April 2016 AdSense Earnings and Observations

[Mentat]

March 2016 was the first sign that the things could get better, let's see April 2016.
1st of April is not very promising, with -30% revenue vs last week.

[MrSavage]

I appreciate the heads up on the ad review center and seemingly bizarre ad language/country targeting. It's really only in the past few months that I have begun tinkering with it. Years and years I had no need to change things or hope to squeeze water from a stone. I'm squeezing a stone hoping for water? That summarizes my current Adsense experience. I'm about to tidy up bills and expenses to see where things stand. I like to invest time into things that will have some, even small amounts of residual value. This experience has shown me that a lot of what I built has been short term, one night stands, repeated. There is just nothing there.

The daily declines continue. Is anyone who is seeing steep declines still of the mindset that this is somehow going to magically correct itself? Or is that just being in denial considering that Google's ad business is able to flourish while there are declines. Either that or a very small % of publishers are getting slammed.

[Mentat]

Go to your reports -> Advanced Reports -> Ad Types -> Text

In my case, since the arrows are gone, the impressions and the revenue on text ads have decreased by 60%.
I see an increase in payment for other types of ads, but it's not nearly enough to compensate the fall of the text ads.

[RedBar]

this is somehow going to magically correct itself?

I am under absolutely no illusion about that and I have written enough here stating how Google smashed my earnings to pieces by their images theft. They TOOK my work for their profit, period.

Currently I am at 2%, yes two per cent, of my peak earnings, I still make the monthly minimum payout.

Fortunately I do not need AdSense to survive, anyway, how the heck could I when my DAILY earnings, as in 24 hours, are not even the UK minimum HOURLY rate?

One only has to sudy G's financials to see what the're doing.

[Ironside]

When I'm looking in the ad review Centre I can see a bunch of ads of different sizes, these are obviously the ones that have been displayed on my website at some stage. What's the difference between the ones that are showing, and the ones that seem to be greyed out?

[dethfire]

Very poor RPM this morning, I've switched to Amazon CPM with adsense backfill

[Hagal]

I read WebmasterWorld adsense threads for a long time now as it is the only place to understand how other publishers doing with it. I keep seeing whining lately and I just want to say this: Guys, relax!

First of all, it is not the first time Adsense doing it. Anyone remember 2 years ago when publishers had similar problem (nessie update) and it took a month to go back being normal?

Even if it never goes back, there are other ways to monetize your traffic. Adsense is an easy solution, but it is not the best. And even if it was the best, it is crappy right now and that's the reality.

For me, biggest reason of CTR drop was arrows. Arrows returned for a day on Desktop and were gone again. Interesting thing is that I still have them on Tablet and Google doesnt care for some reason.

You can't do much right now, but wait and try something else meanwhile. Depending only on Adsense is like walking on the minefield. You never know when you gonna get blown up.

[jbayabas]

Holy #*$!. Really bad RPM today. Wow. Just wow.

[RedBar]

Guys, relax!

Hahaha ... Fortunately I do not rely on AdSense otherwise I would have been closed 3+ years ago even though I work in a specialised niche.

Really bad RPM today.

Never, ever have I seen an RPM of less than USD 0.30... Never!

It's completely and utterly fubard, for many, not just some.

[netmeg]

No it will never magically come back, because there's not just one single thing to come back. It's a confluence of Google behavior, advertiser behavior, publisher behavior and user behavior.

What's the difference between the ones that are showing, and the ones that seem to be greyed out?

If you view an ad unit in the Review Center and *don't* block it, Google marks it as as "reviewed" and grays it out. If you uncheck the check box that says "Show reviewed ads" then the grayed out ones go away.

[Squarix9]

Netmeg: I know you don't like to talk about your earnings specifics, but just in general: have you noticed a decline in your adsense revenue like others are talking about?

[kireb]

what happened to my RPM today? Very low.

[netmeg]

Yep; way down, same as everyone else. Trying to get off ads altogether by this time next year.

