July 2018 AdSense Earnings & Observations

Let's hope this month is profitable

[Ironside]

So far today things are looking quite promising although it's still very early for me. I've only had seven clicks so far today but my CPC has actually been rising and is now at 40p, I like that a lot.

[Pistoche]

First 4 days of July I had lower CPC in comparison to June (but it was still near average compared to the entire year - 30% less than June), July 5th is seeing June level CPC.

[Dimitri]

Since I returned online, I learned about the GDPR, disabled interested based ads in the EU,and as a result (I guess) my coverage totally collapsed for EU countries.

For example, for the USA, I have a coverage of 85% (was 99% in the past, but I think the decrease is due to the brand safety). For Canada and Australia this is roughly 80%, but for the UK, (to compare between English speaking countries) my coverage is at 40% only (was in the 90's before). For other important countries like Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the coverage is barely at 5% (was also in the upper 80's).

I don't know if there is anything I can do about that.

[londrum]

My earnings took another dip after GDPR came in, following on from that big dip in December when they introduced that brand safety thing, so I’ve finally gone 100% google-less and removed adsense completely and replaced them with normal affiliate image ads.
My earnings aren’t as high as the glory days of adsense but I’m earning more than I have been with adsense this year — probably because the ads actually match the content now. And I no longer have blank ads all over the place, so my impressions have shot up. And I no longer have the same ads appearing twice on the same page.

Removed all of Google’s maps as well (I can’t afford the crazy new charges they’re bringing in), spent a few weeks changing them over to leafletjs and mapbox which doesn’t cost me a penny — they actually look better as well. Can’t tell you how good it feels to get rid of it all.

[RedBar]

Removed all of Google’s maps as well (I can’t afford the crazy new charges they’re bringing in)

Did I miss something? Most probably!

To what are you referring?

[londrum]

They used to give you 25,000 free map views per day, but now you only get 28,000 per month. So if you were anywhere near the daily limit then you’ll have burned through your free ones in two days. I think the changes are coming on July 16th

[bugthinker]

earning for me this July is going back to normal as compared to June. :)

[ember]

So if a map is embedded on your page and someone sees it, that counts as a view? Or do they have to click through on the map to Google's site for it to count?

[londrum]

every time someone sees a map it's counted as one.
but they add on an extra ones if you're doing fancy things like traffic and waypoints (i think), so each view could be more than one

[koan]

It's probably best to link to a dedicated page with a map for the truly interested instead of embedding maps by default on pages where it might not be the focus.

[NickMNS]

It looks like the ad-buyers have taken the day off. Today is a bad, if not worse than Tuesday.

[Dimitri]

The last two days, my coverage for Germany is ... 0% ?! (in spite of hundreds of views)

[NickMNS]

I just checked and my coverage has been low for Germany as well. Not 0, but in the range of 20%, this seems to have started around May 25th (GDPR Day). It doesn't really make much of a difference to me because it only accounts for a small % of total traffic.

Edit: All EU countries appear to be following the same coverage pattern.

[edited by: NickMNS at 9:56 pm (utc) on Jul 6, 2018]

[Dimitri]

I just checked and my coverage has been low for Germany as well. Not 0, but in the range of 20%, this seems to have started around May 25th (GDPR Day)

Not surprising that big sites and medias are taking "the risk" to continue to serve interest based ads !

[NickMNS]

I found the trick! Just post here to complain about your earnings and then magically, things reverse. My RPM tripled since my last post.

But now, of course earning will sink and/or get rolled back because I posted here... Lol.

[MayankParmar]

I made only $8 today. Is this a joke?

[emperor2]

Could you please share number of page views?

[Dimitri]

Edit: All EU countries appear to be following the same coverage pattern.

I feel sorry for those who mostly rely on European traffic.

I found the trick! Just post here to complain about your earnings and then magically, things reverse. My RPM tripled since my last post.

Butterfly effect.

[RedBar]

I made only $8 today. Is this a joke?

That's 800% more than I'm now averaging!

I'm going to re-enable personalised ads firstly to see what happens and secondly to get me over the minimum earnings for June and July combined, then remove the lot since this GDPR effect is ridiculous.

Meanwhile if Google wants to ban me for this I ain't going to worry one little bit, the $100 monthly minimum doesn't even fill my car with one tank of fuel in the UK!

[riccarbi]

They used to give you 25,000 free map views per day, but now you only get 28,000 per month.

