January 2019 AdSense Earnings & Observations

[Mentat]

2018 was a goodish year, with a record December month.
2016 and 2017 were hellish years for me.
I hope that 2019 will be at least as good as 2018 was, but as always the first months of the year are "hibernation months", so let's see how horrible January 2019 will be.

[Kurono_Kei]

So you’re saying that my 15-20% revenue drop and 25% RPM down year over year (for January) is actually good?
It’s going to be a fun year.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Sorry for my English, but to say that Adsense's revenue is miserable these days is just to say nothing.... I have 0,8 RPM for my main site and 0,36 RPM for the second one and it's just not even funny anymore... Media.Net started to give me the same money as Google Ads these days and I'm pretty hope for the changes - there is no sense in Adsense right now.

[RedBar]

there is no sense in Adsense right now.

Has the West stopped clicking on your sites, they certainly have on mine? Several days now of 10-40 cent earnings, NOT EPC, total earnings.

Yesterday a click from one of the wealthiest places on earth, Jersey, 1p, today India 1p (even that's way below normal), Canada 1p and to really question everything, China with 2 clicks and 15p ... These are the lowest-ever click values and volumes I've ever seen, utterly pointless even carrying their ads.

It's borked ... again!

FWIW traffic seems to be totally normal, whatever that is these days.

[trebuchet]

Yes, my traffic is average or slightly above average. CTR is OK but EPC is dire. I haven't seen a click paying in excess of 60 cents for three days - and most are much, much lower. If there are high-paying ad clicks out there, they're being reaped by other sites, not mine.

[Sissi]

Looks like the last 4 days have been exceptionnallt low

[KaseyM]

AMP is very very low for RPM's at the moment.

On the whole, a pretty good January. 2.5x what I earned last year. I'll take it.

[NickMNS]

Something's up with AdSense on my end this morning, big drop. But I don't see anything specific in my stats. The only thing I see is lower than average coverage, but a this time of the day (morning) it is not unusual.

[Cralamarre]

@NickMNS, I'm seeing lower than expected earnings this morning as well. But I've noticed lately that my earnings have been starting out slow, only to show big jumps later in the day, so I'm not too worried. Earnings have been excellent for the past week, up 30% over the previous week.

[MayankParmar]

It's terrible here as well.

[Cralamarre]

Earnings are picking up now as expected.

[NickMNS]

@Cralamarre, Yup I'm seeing the same. Our users must have been frozen.

[leebow]

Big drop in my visitor numbers yesterday. Must have been a holiday somewhere. Although not US or U.K. which usually affects visitors/earnings.

[ember]

EPC is abysmal but high CTR is making up for it. Of course, when the EPC goes back up, as it usually does in February then the CTR will drop. Never fails.

[gatormark]

The past 2 days my page RPM has plummeted but the clicks have increased. Income 20% less than what it should be with my current numbers.

[Ironside]

Up until yesterday this month has been pretty rubbish. However, yesterday seemed to spring into life with something like 28 clicks at 44p CPC and the page rpm of around £6. Today doesn't look any different, at the moment there are 15 clicks with a CPC of 28p and the page rpm is £9.10. Looks like the last day of the month will help save the month.

[lakybel]

yesterday and today, the rpm and cpc are a nightmare..the same traffic for all months, but those days earnings are 0.02$ !

[Cralamarre]

Well, after spending December worried sick about what will happen in January, turns out I had nothing to worry about. Looks like I'll be finishing the month with over 40% higher earnings than last year.

[NickMNS]

Yes, this has been my best January since I started and this despite the fact that I'm getting only half the traffic I was getting last year.

[Cralamarre]

Honestly, I've stopped caring so much about traffic numbers. I've had days with surges in traffic and yet lower than average earnings, and days with low traffic but higher than average earnings. At the end of the day, earnings are all that matter. At least, that's what the bank tells me.

[NickMNS]

At the end of the day, earnings are all that matter.

Yes and no, ultimately yes money in the bank is what counts. In general higher traffic results in higher earnings. But with high traffic you have more options, you have access to more ad networks, affiliate sales, or simply promoting your own products. With little traffic, you are more sensitive to disruptions, if AdSense falters your done.

[Cralamarre]

In general higher traffic results in higher earnings. But with high traffic you have more options, you have access to more ad networks, affiliate sales, or simply promoting your own products. With little traffic, you are more sensitive to disruptions, if AdSense falters your done.

I know, and I agree. I guess my point was just that my traffic is doing well these days, I'm satisfied that I do everything I can to optimize my site for quality and for search engines, and for what it's worth, I promote my site on social media as much as possible. There's really nothing more I can do, other than continue to add more content, to bring in more traffic. So rather than worry about the day-to-day ups and downs of traffic numbers (who sneezed at Google and how it's affecting me), all I really focus on now is revenue.

Having said that, if I suddenly saw a massive drop in Google traffic, I'd go back to worrying about traffic. But in 13 years, I can count on one hand the number of times I've been seriously hit by a Google update, and I haven't been hit by anything substantial since early 2017.

[gatormark]

I am also seeling a lot of money taken from my account during the day. $5 drops here, $3 drops there, and then hours with no income earned (which is crazy because this particular website is a HIGH traffic site). I swear someone is skimming $30-50 a day from my account. I wish there were some external checks-and-balances for Google.

[Cralamarre]

@gatormark, I see the same thing. But what's worse, seeing the smaller clawbacks in real time, or seeing a massive clawback at the end of the month?

I don't think anyone is "skimming" my earnings. I know I've clicked on ads on websites by mistake, especially on my tablet (tried to scroll down the page but ended up clicking on an ad). I think Google is just better and faster now and distinguishing between real clicks and accidental (or fake) ones.

[LondonNE]

Terrible month for earnings ending with a terrible day - possibly the worst ever for RPM and CPC.

In the UK here and most visitors from the UK. It's been my best month ever for visitors but ad venue is atrocious even allowing for Jan reductions in the average.

The ads showing are so poor too. Whether targeted or generic when I test on other people phones or PC's its complete rubbish. Same on my own devices. Obscure nonsense. It used to be household names.

[leebow]

Bad end to the month - possibly because of my site’s being in the education sector - and so many schools and businesses being closed due to the bad weather around the US/U.K.

Can’t blame Adsense for that.... or can I...

Good look with February people! Fingers crossed for a good one!

[Sissi]

The worst January since 2005
No shut down
No fake reason

Probably advertisors have left adsense
I see already several publishers giving up this business model
Good luck to all

[Runfun]

January wasn't good at all but when Adsense earnings are declining I simply show more in house ads or affiliates. So overall the revenue was a record for January but not because of Adsense.

At the other hand as advertiser with AdWords I see also lots of cheap clicks. I've about 50 to 70 a day for approximately 5 euro cent each. Never had such low expenses before so I believe there's something at their network, maybe just advertisers who spend less.

[gatormark]

@Cralamarre "But what's worse, seeing the smaller clawbacks in real time, or seeing a massive clawback at the end of the month?"

What's worse is seeing $5 drops here, $3 drops there AND then seeing $300-$400 clawbacks at the end of the month. Which happens to me regularly. Also, my ad placements are pretty BASIC and I use Adsense to place some of the ads. I just don't understand these inconsistent clawbacks.

[System]

The following 11 messages were cut out to new thread by martinibuster. New thread at: google_adsense/4934778.htm [webmasterworld.com]
2:40 pm on Feb 1, 2019 (utc -5)