[RedBar]

WooHoo, I have a click from Kyrgyzstan, I know where Kyrgyzstan is since I have a customer there, I must check to see if he has been the ONLY person to click on my sites today, unreal.

I have just gone through 10 pages on one of my sites that has a 728 x 90 leaderboard and a 336 x 280 at the end of each article, every ad slot was filled by the same company, that's ridiculous, 20 ad slots all the same!

[Roman Abramovich]

Excuse me if wrong, but I was always under the impression you should not delete ads and just let Adsense do the work. I thought it was tailored to what visitors have been looking at. For example I may have been looking all day at radio controlled cars, and I then visit your fashion site and am served ads for radio controlled cars. To you this might seem really odd, why on earth am I showing ads for this rubbish, not even related to my site, but really the ads were exactly tailored for me on your site.

Does that make sense.

[RedBar]

IBAs, Interest Based Ads, sometimes they work, I have had some really good paying clicks in the past, however I suspect that most times they don't.

And, of course, the problem is that if you do not delete cookies when closing your browser then they'll be there again tomorrow, and the next day ad infinitum.

[MrSavage]

I'm going to post a somewhat random observation here. Take it for what it's worth. I should also preface by saying I'm going in very aggressively into my ad settings lately in hopes of tweaking the right dial.

So, I did have ad networks enabled. All of them. I turned them off, 100%. For around 2 days following, my earnings were moving like they did in the good 'ol days. Two maybe three days of astonishment. Then things settled, and earnings went directly into the toilet again. However, the difference was extremely dramatic following the turning off of that dial. I may turn back on, then turn off again, just to confirm. Who knows, maybe turning back on will result in those astonishing earnings, at least for a few days. Then I can turn off. Rinse. Repeat. Not sure what's up, but it's was astonishing.

The reason earnings right now are depressing is because it was NOT a gradual decline. If it was gradual then I could be convinced of outside elements. Everyone didn't go to ad blockers over the past few months. The only dial that can have this type of widespread impact is from the mothership themselves. It's just like Panda and Penguin. It did not affect PR and stock value. It did not increase Bing market share. Thus, with things all good and organics in turmoil, just move ahead. Once the experiment passes the revenue/market share test, then it's a done deal imo. That's why for me, Adsense is about the biggest disappointment I've faced, although it's not my one and only and never has been the #1. However the demise of it will in fact cause me to pull out a lot of my passion in this type of investment. Again, it wasn't gradual enough to suggest it was outside issues at hand. It was to me, the hand that gives, taketh away. I'm sure glad that I don't work on the Adsense team. Imagine their morale. Yeah, let's pump it up guys and get those publishers earning more money! Yeah! Hoooo Ah!

[RedBar]

and get those publishers earning more money!

Hahaha...but we didn't and even their own figures tell us so:-(

Unlike what they took .!.!.!

[NickMNS]

@Roman your are correct, leaving the adsense algo to do its work is optimal. Interfering by block ads will have an impact which is impossible to predict and quantify, but the result will be sub-optimal. IMHO the only valid reason for blocking ads is when they are spammy.

@MrSavage the reason that "earnings are depressing" is that display ads on individual websites is falling out favor. The trend is moving towards mobile and ad solutions that are better suited to mobile. eg: Ads in mobiles serps, ads in frequently used apps, amp pages, etc... Well over 50% of my traffic is from mobile but less than 1/3 of my earnings, mobile users do not click on ads at the same rate as desktop users and advertisers know this. Find a content solution that will engage with mobile users and get them clicking and you will see your earning rise, otherwise it is all downhill from here. That is until a sufficient number of web-sites fold and the supply/demand curve realigns.

[Roman Abramovich]

@Nick That doesn't really explain the sudden cut off. If things were as natural as you said regarding mobile etc then lets say a persons earnings from £20 a day would drop to £18, to £14, to £10 etc, a gradual drop as people switch to mobile. One of my sites was on £20 a day and it dropped to £2 a day. My traffic is the same in regards to how it was in January etc. Something has happened, like what @MrSavage said, like how Panda etc works, a click of a switch and all is now different. This was 100% not natural.

