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.

[azlinda]

@Ironside I use only the responsive link units, and they are very well targeted to the content of the site.

[Peter_S]

@azlinda, I think that Ironside talks about the ads showing on the page after you click on a link unit. The link units themselves have excellent labels/texts ( may be too excellent :) ).

[azlinda]

Thanks, Peter_S. I think the link units are the best!

[breeks]

Starting the day off with a $20 click. Will see if it holds.

[azlinda]

Starting the day off with stats stuck for the past five hours.

[nubchai]

Last month and this month (up to yesterday) were really good for me. But today they seem to have put the brakes on.

[Teddy_core]

When Adsense fixes my RPM ( of course fix it at a low not a high rate and actually the lowest possible rate that anyone of you would get ) for 3 consecutive days doesn't that mean Adsesne is cheating me and it steals my earning that pass the rate it fixed for me ?

[Rasputin]

Teddycore,
There have been various accusations of adsense 'stealing' income over the years...but frankly I think it is the least likely of numerous explanations for falling income.
Others include smartpricing, lack of advertisers in your niche or for your site, a suspicion that some of your clicks are accidental or sourced from 'dubious traffic', or the introduction of the 'two clicks needed' mechanism on your sites (if accidental clicks are suspected), or a coding error.
Not to mention the most common of all, which is publishers basing conclusions on a sample that is too small.
While I am as suspicious of big business as anyone else, I just dont think it makes sense that adsense would start stealing income from occasional sites - if that really was their intention there are much cleverer ways to do it (eg global click auction price manipulation) and easier ways for them to hide it...

[kindle44]

After reading yesterday about link units, I've placed one to test the waters, and I'm surprised, but it's really doing well!

[Teddy_core]

@Rasputin

I agree with the possible reasons you mentioned, but nothing of that would lead RPM to be fixed at exactly the same rate for 3 days now. I had no similar situation since I started with Adsense 10 months ago. for RPM to be the same for consecutive days it needs your traffic to be exactly the same and the actions that done in your site to be also the same during these consecutive days which is almost impossible, at least in the case of my traffic.
I even tried yesterday to replace the current ad units with new ones that completely different in size, and it leads RPM to immediately jump so high but after few updates of stats RPM forced to go back to the same rate which I actually expected and it makes me 100% sure the rate is fixed so whatever I make nothing will change until they change that from their end.

By the way, nothing changed about CTR and coverage between now and before the 3 days. everything is the same except the number of clicks where I used to get an average of 3 clicks per 1000 pageview and now it's 2.2 which explain why RPM dropped and then was fixed.

Yes usually Adsense doesn't hide the stealing processes and it allows publisher to see it live. sure it's not because they are not clever enough to hide that but I think because Adsense doesn't care what publishers think or say since it dominates the market and there are no real alternatives for it, so it knows that even if the publisher despises it ( like me ) mostly he will keep stucking with it.

[iwrkalot]

@Ironside 65% Desktop but the 20% for high end mobile devices pays well, tablets not so much.

@nubchai Link ads only and select Responsive

I started with AdSense late in 2008 as a way to cover hosting and beer money. My sites have always been a hobbie, not a path to retirement :) I don't obsess over earnings and stats daily/hourly like some do. I look at it every morning but that's about it. Comparing today at this time vs the same day/time last month seems like a total waste of time and energy to me. Using that time to improve the on site user experience, or tweak external factors, has been much more effective for me.

I only make changes as I see a pattern over time. I have several forums and will usually use 1 or 2 as test dummies. When I find a placement/ad type and size that works over time I deploy it across the other sites.

All of my sites are in the same general space and what works on one site seems to work well on the others. I have had the rug pulled out from under me in the past and I expect it to happen again. For now it's making the car payment (plus), but I'm not quitting my day job :)

[NickMNS]

@Teddy_core

but nothing of that would lead RPM to be fixed at exactly the same rate for 3 days now.

If you flip a coin over and over again and then get three heads in a row, do you start to believe that the coin is biased? Probably not. But believing that patterns are caused by one thing when they are caused by randomness is a common fallacy. Here is an article from Wired that describes it:
[wired.com...]

