March 2019 AdSense Earnings & Observations

"Google clawed it all back. I knew it was too good to be true."

[Cralamarre]

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System: The following 6 messages were cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/4934778.htm [webmasterworld.com] by martinibuster - 2:58 pm on Mar 1, 2019 (utc -5)

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Well, looks like the big improvements I saw in the days leading up to Valentines Day were all for nothing. Google clawed it all back. I knew it was too good to be true.

[MayankParmar]

March start is still as bad as February.

Clawback remained normal.

[dollarsound]

For all those that are experiencing huge RPM drops and are using link units. I found that at least in my case the problem is that even though clicks are being counted under the overview tab, they are not counted under the clicks tab. It's like the clicks are being removed. It started being evident on the first days of october where 10% or more of the clicks are not being counted. Could anyone please check if they're having the same issue?
So, you just need have to report on performance by day, end of september to november for example, and then compare clicks under overview and clicks under clicks tab.

[Sanjeevtomar]

Has everyone has faced low ctr after 10th feb 2019?

[Runfun]

I improved several tiny things last days and weeks but CTR is still stable... I would have expected an increase so yes lower CTR because better placements didn't result in a higher CTR. Especially the CPC and RPM dropped since 10/11 February. Result is I'm showing less ads with Adsense and more of other networks.

[Sanjeevtomar]

I think we all are using "Link Ads", who are facing low CTR issue. Seems like, on 10th February, they changed the link ads behavior. That is the reason behind low CTR.

[v1nce]

Link Ads were great on mobile until recent changes starting in January. Looking for other options? Tested Auto Ads briefly but reverted back to Link Ads for now. Any other suggestions...

[Abu009]

@dollarsound

Yeah , you are spot on observing problem with link ads . It also starts in months of october and november for me . The difference of clicks (between overview and clicks tab ) went like 10,163,126,199,291 for months of oct,nov,dec,jan and feb respectively.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

It's one of the most miserable days in terms of revenue. Something is broken with Google Ads this year? I had 6.5k visitors per day (US, UK, Australia, Canada...) last year these days, but right now I have almost 12k per day (with bigger numbers of traffic from US, UK, Australia, Canada...) and my revenue is still the same as last year. How can it be possible? 2x times higher traffic gives the same revenue? I hope that the situation will change in the nearest weeks: right now Adsense is a waste of time...

[dollarsound]

@abu009 if you check performance per day you can clearly see it starts in the first week of october. You can create a spreadsheet where you see the percentage of missing clicks instead the absolute number and then you can see it grows day by day. I have confirmed the same with a friend of mine but I would like to know if there are more cases, so we can try to reach Google support. My friend has a difference of 500 clicks per day, that at the end of the month sum a lot of clicks

[Abu009]

@dollarsound Yes , I will look into that percentage . But I think google support is only available for publishers with big amount of traffic . May be you or your friend fall in that catagory . And definitely there will be more cases here.

So anyone else seeing this problem with "link ads" here ?

[Runfun]

@Cyril TechWebsites, with those numbers you really should try more than only Adsense. About the waste of time, true... I'm getting at a point to reduce Adsense only as left over when all other better performing ads show up first. Last weeks revenue with Adsense each day is about the amount of 1 lead(!). So it's useless for me to show Adsense with about 4K unique visitors a day when just one lead gives me the same revenue. CPC is just horror.

@Cyril TechWebsites, just send me a message if you're interested in other networks, I'm glad I've made a switch last year to a US network that provides header bidding.

[gatormark]

I had to supplement my ad revenue with Exponential. They are very good but are very picky with the sites they approve. You must have a lot of traffic or they will not approve you.

[nubchai]

January and February were very good for me. March started out looking good. But the last 2 days have been very slow. :(

[Gracie]

I'm scrapping both of my current ad networks at the end of May. I was hoping to be able to put up with Adsense until then but limping along on £15 a day is so disheartening...

[Nightmute]

@dollarsound

While using a [requested ad type = link unit] filter, [overview tab clicks] = [click tab clicks] + [unbillable clicks] in the bid type report.

Unbillable link unit clicks as a % of total link unit clicks:
3% in October
73% in February

While I don't think if this is necessarily the issue, it shows something is going on.

I believe poor link unit performance is combination of the following:
1. Decreased First Click CTR: Poor UI testing for the link unit starting mid January
2. Decreased Landing Page CTR: Additions of search results (which sometimes show competitor pages) and ads under the primary ad (not convinced these make us $) are impacting landing page RPM.

Look for alternatives, Google is destroying this product for advertisers.

[Jori]

Hello,

link ad units are better managed on the google side now. You can now see actual earnings on Google Analytics including link ad units. It seems not totally implemented tough. It started in january 15th.
If you click on an ad link unit and look at the final of the url, you'll see there the url of your webpage where were the actual link ad unit.

The difference between clics on link ad units on the front page of AdSense and the narrrower report on clics seems to me the same difference between those who clic on the ad unit at first, and then actually clic on an ad behind the first click.

And if we get better tracking of our adsense link units on analytics, I guess on the other hand, bidders can also have a better understanding what are the good pages where to bid.

[Cloudbaseflyer]

I got this message from my AdX ad network:

FILLRATE ISSUE: Google Adx is our main buyer and we see fillrate issue at Google end. We also learnt that this issue is worldwide with all Adsense and ADX users which Google is trying to fix ASAP. So please bear with us until we hear back from Google over this issue.

[dollarsound]

I can't confirm that. Today Im having better Adx Fill Rate and CPM than previous week.

[Gracie]

I have seen a big improvement today. Lower traffic but double my earnings of yesterday.

[Cyril TechWebsites]

Great improvements in earnings today (like in not best, but normal days). At last things picking up this year? :)

[Grapetimes]

@Gracie has your CTR recovered from the penalty?

[Jori]

Great improvements also on my side. Personalized ads seem to rock again.

[Ironside]

Seems to me somewhat of a trend. Earnings today are already double of what I've got used to and I have still got at least four hours of good earning time to go..

[glitterball]

I have seen a total collapse in pricing for mostly UK audience. RPM is now less than half the level of January.

[radix]

Collapse of EPC, too, starting yesterday and continuing today. RPM less than half, almost like one third of the preceding years and months. Never seen anything like that on AdSense.

Ads, what I can tell, are more or less the usual ones.

[Gracie]

Yesterday I was up 111% v same day last week on my CTR so I believe I have made the sufficient changes to lift the penalty somewhat but he said it would take a few weeks before it would be completely lifted. Earnings were up 124% so it's getting there.

[Sanjeevtomar]

Can u please tell, which changes you made?

[Runfun]

I'm not sure wether to laugh or cry but Adsense earnings are imploding. Also here a RPM of 50% what I had in January. Guess this weekend I need to reduce Adsense impressions even further. It's now about 50% of all impressions and it's useless to show them if only one lead will generate more revenue.

[Gracie]

What I did to lift my click penalty was to create some white space around my clickable header and fixed header ad. Labelled my fixed ads as "Advertisement" and moved everything clickable away as far as possible from the fixed ads. Auto ads I can't do nothing about but it was one of my fixed ads causing the issue.

Clickthrough rate today so far has tripled from a week ago so hopefully it is resolved.

[glitterball]

Ad Balance is currently reporting that 99% of earnings come from just 52% of Ads!
I have never seen a figure anywhere near that before - it used to be about 80%.

Adsense is just not working anymore - I have a single affiliate program displayed on 1/10,000 of the page views that adsense is getting and it is making nearly as much! Is Adsense just a way for advertisers to get free brand advertising nowadays?