March 2020 AdSense Earnings and Observations

And so it begins... Again!

[martinibuster]

Ha! Got the thread started on time! :)

[adrianTNT]

I also seen earnings decreasing during the day, and total is at a bottom low.

They must be dealing with invalid clicks at a general scale like nothing before, that is what I make out of it.

[devoo]

It looks like the problem is particularly related to the US traffic. Earnings from the rest of the world is almost steady. Maybe they handed out too much free ad credits (out of our pockets) in the US? Or big US advertisers couldn't get their budgets approved yet...

[Mentat]

During the day is a relative point, it depends on where are you on the planet.
The Europe/Asia revenue for me is stable and very low in the last year.
The big difference is the US traffic.
That is the key of the problem, as the economy is contracting as result of the coronavirus impact and US election.

[gatormark]

Adsense pageviews are decreasing for me even though there's no significant change in my SERP.

[azlinda]

Earlier was at 4,000 page views and 1 click. Doesn't look like invalid clicks are an issue!

[fearlessrick]

Hello, everyone, looks like Google is off to a great start ruining another month for small publishers. I've been gradually making the ultimate move to other ad providers, in particular, media.net and the Moneytizer, which I just started adding March 1.

Here are the revenue percentages for the first eight days of March (edit: added March 9. First day media.net earned more than Google. Moneytizer doesn't report until later in the day... Woo Hoo!):

Google media.net Moneytizer
77.07 18.05 4.88
63.04 25.36 11.59
71.92 17.67 10.41
65.74 18.98 15.28
49.29 29.29 21.43
56.86 28.10 15.03
52.61 34.14 13.25
52.33 28.33 19.33
48.48 51.52 0.00


As you can see, the Google percentage is gradually declining as I rework my site. I expect the other two networks to blow Google away as I implement them across other parts of the site. I have been pushing Google's ads further down the page or completely off some pages.

The good thing about any other ad provider than Google is that they don't nitpick you over minute details, don't try to get you to do all kinds of things that don't relate to your business, and don't lie to you just about all the time.

It will be a great relief for me to not have to check for policy violations every day, sometimes twice a day, just so I can keep earning the crumbs Google now reluctantly passes my way.

It's been 17 years since Google started adsense. It's been a good run, but it's worse than ever now, so there's no need to beat this dead horse. Eventually, once I've gotten Google out of my system (and I know, media.net uses Google as backup, so they'll still be there to some degree) and find more time, I intend to sell ads myself or through one of the various companies that are in that line of work (they provide a forum for publishers to sell ads to advertisers without a middleman or ad server).

My site is kind of a mess, built from ground up with straight html back in 1999-2003, so it takes some time for me to get around to all the pages. Using php more, but it's still a matter of combing through lots of code. Anyhow, I hope my numbers give people some incentive to look beyond the Goole monopoly.

A poster on the SERPs forum I think has it figured out. Google is screwing with everybody's traffic and SERPs to get them to PAY for traffic. They need to keep making money, keep their stock price up, etc. They're scrounging for every last nickel.

[gatormark]

I'm afraid yesterday's historic stock market plunge is going to have devastating effects on the money spent on advertising.

[NickMNS]

I'm afraid yesterday's historic stock market plunge is going to have devastating effects on the money spent on advertising.

True, that is a possible outcome.

But on the other hand if people are staying home, in fear or by force, what are these people going to do? Stare at screens all day. To reach those people advertisers will need to focus more of their budgets on web, and possibly TV ads.

Obviously if you are in a niche that is hard hit by COVID-19, such as tourism or events, that may be a different situation.

[gatormark]

But on the other hand if people are staying home, in fear or by force, what are these people going to do? Stare at screens all day. To reach those people advertisers will need to focus more of their budgets on web, and possibly TV ads.

That would be nice, but historically that's not how businesses respond. When times are tough, advertising spending is often the first to go. For those who weather the storm and maintain their ad budget, they come out ahead after the storm is over.

[fearlessrick]

@gator and @Nick and everyone else,

I think you're both on the right track, but, I'll just say this, when this economic crisis is over, the world is going to be a much different place.

The stock market declines over the past two weeks have been historic, but this is only the beginning. Stocks will lose 40-60% of their value within the next six months (probably sooner). Following that, you're going to see widespread business and bank failures, confidence in central banks shattered, and probably a currency crisis. Don't confuse currency (euro, yen, dollar) with money (gold, silver).