What you are seeing is pure randomness, not a conspiracy by Adsense to steal your money. Stop looking at your stats on continuous basis, it will only drive you mad (specially in a downward cycle). Rather look into your stats to see when the drop in RPM started and see whether you can find any changes to traffic patterns (ie: increase in mobile traffic) or changes that you have made over time, or change to your competitive environment.

[Ironside]

@iwrkilot so you only use link units? Where do you find they work best on the page? I also use quite a few responsive link units which I have placed above the page heading and just below the menu. I also have a couple in between paragraphs, but not many.

[Teddy_core]

@NickMNS

I agree with you that looking at stats continuously drives to madness but it's something you have to do once you feel there is something wrong with your earning.
and disagree with you about calling that 'randomness' ... nothing is random with Adsense especially if you already working with them from a long time and they have a clear image about the type and the amount of your traffic. and maybe you didn't read my previous post well when I said that nothing changed about coverage and CTR in my account, also the pattern of my traffic didn't change, they just decided to fix my RPM to reduce my revenue by the end of this month as much as possible.

[NickMNS]

@Teddy_core

Your CTR doesn't figure into this. You haven't changed anything and your traffic is steady, so it stands to reason that your user will continue to click the ads at the same rate. What has changed is that advertisers are not willing to pay as much for their ads to appear on your site. So while, you get the same number of clicks each click pays you less this results in lower RPM. Why is this?

You claim it is because Adsense is conducting fraudulent practices and stealing money from you. My claim, is that the number of Adsense publishers has increased dramatically over the years, so increased supply for the same demand causes prices to drop. Also, users are coming to the sites on mobile devices and users on mobile devices convert less, so it stands to reason that advertisers will be willing to pay less for ads appearing on mobile devices. This is further compounded by the fact that mobile layouts push ads way down the fold, so advertisers certainly are not interested in paying for ads that never get seen.

So it is up to you, you can focus your efforts on improving your site such that it will attract more advertisers and users or you can spend your time trying to prove that Google is stealing from you. If you don't trust Adsense then switch, go to Media.net. Please go. The last thing the internet needs is more Adsense publishers.

As for disagreeing about 'randomness', feel free to disagree, but it is math, not opinion. Whether you agree or not wont change whether it is or isn't due to randomness. That said proving it (mathematically) either way will take far more than 3 days of data.

[robzilla]

Early PIP this month, just got the e-mail.

[Ironside]

Everybody likes money, especially when it's basically free. If you are on your computer a lot then checking your stats, especially the earnings is very addictive. I've been known to wake up in the middle of the night, put my computer on to see how I am going.

Since we are relying on real people to take notice and hopefully click on our AdSense units I can't possibly see expect the same results day in and day out. Let's say you get 5000 visitors in a day and 100 people click on your ad, that doesn't mean the same will happen every single day. However, if you are earning most of your money from impressions then I think this is where you may see a similar pattern every day.

You have then got to take your niche into account. I would imagine that if you were selling downloadable apps or software then you are going to make a killing. In fact, if you go to some of the websites that you can download stuff from, unsurprisingly actually get away with where some of their AdSense units are placed. Having said that, the AdSense units will often look exactly the same as the real download units so it's no wonder they get clicked on. I nearly never click on AdSense units and I've been fooled more than once.

99% of the websites I visit that have AdSense are displaying absolute rubbish. I was just browsing my own website and some of the ads showing where advertising PayPal and insurance company called Direct Line. Why would I click on an advert for PayPal? I've got an account and I've got a shortcut on my desktop. Also, I went to the Direct Line website yesterday and renewed my motor vehicle insurance. However, I'm now being bombarded with adverts for companies that I really don't need to visit from an advert.

I've been a member of this site for many years now and the AdSense section seems have the same conversation every month, CTR, impression and RPM. However, from where I'm sitting these figures aren't actually going to help you improve your earnings, if they did then nobody would be moaning about earnings dropping. All they tell you is how people are interacting with your AdSense.

