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.

[emperor2]

Hope adsense will come back to glorious mode soon. July is really disappointing so far!

[Ironside]

AdSense is so fickle at the moment, one day it's not too bad, the next day is the complete opposite. Yesterday wasn't too bad, today could potentially be quite good, it all depends on how many clicks I get. At the moment my CPC is 36p with a page RPM of £3.05, however, I've only had three clicks so far. Mind you, it's still very early in the US.

[Runfun]

I guess I get all the earnings of you guys :-) so far it's doing great but that's because I just linked my Adsense account with DFP a few weeks ago.

[Ironside]

What's all this DFP I keep hearing about?

[bugthinker]

Mmmm... curious one here as well

[Cralamarre]

Just curious, is there anyone out there who is still earning a decent living exclusively with AdSense? Or do most people agree that the days of relying on ad revenue alone are over? These days, I feel like I'm working for nothing. Pretty sad considering that a couple of years ago, I was earning more than most people with a "real" job.

[Grapetimes]

Updates on earnings?

[Mentat]

What earnings?

[MayankParmar]

There's no growth in AdSense income these days...

[Runfun]

Google DFP is an adserver of Google, there are a few topics in this same thread here: [webmasterworld.com...]

There are a lot of benefits and this is how I'm using it:

My website is about finances, stockmarkets, etc. so in this niche there are a few nice affiliates. I serve ads of those affiliates with a frequency cap to unique visitors, for example 3 times a day with a max of 9 a week. After those ads there's header bidding that's in competition with Adsense ads. Header bidding takes about 10% of the ad impressions but takes 30% of the revenue by display advertising.

DFP has a lot of settings like the frequency cap I mentioned. But also serving ads to certain devices... I'm not showing much affiliates to mobile devices because Adsense ads perform good at mobile devices. The affiliates are also served by country, you can choose which affiliate is served where. You can also set times you want to show in house or affiliate ads, etcetera. Now I understand DFP for 99% I'll never go back to only Adsense.

Edit: I almost forgot you can also use floorprices based on CPM or CPC. So if you know how much an ad of an affiliate earns you a month you can use a floorprice. If Adsense or another ad-network can deliver an ad for a higher CPM it's served instead of the ad with the floorprice.

[child please]

I've been a big supporter of DFP for a number of years and have done my best here to tell people about it, there are a bunch of threads that go into way more detail. Using DFP and then ultimately header bidding is the way to go if you want to maximize your revenue.

Someone asked if anyone is making a decent living with AdSense. That's a very general question and depends primarily on traffic among other factors. I earned five figures last month just with AdSense and another five figures with my other partners. But my site gets several million page views per month. If you have good quality traffic, you will do well.

[bugthinker]

Hi,

DFP is something I've seen for years but have not actually attempted using it. Is there actual guide, benefits, drawbacks or some sorts like that where we can check? Like how to start, etc?

[Runfun]

Not really but there's a lot of information available when you use help while being in DFP.

[Dimitri]

After those ads there's header bidding that's in competition with Adsense ads.

Who is paying you for these other ads? Is that DFP paying you directly? Or do you need to join other networks ?

[tryingtogrowsite]

Why isn't there a link to Adsense in my Google DFP under settings? Is there a point to using DFP if you are certain the RPM will be highest with Adsense? I know it's supposed to increase competition and whatnot between advertisers, but I really don't see how my RPM will be improved on by advertisers outside the Adsense network in the niche I am in.

[NickMNS]

@tryingtogrowsite

Is there a point to using DFP if you are certain the RPM will be highest with Adsense?

No point. DFP (soon to be Google Ad Manager) is an ad server not an ad network, it does not increase demand on its own. DFP/GAM is only beneficial if you are using multiple ad networks (eg: AdSense, Media.net, Sovrn etc...) and/or you are selling ads directly. If you are only using Adsense then there is no real benefit.

With one exception, DFP/GAM allows you to customize how ads are served, so if you have a requirement to serve ads in some non conventional way say for a SPA (Single Page App) then DFP will allow you to do this without needing to butcher the Adsense code and risk a policy violation.

@Dimitri

Who is paying you for these other ads?

See my response above DFP/GAM is only an ad server it does nothing more than show the ads from other networks. You will need to collect payment from the other networks.

IMO DFP/GAM requires a lot of work to implement it correctly. It requires a considerable amount of customization. There is a risk that if you do things wrong that you will be showing ads sub-optimally and thus will be worse off as a result. AdSense on the other hand is designed to be simple and straight forward. So unless you are willing to put in the work and risk making potentially costly mistakes I would recommend sticking with Adsense.

But as RunFun said above:

...there's a lot of information available when you use help while being in DFP.

[scottb]

Besides other networks, DFP makes sense if you have direct sales, affiliates and / or multiple house ads.

I have used it for myself and clients for more than 10 years. It has a high learning curve, and as Nick says, mistakes can be costly. I have seen little to no benefit for serving just AdSense via DFP.

Frankly, DFP also seems more troublesome in recent years -- just like AdSense, YouTube, AdWords and Google+.

Google Analytics is still working well, but Google doesn't want to cut costs with that enormous treasure chest of user data.

[Grapetimes]

Does anyone have an idea of why sometimes you see more text ads than display and then there are other times where google shows more display ads than text?

[azlinda]

Is it better to use DFP or a certified Google Ad partner like exmarketplace (AdX)?

[MayankParmar]

I need a new AdX partner. Any suggestions?

[Grapetimes]

@MayankParmar are you earnings looking up at this month yet?

[MayankParmar]

it's somewhat better now but nothing exceptional so I can't recover the money :(

[Grapetimes]

Hopefully earnings will continue to increase as gradually work our way into the new quarter

[WhoKnows111]

Hmm my daily earnings dropped by 50-70% the past 2 dqys.

Is there some holiday or event in the US?

[Lame_Wolf]

I've had 1000 visitors today, and not one click across 2 accounts. Yesterday, 1300 visitors, 1 click from one account, 2 from the other.

This is after I've changed to https.
The adverts seem to be stable[ish] after contacting Google via a form. They were supposed to contact me within 24 hours, but as they're busy, it could be 48. I'm still waiting to hear back from them, but as I've said, the adverts are more stable now (they would appear/disappear in various browsers)

I've been with Adsense for 10+ years, so not a n00b at all this.

There are no warnings - not that there should be.
The adverts are appearing, and stats are updating.... just odd that not one person has clicked on an advert.

Has anyone else had problems with adsense once they've moved to https?

Thank you.

[bugthinker]

my last 2 days is not good... this is a bad indicator..

[Cralamarre]

@Lame_Wolf How would switching to https affect whether or not people are interested in the ads on your site? Just because A happened before B doesn't mean A had anything to do with B.

AdSense is actually doing better for me today than it has in a while.

[Lame_Wolf]

I know, Cralamarre, but it's too much of a coincidence. I've had my sever offline for half a day before, and still earned more than this. In the 10+ years I've been with them, today is the worst ever.

[dollarsound]

You dont need to have other networks to use DFP if you can work with an Adx partner. I know Adx is not the same than Adsense, but as both are Google products...I mean that you dont have to go through searching a lot of networks to use it. As DFP and Adx are being unified and soon will be a single product, there are some features that can be only used through DFP and that sometimes can make a difference (at least in my sites)

[MayankParmar]

If you'll switch from HTTP to HTTPS in 2018, there will be a significant drop. Happened with my friend too. The problem is AdSense crawler. It needs a couple of days to crawl the entire site again and could take up to one week for ads to show up everywhere.