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.

[IanTurner]

If you had a good September and you think your layout is good I'd keep it until Christmas as the pre-Christmas ad spend is always higher.

My September was solid but not spectacular.

[Ironside]

To be honest with you, I don't think I can improve on the AdSense layout I've got. I've tried AdSense units and all sorts of positions and for the last two or three months the one I have now is the best performing. I've tried AdSense units in the right-hand column but they get hardly any attention. I used to do quite well with AdSense units between the title and the first paragraph of text, again, hardly gets any attention whatsoever. Two or three years ago 336 x 280 ad unit place at the very end of my article that exceptionally well. I replaced that with a media.net advert which does quite well, so I'm not going to mess around that. As far as I'm concerned I'm just going to leave things as they are. I don't rely on the money I get from AdSense so if it disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't have a detrimental effect on my life.

[NickMNS]

September was record breaking month for my site.
Changes are based on the previous month (30 days)
Traffic in September compared with August was unchanged (from GA)
Page views decreased by about 1.5%
clicks increased by 22.5%
CPC increased by 22.2%
Revenue decreased by 39.7% and 30% increase from July my previous record month.

The mix of visitors by device was unchanged.

The revenue from desktop fell from 53% of total revenue to 48%, the difference going to mobile.

Conclusion:
September was a strong month with increased revenue from mobile and a strong rpm.
On the downside, traffic growth has stalled in September.

[RedBar]

1st October saw my third lowest-ever AdSense PVs in 13+ years yet earnings were average ... this is going to be a fun month!

[nubchai]

Adsense is off to a slow start here. I don't think changing layouts is worthwhile, especially if your results were decent in September. That's the boat I'm in. I'm leaving everything as it is. I think this is more about the end of one month, beginning of the next month, and advertising budgets.

[defno]

traffic in september 938k page views, mostly from USA but cpc to low $0.22

[FourDegreez]

Today and yesterday are among the lowest RPM I've seen, ever. =(

[trebuchet]

September 2016 vs September 2015
Pageviews up 24%
Impressions up 22%
Clicks down 4%
RPM down 26%
Earnings down 4%

[MrSavage]

Well, lowest current balance that I've ever had (obviously with the exception of my early days). This low amount doesn't phase me which is a bonus. No removal of sites or ad units. Just a sign of the times in my world. Oddly enough I've had one of my best months with media.net, so that should balance out this pathetic current balance in Adsense. It's been a slow process but Adsense is slowly losing relevance for what I do. I don't think this is a bad thing because the partnership to me is lacking. I'm hoping that the experimental ad data is helpful to Google and that's how I view my earnings right now. Payment for some ad experiment data.

[leebow]

I got an 8.5% clawback! I'm so annoyed. I've been with AdSense for YEARS - and mainly - my website layout and ad positions has stayed the same. This is the worst clawback I have every seen. Especially when I have made no changes to my site.

So - I have increased the spacing on my ads from my content - maybe their new rules have made even previously "ok" layouts/ad positions bad - even though my site has been checked over by adsense staff who have told me where to position ads etc.

Sept seemed to be picking up then last week - BANG. down again.

[FourDegreez]

>Sept seemed to be picking up then last week - BANG. down again.

Brutal, isn't it? I saw some of my highest earning days of the year in late September, then *wham* the lowest of the low. I've never seen fluctuations like this in the past. AdSense had always been fairly consistent day to day, week to week, prior to 2016.

[RedBar]

I'm hoping that the experimental ad data is helpful to Google and that's how I view my earnings right now. Payment for some ad experiment data.

Without a doubt that is happening in my widget area since I am still seeing a few retail supply ads for my specialist construction products, however what I am seeing more than ever are associated trade ads such as kitchens, furniture, garage doors, replacement windows etc. this past couple of months or so, I do not remember seeing this many in the past.

Whilst earnings are not huge they are up which bodes well, at the moment.

[honestman]

@FourDegreez Our experience exactly. RPM at all time low. Not sure if it is due to holidays in my sector. Up at end of September a bit, then way down at beginning of October. Also less traffic, but that does not relate to RPM in my experience.

[kireb]

Record earnings, record RPM in September and a clawback of only 0.7%. Last 2 days of September and first days of October lowest since years. Good to read I am not the only one.

[anefarious1]

It seems to be that Adsense, as well as most other revenue sources, usually starts out slow each month. By the end of the month, I'm always surprised at how much I've earned.