Once again, Alphabet gives away Google's authority and usefulness for petty money. They did it with the SERP (and now they are beginning losing users in favor of Bing and DDG) Now I'm sure that with this move the number of publishers using their maps (me, included) will nosedive in favor of openstreetmaps or even nothing (and, remember, Google conveys advertising and paid listing through its maps...).
OK, maybe stockholders will be happy 'cause next month they'll be able to buy that brand new megayacht they have been wanting for so long. But I bet my two cents that we are watching the beginning of Google's decline. Those people's maketing strategy is utterly shortsighted.

[nomis5]

Not surprising that big sites and medias are taking "the risk" to continue to serve interest based ads !

Agreed, what is the risk? In my opinion none. If you are serving personalised ads and for some reason Google objects, they will inform you and ask you not to serve those ads. They are not going to just ban you outright with no warning.

And it is by no means clear at the moment, when you can and when you can't show personalised ads. The EU legislation is so shot through with holes that even large companies like Google, major news publishers and the like will never have a problem challenging the EU laws.

As far as the EU is concerned, forget about any risk there. They really can't organise a piss up in a brewery. If it was possible, I would estimate the chances of any problem there to be less than 0%. That's obviously is statistically not possible but you get my drift.

And remember, it is the job of each individual country in the EU to enforce EU rules. The EU won't come after you if you break their rules, it will be the EU country in which you reside. If you live / serve ads outside of the EU, exactly who is going to come after you? I certainly have no idea.

[Grapetimes]

CPC has been horrible but CTR is normal. What’s going on? Does anyone else notice a lower CPC/RPM?

[ember]

The whole GDPR thing was overhyped, just like everything is these days. Remember Y2K? Al Capone's vault? The historic stock market crash after the current president's election? I am in the US so it is easy for me to talk, but I think the whole GDPR thing is a giant dud.

[TheEnigma]

I wouldn't call it overhyped.

I mean look at Google themselves, they actively included the option when reporting a site via the arrow button on adsense to inform them the site isn't meeting EU Consent policies:
[imgur.com...]

"This website does not meet Google's EU User Consent Policy in disclosing and obtaining consent from end users for the usage of personalised ads and/or for the use of cookies where legally required."

It's a route that competitors or vindictive users of a site now have to report you. Whether google ever act on it or not...but it certainly might jump you up the list of websites they look at if somebody reports you.

[keyplyr]

Good points TheEnigma

[riccarbi]

mean look at Google themselves, they actively included the option when reporting a site via the arrow button on adsense to inform them the site isn't meeting EU Consent policies

OK, so Google is now the new Police and Supreme Court of Justice of the Internet, with its own whistleblowers, criminal code, and digital prisons where to throw those who do not respect Google's arbitrary law.
This company is disrupting people's freedom and the health of western economy. If we'll passively allow them to do all they want it will be all over within a couple of years, believe me.
It's time to change before it will be too late.

[Dimitri]

OK, so Google is now the new Police and Supreme Court of Justice of the Internet, with its own whistleblowers, criminal code, and digital prisons where to throw those who do not respect Google's arbitrary law.

I do not understand your comment. Isn't Google simply obeying the law (GDPR in this case)?

"We" are too small, to really risk someone coming after us for displaying adsense in a way which is not 100% compliant with the GDPR, but, regulators will fall on big companies, especially Google (Facebook, etc...), and they really risk big fines. So, it seems normal that Google is trying to obey the law...

[riccarbi]

So, it seems normal that Google is trying to obey the law...

The problem is not that Google is "obeying" the law, but that it asks users (who maybe are not very experienced in the matter, or whose real interest may be to vandalize some other website's ranking) to suggest them who, in their opinion, is infringing it.
This approach potentially opens the door to every kind of manipulation and arbitraritiness.
Google is not and should not be the "guardian" of GDPR, this is up to every county's governmental bodies, not to a private company which is not entitled whatsoever to decide who is infringing GDPR and who's not.

[keyplyr]

riccarbi - Google's other platforms have had Report utilities for many years.

If you're not breaking the rules & your pages are compliant, you have nothing to worry about.

[Dimitri]

From what I understood, with the GDPR (and talking about Google/Adsense) both publishers and Adsense are liable, so it's not surprising that Google is concerned.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

I earned 13 USD today and it's the worst revenue on Sunday this year. RPM is terrible, both on Adsense and Media.Net. My traffic is also nosedive, but I still hope it's because of vacations, heat around the globe and Fifa. Everything will change in the end of August. At least I hope so!