October 2016 AdSense Earnings & Observations

What has this month got in store for us?

[Ironside]

I might as well kick this month's thread of then.

Not a brilliant start to October, but it could be worse. Like I've said before, you just don't know where you stand these days with AdSense.

I don't even think there's any point in me making changes to my layout, I had a good September with my present layout.

[trebuchet]

If mobile RPMs was on par with desktop I doubt there would be much discussion about lower earnings.

Well would be from me. My desktop RPM has slumped this year. It was healthy in 2013, dropped by 10% in 2014 and remained static in 2015. So far this year it's down by more than 30%.

I can trace most of that to a tumbling CTR. What was a paid-out click in previous years is not a click in 2016. EPC has fallen some but not enough to explain losing nearly $2 off my desktop RPM.

Add growing mobile traffic to that recipe and it looks even more disastrous.

[Maximum44]

Our mobile RPM is 1/3 of desktop and we have 60% mobile traffic. Mobile RPM have always been about 1/3 for us. Main difference for us is the increase in mobile traffic. If only mobile had the same RPM as desktop.. :D

[Maximum44]

People just do not click as much on their cell as they do on their computers!

[magician]

People just do not click as much on their cell as they do on their computers!

I differ. For us, CTR is almost same on mobile as on desktop. It is CPC which is significant less on mobile. It may be because mobile traffic don't convert as easily as desktop traffic for advertisers.

[Maximum44]

Opposite for us! Better CPC but CTR is not that good.

[Ironside]

Most of my page views and impressions now come from high-end mobile devices. However, when I look at the figures, desktop is still paying more. So far this month I have had just over 200 clicks on mobile devices and 38 clicks on the desktop. My earnings are just over three times more on the high-end mobile device. The page RPM and impression RPM are almost identical when looking today. What is quite surprising is my page RPM on tablets is £4.46 and the impression RPM is £1.74. Earnings are just behind the desktop. But I put that down to knowledge many people using the tablet. But I think if a lot of people started views tablets to browse my website, I would do really well.

[iamlost]

Rasputin:
...people who are still doing OK (or even very well for some, I imagine) tend not to post here because they don't want to sound like they are showing off when it is clear lots of people are earning less, and also because they don't have a problem they want to discuss.
As a result you are not seeing a representative sample in these threads and it is not easy to know in % terms whether most publishers are doing better or worse than a few years ago.

I'm probably not 'a representative sample' and I certainly don't want to sound like I'm showing off, however just so you know that the shared doom and gloom in this thread - it is obviously regrettably real and chronic for a significant group - is but a trailing edge of the AdSense publisher graph.

It is critical to remember that things can vary greatly by niche and site and location and competition and what have you. For my sites, all sort of within one overarching vertical niche (none in the 'highest paying'):
* for the past several years mobile RPM has been at a ~6% rate growth premium over desktop.
---it currently (on average) is almost a third premium over desktop.

* currently (on average) smartphone CTR is ~120% higher than desktop (yes that is right: double plus a fifth), ~60% higher on tablet than desktop.
Note: sometimes volume makes a positive difference.

* however, the mobile breakout is not close to even; in order of ad publisher value:
---iOS app (growing YoY at ~3-times Android rate) ads,
---Android app ads,
---smart phone browser ads,
---and bringing up the rear (at ~1/3 discount from smart phone ads) tablet browser ads.
Note: I do not display third party ads in my apps.

I'm one of those fortunate people who have done and continue to do well with AdSense even as I've phased it out (from 90% of pages to 10%) for direct ad space sales. Why? No secret sauce, just a good business model, a solid business plan, and a whole lot of work over the years.

Reference Note: in my niches third party advertising networks are currently paying at a minimum 80% discount from direct ad space rates; put the other way: direct ad space on mobile is selling at a minimum 5-times third party ad network rates. Some more than double that.
Note: this is one reason that I don't have AdSense in my apps; it does make good defaults/filler for browser pages though.

Thought: it would be interesting to chart the correlation between niche AdSense rates and direct ad sale rates, I have noticed that the more advertisers are willing to pay directly the more I've been making via AdSense RPM. If there is a causal link then doing whatever it takes in your niche/location to become attractive (quality of site and visitors) to direct ad space buyers could be a win (significant new revenue) win (significant AdSense revenue increase) situation well worth the effort.

[Maximum44]

We had two pretty decent days in a row now. Adsense should have their reports interrupted more often :D

I just hope it sticks, we'll see...

