I'm guessing possibly many more.

[breeks]

I think it's time for an Adsense Publishers Group Hug :)

[EditorialGuy]

I wonder how many website subjects have suitable, or even any, affiliate sales opportunities? Certainly not mine and I'm guessing possibly many more.

Affiliate revenues are just one possibility. My point is simply that, if AdSense isn't working, try to find something that does. You aren't going to find salvation in a monthly-update thread.

[Whatagreatdayitis]

Abramovich -- Have you ever considered using Adwords to drive traffic to your site? I've been noticing lately that Adsense is promoting Adwords in the Optimization tab. Here it is:

How can Google help you improve your website traffic?

Use the Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide to improve your website performance through search.

Use Google Search Console to optimize your website structure and search engine friendliness.

Use AdWords to increase site traffic.

There once was a time when a publisher was accused of arbitrage for using Adwords to drive traffic to a website, but now they are actively promoting it.

[Roman Abramovich]

@whatagreatdayitis I have no interest in using Adwords, I personally am not a fan of it, never have been. I just focus on writing content which gets shared, has stood the test of time for me. Again though, traffic is not an issue and why Adsense is dead, something else has happened, and it happened directly from the start of 2016. I would understand why my earnings gradually dropped if my traffic gradually dropped to nothing, my traffic is the exact same as it has been for a long time, so something has happened behind the scenes for sure.

[Rasputin]

There is no way a site making £20 or less from 3000 visitors could ever make money from adwords arbitrage, in fact its almost impossible for pretty much all information sites, whether google promote the idea or not, the sums just dont add up.

That's quite a scary story roman, I hope you find an answer. Is your traffic worldwide or very local specific?

[Roman Abramovich]

@raputin 80% of my traffic is UK based and the rest mainly from the USA. There is not much I can do other than what I have done, take the ads away until I set in place other things. Thankfully I have experience in affiliate marketing, so even though it will be quite time consuming, I will put this time to setting up the proper banners and stuff on pages. It surely will not be worse than what I am earning now with Adsense. Who knows, this may end up being a positive thing and then I will wonder why I never did it years ago. Wishful thinking, but got to try :)

[Roman Abramovich]

* I wanted to add. This might be irrelevant, but throughout this shady period, has anyone noticed that the colour they set their ads to were overridden when in Chrome. The problem was not on any other browser, just chrome. So for example if you set your ads to say black text with a green arrow, it would show for this on all browsers, but on Chrome it would show as black with a blue arrow. I found this quite odd and nothing I have experienced before.

[RedBar]

You aren't going to find salvation in a monthly-update thread.

I agree however many types of websites simply do not have alternatives to AdSense style advertising unlike say, all the global sectors of the travel industry, which have many different parts and mostly with cut-off dates whereas in many industries, like my own, this simply doesn't happen.

Actually this could make a very interesting thread if, and it may be a big if, there actually are viable alternatives out there yet obviously unknown to some of us.

Of course for many they'd need to be global alternatives, not just for USA and Canadian audiences.

[nomis5]

Time for a show of hands if you are up, down, same

Up.

And remember this, those who are suffering are always more liable to post. Fact of life.

[jbayabas]

Somewhat good today and the last 2 days. I dread the weekends. Ugh!

[kireb]

After a couple of days of 'reasonable' RPM, it's tanked again today. US pay per 1000 is bad a joke today.

[koan]

It tanked for me also today. Sometimes you have a bad CTR day, other times you have a bad CPC day, but when those two happen together.. the result is ugly.

[Mentat]

Easter weekend is near...

[trebuchet]

Hopefully Good Friday is better than Horrendous Wednesday. Appalling on all fronts, particularly US CTR/RPM.

What is going on stateside? Is nobody advertising? Or are all the paying ads being funnelled off to Google web properties and/or elite publishers?