I have no idea why the first half of each month seems to generate less revenue than the 2nd half. It just works out that way for some unknown reason.

[Mentat]

Well, the first 3 days of October it's like "full brakes on" revenue wise.
It's a very hard landing.

[Libre]

For years the CPC from India have always been the same (very low), but the last months they have been going up. In September the CPC is twice as high as 3 months ago. This is maybe the biggest change I have seen in the time I use adsense.

Are there more people who saw this change?

[biloute]

Hello, I have lost 30% revenue since 1st oct. Nothing change on my websites.
When I compare last week :
CPC -25%
CTR -20%
Impressions +12%

Everything down in one day ! What's happening ? I use adsense since 10 years, never seen that. For info I have websites for UK, IT, USA, FR, +300K impressions per day.

[NickMNS]

I have no idea why the first half of each month seems to generate less revenue than the 2nd half.

My understanding is that it has the result of how the Adwords algo works, it tries to spread out the advertiser's budget over the whole month. It makes a prediction on how many times an ad might be shown over the month and adjusts the bid accordingly. As the month progress and the prediction changes, that is fewer opportunities to show the ad, the algo ups the bid. This maximize the spend over the period and the number of times an ad is shown. Otherwise,there is the risk that the advertiser's ad would appear many times in the first few days and then the budget would be spent.

Therefore, beginning of the year, beginning of the quarter and beginning of month should all be low. October it beginning of a quarter and month.

[Ironside]

I think there could be any number of reasons why earnings fluctuate so much. I reckon we will all be having the same conversation in three years time :-)

This month has got off to a slightly slower start to September. However, if it carries on like this then it won't be all bad. Media.net normally tops my earnings up. So I estimate that I will probably be close to the third sector of £xxx if things carry on as they are the moment. That will keep my van topped up with fuel for the whole month and pay for a few other things that are participate in.

[james_09]

September has been my highest RPM this year so far. My RPM in October to date has dropped 16% compared to September (although a single weekend is not a great sample tbh).

For my sites I always see a drop in RPM at the start of each advertising quarter, being 1 Jan, 1 April, 1 Jul and 1 Oct. January is always by far the worst, followed by July, then April and finally October. I anticipate by the end of October/early November my RPM will be back to September levels and then should exceed it in Nov/Dec.

This is what I have experienced for my sites, but I know it's different for others.

[MrSavage]

Thanks for the posted insights regarding advertising dollars regarding months and quarters. Informative and something I haven't taken into consideration.

[breeks]

Today Adsense has decided to show my ads in a different color theme than the one I have set.

Same dismal earnings with the new color.

[Mentat]

Does not seems to pick up speed! I see a lot of ads, but the payment is still very low.

[robzilla]

It seems my RPM is recovering slowly as the week (month, quarter) progresses.

RPM relative to September 29:
- Sep 29 100%
- Sep 30 68%
- Oct 1 40%
- Oct 2 65%
- Oct 3 68%
- Oct 4 73%

Interesting to see more publishers reporting large drops on Sep 30 - Oct 1. I wonder what happened there.

[anefarious1]

Thank you NickMNS for that great information. Makes sense.

[netmeg]

Anyone seeing the new expanded text ads on their site yet? I'm not. Just the same old 25/35/35 ads so far.

[EditorialGuy]

Interesting to see more publishers reporting large drops on Sep 30 - Oct 1. I wonder what happened there.

Our RPM pattern has been fairly consistent (no unusual peaks or dips on September 30 or early October). Some days are better or worse than others, but when eyeballing the past month's daily reports, it appears that the daily RPMs are mostly within about +/-15 percent of the average with just a handful of outliers.

[NickMNS]

@EditorialGuy

Every publisher will see fluctuations to varying degrees depending on their niche, the quality of their site and so on. It is these "normal" fluctuations that makes it impossible to use the results of a few short days to determine the start of a new trend. For example, on October 1st, I had very strong day 3rd best in the last 60 days, then on October 2nd I had my worst day in the past 60 days, but both these days were within the bounds off my normal fluctuations.

I think it is a good idea for publishers to track these fluctuations, so that when they are having off days that they can rest assured that it is within the normal variability that they should expect. If it isn't within the norm then you should spend some time to see if there is a real issue at play, or if it is simply an outlier.

But, if you take your results over a wider time span than a day, and you take this variability into account then you can see certain trends emerge. For example, seasonality or time of the month effects, you may see the variability drop over time and hopefully watch your average earnings increase over time.