I'm willing to bet that the people who are still earning £100 a day are getting page views into the high doubles or even three figures. I suspect the people who are also earning good money have great nieces that are displaying AdSense units that people are going to click on. Just repeating myself, nobody is going to click on an advert for host Gator, or Burger King, complete waste of space.

[NickMNS]

I agree Ironside. But you need to realize that most of the ads that "nobody would click on" are place by advertisers that are bottom feeding. They are essentially buying up idle capacity for which there is no market, and thus paying next nothing for. Their strategy is, show millions of impressions for less than a dollar and hope that 1 in a ten thousand converts and pays them say $10. Repeated over and over again this is a profitable strategy for some advertisers, including for the scammers.

When you see these ads what your are seeing is a lack of demand for your inventory. There are only two ways to combat this.

One, increase demand by building a better site and growing traffic (not always possible and difficult to achieve). Building a better site includes make things beter from the advertisers perspective, making sure that are loaded are seen, are unobstructed and so on.

Two, is to reduce your inventory. Reducing inventory, is also difficult as you have no or limited information of when and what pages a driving demand. Simply removing ad units likely wont work. So, the ad-balancer is the tool to achieve this, but as we all know it isn't currently working. You can achieve a similar result by using DFP.

Note that blocking ads doesn't solve this problem, because all you are doing is further reducing supply in market that is short of supply. Obviously blocking spam ads needs to be done but don't expect that the ad that replaces the spam will earn you any more money.

[nubchai]

@iwrkilot Thanks very much. I've been using regular link units with great success. They're very targeted compared to the other ad options. But I never realized I could have responsive link units. I just started a test on one site.

[koan]

I think there should be a separate Adsense thread for these conspiracy theories and accusations, they're not productive.

[Ironside]

@Nick Actually yes, you do have a valid point. I sometimes see payments of just 1p per click for my 300 x 600 banner. This is normally where either Host Gator or Watch Finder display their ads. Thing is, 1p is better than 0p :-)

[glitterball]

Quite a big negative balance has appeared.

[azlinda]

@glitterball - my negative balance is less than half of what is was last month. I still don't understand why it just started appearing last month.

[Samsam1978]

Good June here. Turnaround time as poor April - v. poor. So all good for once.

[robzilla]

It seems that player 2 has entered the Invalid Traffic game. One being updated on a rolling basis, the other still once a month. I guess it doesn't really matter that much how or when it happens, but a little clarity would still be nice.

/poke pubpolicycomms

[ember]

Everybody likes money, especially when it's basically free.

I'm not sure what this means. Earning a living with Adsense takes a monthly monetary investment, but it mostly takes a heck of a lot of time, energy, know how and dedication. So I don't look at Adsense income as free money.

[nubchai]

My negative balance is really small compared to last month. I expect it to increase a bit before the end of June.

[Ironside]

I don't know many people who put their trust in AdSense to earn a living, I certainly wouldn't. Three years ago I was bringing in five or £600 a month, that has more than halved now. I assume that you have your own adverts on other people's websites that bring people to your website? If this is the case then obviously your niche is perfect for doing this. My niche is very weak in my opinion, so I just got to rely on the amount of visitors I get and hope that they take interest in some of my ads.

Don't get me wrong, I've put a lot of effort over the years into trying to earn as much from AdSense, but it's been more of a hobby than a chore. I need to earn more than £82 a month, this is what covers my server costs. Anything over that is my spending money.

[netmeg]

Hmm, I may need to try link units again. They used to do really well for me, but I gave them up when my traffic went mostly mobile and I haven't had time to put in the responsive ones yet.

Nobody who is convinced Google is stealing from them can ever be unconvinced. Specially not in a forum. What I don't understand is why they would want to continue doing business with a company that they think is stealing from them. Different strokes, I guess. As I will say until my dying day, if you really want to understand how AdSense (and how it's changed over the years) you *must* spend some time on the AdWords side as well. I know I for one wouldn't have done near as well with AdSense if it weren't for the fact that I was already an AdWords expert before I even started.

[MayankParmar]

0.01 Negative balance, lol.