At the minimum, we're headed for a global recession, more likely a global depression. Thanks to the coronavirus, the bubble has burst.

Get yourself into hard assets (real estate, gold, silver, machinery, vehicles, livestock, garden, etc.) BTW: websites are like real estate on the web, and if you can weather the storm, you'll come out the other side in good shape. Some of you might consider buying up more web properties. Prices are going to be very low.

Anybody who remembers me from 2008 will probably confirm I have a pretty good handle on economics. I've only been writing about it for 18 years and I have people a heads up back then.

Other good opinion comes from Chris Martenson and his Peak Prosperity videos. Easy to find on the web.

Good luck to all. We will need it. Everything is subject to change.

[gatormark]

Get yourself into hard assets (real estate, gold, silver, machinery, vehicles, livestock, garden, etc.) BTW: websites are like real estate on the web, and if you can weather the storm, you'll come out the other side in good shape. Some of you might consider buying up more web properties. Prices are going to be very low.

Agreed, particularly real estate (web and otherwise). Home prices are skyrocketing where I live.

Unfortunately, I believe you are right about a depression. The governments have been artificially postponing the inevitable MAJOR correction for decades. While I don’t think the Coronavirus will be the trigger, I do think something similar will be, right after this virus is over.



A storm is coming.

[kireb]

Storm has arrived. My site has grown steadily for years, is now completely decimated. Today is so low that I can hardly believe it. My US cpc is 80% lower than usual. Either my sites have fallen from grace or we are heading to a great recession.

[fearlessrick]

or, Google sucks. There's always that.

They have abused publishers for years. Now, their game is to screw with the SERPs so you have to buy advertising for your site.

Kinky logic. High-ups at Google think webmasters who used to make bank from ads on their site are now going to pay for ads TO their site. Ain't gonna happen. They don't understand market dynamics and human nature. People will find other means. It's not like Adsense is the only ad distributor out there. Plenty of competition ready to pounce.

[ChokenBako]

Today the CTR is very low and that makes sense because I only see Instagram and Facebook Ads on my site. Looks like there is no ad budget out there....

[ember]

The landscape has changed since 2008, of course, but the Recession years were my best ones with Adsense.

[Wildchild00]

My keywords has really dropped, Google looks so confused at the moment, nothing seems to be working out!

[deriklogov]

I noticed traffic drop (-10%) across couple sites on March 12 (yesterday), ranking positions still the same, traffic USA, so no explanation.
Anyone else ?

[KaseyM]

@deriklogov honestly, it's probably just behavior related. Every other word spoken at the moment is about Coronavirus.

[gatormark]

This is supposed to be my busy time of year, however, coronavirus is hampering my business and businesses in general. I rely on public schools and entire states are shutting down schools in the USA. Crazy times. No SERP changes just people are focused elsewhere.

[Sissi]

Not at all
Corona will destroy the off line business in favour of the online business.
Physical presence for shopping is already banned in Italiy save for supermarkets. Schools and universities are shut down in France starting on Monday.

[gatormark]

I hope today's numbers are delayed or off because they are exceptionally low. All of these school canceling are killing me. [Industry: Arts/Literature]

[Sissi]

Delay certainly

[gatormark]

@Sissi, I am not too sure about that.

[Sissi]

You mean delay
Hopefully it tends to give more at the end of the day
By the way in Italy, Internet traffing is exploding + 70 %

[gatormark]

My traffic and CPC is horrible today. No SERP changes.

[kireb]

Join the club, lowest numbers in 9 years, despite rising traffic.

Ad serving is also weird, as I am pretty sure that my visitors are not intrested in buying cashmere suits.

[kireb]

Question for the experts here: why are totally irrelevant ads in the prime ad positions, and the more relevant ones at the bottom of my pages? Is there a way to turn this around?

[gatormark]

@kireb

I noticed a severe decrease in the quality of advertisers in my two main revenue sources Adsense and Exponential. I think the big players have pulled their ads because of coronavirus. They are waiting till this thing is over to start running ads again because people are not going out right now and buying new cars, etc.

Today was my worst day in eight years.

[Mentat]

The world economy is stalling and advertising seems (right) to be affected.

[Wildchild00]

The traffic coming from Google has reduced drastically