[NickMNS]

@Roman your are right it doesn't explain the sudden drop, but remember there are many factors at play, this "sudden" drop started after the holiday season, which generally props up earnings, so the gradual decent may have been muted by this, or by many other factors. I still think that we are currently living Mobileggedon.

[Septimus]

I also experienced a drop in CTR around April 1 to less that a quarter of the pre-April level. The drop only affects desktop; mobile is completely unaffected. The earnings has stayed low ever since, except for a spike April 17-19 where earnings we almost twice the pre-April.

AFAICT the nessie arrows have not gone missing. But what seems to partially explain the drop in CTR is that I show fewer text ads and more rich media ads. In April 32% of impressions were text ads, 43% rich media, 21% image. In March the numbers were 54% text, 28% rich media, 14% image. The CTR for text ads on my site is generally 2-3 times higher as the CTR for rich media ads.

I wonder what has caused this drop in the relative number of text ads being displayed ...

[Mentat]

For those affected since 1st of April, see this:

Go to your reports -> Advanced Reports -> Ad Types -> Text

In my case, since the arrows are gone, the impressions and the revenue on text ads have decreased by 60%.
I see an increase in payment for other types of ads, but it's not nearly enough to compensate the fall of the text ads.

[Roman Abramovich]

@Nick Yeah I do not think it was seasonal, I had one of my strongest months in January, February not so bad, March 5th was when everything went downhill for me. I sometimes wish I could look in my account and see some sort of violation as to explain things, but nothing. I have also not experienced a loss of arrows or anything like that which some others have been reporting.
I have not even changed the position of my ads or anything as I know what works having had Adsense for over 10 years on one of my sites.
Let's face it, things do not just happen like this overnight unless something has been tweaked, tweaked to improve the ROI for Google with little to no care or thought for who it hurts in the process. Similar to all updates they do, there are always thousands who have legitimate businesses who are crushed because of algorithm changes, even when they do everything proper.
Will be interesting to see how things unfold and if any sites recover from this. I do think you're right though, it is some sort of Armageddon, I said it in earlier posts, I do not believe things are ever coming back to normal.

[NickMNS]

@Mentat I just checked my stats and things look stable, but my arrows are showing. They are changing shape and size but they are showing.

@septimus, my text ad impressions have increase from last month.

[netmeg]

Don't forget, external factors don't have to be gradual. One tweak to a mobile browser to reduce or eliminate ads, and boom. (for one example)

[londrum]

I dont know why earnings have dipped so quickly, but i think its a no brainer that google will move away from publishers, if only because of the growing adblocker issue.

Google can afford to buy their way around that, and still show ads on their own sites, but publishers obviously cant, so our importance to them is only going to continue going down

[jbayabas]

I'm worried about your claim that Google is moving away from publishers. I hate to admit it, there is truth to that.

Do we have YouTube earners here? How's your revenue? Are you affected just like others here?

[Squarix9]

jbayabas: There was a youtuber on here a while ago. He said his earnings were down like everyone else's.

[jjoz]

@NickMNS I don't think it can be put down to Mobileggedon. As a mobile developer that uses AdMob/Adsense to monetize, I have seen a similar drop in revenue as described here by web guys. And as @Squarix9 mentioned, youtube earnings are being affected also. What I've noticed is that the CPC has gone down to as little as $0.01 AUD for an Interstitial Video Ad. That drop in CPC occurred overnight. I've been tweaking my ads, and have now removed video interstitial ads as Text and Image ads seem to be paying more (not much more, but more nonetheless). This drop in CPC seems to suggest that there is little competition by advertisers. I must admit I don't know enough about how the advertiser auctioning process works, but I'm of the understanding that the advertisers that pay the most are the ones that are displayed first. Correct me if I'm wrong. If anyone has any details on how the process works, I'd love to hear it.

[NickMNS]

@jjoz this article explains it clearly:
[support.google.com...]