June 2017 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[Peter_S]

Hi,

This is odd, today so far, my adsense earnings is in my upper range (which is already something suspect these days :) ), but, exclusively from the USA, not a single cents from other countries. This is very strange, usually, in the first half of the day, I have incomes from European countries showing.

[NickMNS]

@Sillysoft it would be pretty obvious if you explicitly broke the terms here. As I said to KingMaker (as I understand it) you would need disclose your website and your performance (CTR, CPC etc...). But as we all know if you disclose your website in this forum it will generally get removed by the mods due to WW's no site review policy. But this isn't always the case so just to avoid the risk I would strongly suggest not disclosing too much.

@CommandDork, what categories have you blocked and was that sufficient to bloke those vinegar ads?

[KingMaker]

@IronSide most of my revenue 90% comes from Desktop, because mysite is software based

728x90 is the best, 300x250 is very close to it, I often get mails from google to switch to 336x280 but i don't go for 336x280, because they are relatively large size + less CTR

728x90 > 300x250 > 336x280

1 advice avoid responsive ads

[magician]

From adsense's terms & conditions:

9. Confidentiality
You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without our prior written consent. "Google Confidential Information" includes: (a) all Google software, technology and documentation relating to the Services; (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Property performance as pertaining to the Services; (c) the existence of, and information about, beta features in a Service; and (d) any other information made available by Google that is marked confidential or would normally be considered confidential under the circumstances in which it is presented. Google Confidential Information does not include information that you already knew prior to your use of the Services, that becomes public through no fault of yours, that was independently developed by you, or that was lawfully given to you by a third party. Notwithstanding this Section 9, you may accurately disclose the amount of Google’s gross payments resulting from your use of the Services.

[MayankParmar]

July is back to bad.. May was good. Things bad again this month. Lol.

[Peter_S]

July is back to bad

Don't be pessimistic, "July" might be good, and better than "June" (joking :))

[neurropatic]

@KingMaker I actually use two responsive ads from adsense and one 300x600 from AdX in sidebar. Responsive ads are doing perfectly, as I customized site's layout so that responsive ad unit always shows 728x90 ad on desktop and 300x250 on mobiles. I used to set manually sizes of ads for desktops and mobile, but it sometimes did lead to ad that didn't display at all, so I switched to responsive ads and its performing perfectly. Currently I have exceptionally high rpm, and this month is so far the best of this year in terms of rpm.

[Ironside]

@Kingmaker I started using responsive ads, then I did away with them, now I've gone back to them. More than 70% of my visitors use mobile devices to browse my website. I find that a responsive unit placed on the desktop in the content normally display as either 728 x 90 banner, or it will extend the full length of the desktop and display as a text only unit. When it does this they really look part of your content, the text is exactly the same as my own text and they blend in well. However, my particular niche does not really appear to attract high paying ads.

I decided to go more aggressive with my Google AdSense layout and it's actually paying off very slowly. Daily outings usually rising very slowly. I don't think they're going to keep rising until I am in double figures every day, but at the moment it's better than I was expecting. It seems that my CTR and impression rate is slowly rising. I think it's the fact that I have left the ads in place for longer. I get anywhere between 2200 and 2700 visits each day. One would expect to get more clicks than I do, but I really run out of ideas to try and generate more.

[azlinda]

@Ironside I think you've hit on something here. I have also found that the longer I leave ads in place and don't change them around, the better I do.

[KingMaker]

@ironside & neurropatic
I'm not saying you shouldn't use responsive adsense, I'm saying to manually customize it

If you use a responsive adunit it may show what ever the size of the space it took randomly

but if you create 1 unit with 728x90 and another of 300x250 you can make it responsive manually

If you have a responsive unit in side bar replace it with 300x250 adunit and you can see the magic,

Responsive ads < Non Responsive ads earning
Async ads < Synchronous ads earning

But sync ads increase page load time

Check out "another approch" in this website
[labnol.org...]

[netmeg]

I dunno; I've been using all responsive ads for several years now and my revenue is pretty close to my all time best (which was 2015) Last year took quite a dive, but we made some changes to try to bring the active view up, plus the EPCs are way back up, so no complaints here. (And my traffic is mostly mobile).

My point being, you can't really come to conclusions that suit everyone - always be testing for yourself.

Some of my ad network alternatives are cratering though; I just had to remove media.net cause it's not performing as well this year as in previous years, and FB ads have really tanked as well. I think they might be going through some of the same growing pains with their audience network that AdSense went through in the early years of the GDN.

[NickMNS]

@KingMaker the link you posted proposes a really bloated way of achieving something that is easily done with a standard responsive ad unit. It may be that the information is obsolete. Responsive ad units are sized to fit their parent div's. So as longs as you correctly layout your page with css you can have the responsive ads do what you want without all the extra js.

I am also having a similar experience to netmeg's. I use responsive ad units and my earnings are at or near record levels.

As for Async vs sync, there clearly is an advantage to using sync ads, as the rendering of the ad will block the page from loading. So this generally means that the user will see the ad before the page content. In fact the users may even click on the ad before your content is loaded. But this advantage comes at a hidden cost. Showing ads before content is not a great user experience, and if you depend on repeat visitors and word of mouth to grow your site the sync ads will really hinder you. So yes, you may get more click but it is likely at the expense of growing your audience at slower rate. From my experience, traffic growth has always provided a much greater returns, than increased CTR.

A large percentage of a small number is always a small number (10% of 100 is 10), whereas a small percentage of large number can be large number (1% of 1,000,000 is 10,000).

But as netmeg said above

you can't really come to conclusions that suit everyone - always be testing for yourself

And based on the numbers you reported earlier you seem to be doing quite well for yourself.