[Ironside]

@Iamlost did you do any radical changes to accommodate mobile traffic? Two or three years ago I was doing really well. However, in those days most of my traffic came from desktop. The two biggest earning units were both around 336 x 280 and were placed at the top of the content and at the very end of the article. Within what seem to be a very sure space of time, these units started performing very poorly. The only unit that really does well for me now is a 300 x 600 unit placed in the left-hand column above my menus. The next best performing ads I have are on my forum, but they don't come anywhere near as close to earning as much as 300 x 600.

Like you, if I could get more traffic on the desktop and tablets, the earnings would be a lot more. But how do you encourage people to visit from a desktop rather than a mobile?

[Maximum44]

They brought back the old style ads. Atleast for us! Title coloring here we come! :D

Update:

As soon as i mentioned it i see the new style as well now. They must still be experimenting.

[Ironside]

99% of the time my ads show images rather than text ads. Mind you, I don't know other people are seeing

[NickMNS]

@Ironside is that fact, or perception? What does your Adsense report -> performance reports / advanced reports / ad types?

[Edge]

They brought back the old style ads. At least for us! Title coloring here we come! :D

Here too. Revenue is up, ad targeting is way better let's hope this holds..

[Ironside]

Very interesting Nick, I've never seen this before, thanks for pointing it out.

It actually makes for very interesting reading. Going by last month's report, rich media made me the most money with text not far behind. So what exactly is rich media? Rich media gave me 646 clicks with 447 clicks from text. Text was about £25 behind rich media.

I'm guessing that it's the size of my ads that are causing the rich media to show? My top earning ads are the 300 x 600 ad units which obviously give advertisers a lot of space to advertise.

[NickMNS]

Rich media are simply image and/or video ads. From adsense:

A group of interactive ad types that includes HTML, Flash, and video ads. You can choose whether you'd like to display rich media ads when creating or editing an ad unit and also set default ad type preferences for your account.

[trebuchet]

Three great days running. Traffic strong, CTR over one percent, RPM at 2015 levels, ad quality looks good. Enjoying it while it lasts.

[CommandDork]

Same here - three strong days and counting.

[Maximum44]

Not that strong today (Wednesday), but ok!

[Libre]

hmmm... adsense has a new look!

[CommandDork]

Yah - Just saw it this morning. I think I like it!

[Edge]

Now that I’m seeing improvements in ad delivery and revenue let’s speculate.. Two computers in my office, four browsers each - Chrome, Firefox, IE and Safari..

My preferred computer (lots of surfing history) with Chrome WAS showing garbage ads, missing ads, slow loading ads etc.. Rotate my chair to my other computer and ads are targeted, load reasonably fast and look good.

Can’t help but wonder if there WAS a problem with Google interest based ads scripts or other applications that feed AdSense data for ad serving. Again, nothing concrete here but I imagine that AdSense is complex machines where a single part failing could cause the ad machine to stumble.

[gogs25]

yesterday was the best day this month , today maybe the worst... others

[EditorialGuy]

Well there must be some reason why my earnings have dropped to less than half they were two years ago. And the only reason I can think of is that I'm simply not getting the money per click I was back then.

People obsess too much about earnings per click. CPM ads are an important part of the mix these days, at least in some sectors or for some publishers. We've seen RPM from CPM ads climb over time as more big advertisers have turned to AdSense. (This is a contrast to a few years ago, when CPM ads often seemed to be low-cost filler ads.)

If mobile RPMs was on par with desktop I doubt there would be much discussion about lower earnings.

That's very true. For us, mobile pageviews are loss leaders, to a great extent. We get a few affiliate sales from mobile traffic, but we don't even serve AdSense ads to smartphone users because mobile RPMs have been disappointing whenever we've tested such ads.

[frankleeceo]

Seeing another round of lower than average RPM today similar to the beginning of the month.

10/7 ~ 10/12 was decent value.

[WMaster99]

My RPM is low again. Very low. Had 7 good days in a row and now this. Very disappointing. I thought this crap was over!

[Chronos Slayer]

Low RPM all over again from yesterday, its just insane :(

[Jhurwith]

By the way, I am at Pubcon and the one sesssion about AdSense policies.... The Google speaker never showed. Womp

[IanTurner]

Wow that is interesting Jhurwith

[WMaster99]

Today is different. Only 1 site is underperforming badly with poorly targeted ads or blank ads. Of course, it's my best site but it's still just 1 site.

[kireb]

Seeing very decent RPM's again last couple of days.