[Ironside]

I'm just going to leave my AdSense layout as it is now until Christmas. That is when I'm going to evaluate things. If money is not coming in as expected then the forum is going. This will mean I can move on to a much cheaper hosting system.

For anyone who has read my post, you will know that I keep harping on about mobile ads and the fact that most of my traffic comes from mobile. I should change my username to Polly parrot. Anyway, when you think about it logically there really aren't many layouts that you can design for a mobile device. On a desktop, you can have large ads in between paragraphs, rectangular ads embedded within the text. All you will get on a mobile device is either a rectangular add between paragraphs or at the bottom or top of the content. Or if you're using responsive you may get as much smaller banner. That's not really much to play with.

At the end of the day I think it all boils down to exactly how interesting the ads are that are showing on your site. I suspect that software websites will do well because the AdSense that shows will be software related and people probably will click on them thinking they are part of the website. The same goes for DIY websites, I've seen those before and they are very good. The ads that display are often very closely related to the content and will get loads of clicks. Unfortunately, my niche is just not the sort of subject that is going to generate money. I just got to make do with a few quid a day from now on I think.

[ember]

I only use responsive ads, and they do as well as the non-responsive used to do. I've also worked on raising the active view percentage. Generally, the higher the active view percentage, the higher the RPM.

[Mentat]

Today, Saturday, earning are spectacularly bad, or the system is stuck.

[frankleeceo]

Things have been fairly stable for the past month or so. I have been trying to get a habit of checking stats to once a day during stable / non-testing stages. I now check in the morning and simply look for "yesterday" stats. I now do this for all my ad networks. Saves lots of time and my sanity. At one point I accounted 1 hour+ per day just on refreshing the stats haha. I think...enough is enough. I am cutting back with all my non-revenue generating time sink too.

It makes little sense to change layouts too much once a system is set in place. In a way it is bad UX to change it too often. Yes ad blindness is a thing, but it's not necessary bad for repeat users to expect ad blocks at certain spots. People take comfort in experiencing sites that they are used to.

Mobile ads...it's all about increasing number of pageviews while getting maximum ad visibility, at the same time balancing user usability. There isn't much more to it. Whenever possible, load ads to the max and get users to stay on site to view multiple pages. However, I will echo @NickMNS, content before ads is a big usability metric, people are on the site for the content, not the ads. Give people a reason to come back.

Traffic growth does get capped at one point. I generally split my properties into several stages. Traffic growth stage - minimal ads, maybe 1~2 slots or even none. Once a traffic count has stabilized after 3 month~ 1 year, I then start pumping out more ads.

Responsive ad is bad if it ends up serving 300x125 "mobile" ads instead of the 300x250 block. In my personal instances, 300x250 outperforms almost all the time. The magic formula for me is to serve 1~2 ad slots of 300x250, 1 300x600, and sometimes vertical units whereever make sense.

If I do DIY websites, I would heavily promote affiliate links personally. That's what people generally want at the end...find things to solve their problem, and usually the easiest solution is to toss a bag of money at the problem. (I am contemplating into getting into the niche)...Time is valuable.

[koan]

I don't check my stats much when Adsense is doing well, I focus on my sites, keeping up with new tech, and am happy with the check I get. But I kind of freak out when my earnings start to drop and that's when I spend too much time in forums or Adsense trying to figure it out.

[MayankParmar]

What the hell is happening since last two days? Saturday was very bad and Sunday is too. I'm alone?

[Mentat]

Not alone...
Is the first weekend of summer school holiday in many countries.

[netmeg]

This is my peak season, so I'm good.

I'd actually try those native ads if Google had more formatting options for the content that comes from my own site.

[Teddy_core]

Saturday was good. Sunday was bad. Today is Monday, more dropping and 'shave mode' is clearly active now. Damn you Adsense

[capulkit]

Today Monday was good for me. Indian Traffic. May be set off with bad Sunday.

Noticed Adsense average the earning for everyday. Range is fixed. Someday up and someday down.

[MayankParmar]

Still earning is down :(

[mrdon]

My earnings have been down approx 50% since March. I took someones advice on hear and added some link units (which I've never cared for) to a few of my sites, and they are killing it. They are making more than any of my other traditional adsense ad spots.

[CommandDork]

I've been replacing adblocks with link units since Feb and it's carried me through a rough winter patch. Seems to be a temporary cure for ad blindness but they do perform well for me too.

[azlinda]

The link units make more money than ad blocks on my site. They don't pay as well, but in this case it's quantity...not quality.

[MayankParmar]

Yep. I too never cared about LinkAds but it acts as a boss.

[Ironside]

@Linda the link units used to be my best earning ad units as well. Then all of a sudden they stopped working so well. I've still got them on most pages, but I use responsive link units now. I think they work well because the show links that appear to be related to the subject of the website, although when you actually look inside it's not always the case.

Yesterday was my best day this month. Under the performance section, all six have increased in percentage. My page RPM is 17p higher than yesterday, and the page CTR is 9% higher. Impressions have also increased, as have page views and clicks. That said it keeps carrying on like this

[iwrkalot]

I keep waiting for the bottom to fall out, but it doesn't. I am up 57% from the same period last month, which was an all time record. The last 3 months have been off the hook for me. Responsive text ads are crushing it.

I use DFP (for my paid placement advertisers with adsense as a fall back) and AdSense directly. The addition of responsive text ads 4 months ago (I actually replaced the 728x15 text ads) has been the driving factor, as far as I can tell.

[Ironside]

@iwrkalot does most of your traffic come from desktop?

[nubchai]

Link units are my top performer too. Two questions:

@Ironside how do you create a responsive link unit?
@iwrkalot how do you create responsive text ads? Do you create a responsive ad and make it text only?

Thanks.