April 2020 AdSense Earnings and Observations

Here We Go Again Again!

[Pistoche]

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System: The following message was cut out of thread at: https://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/4986142.htm [webmasterworld.com] by martinibuster - 2:40 am on Apr 1, 2020 (utc -5)

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Things are all over the place for me. Since March 25ish, my Google Analytics sessions and page views/impressions don't match my other analytics tool (analytics tool is showing twice as many sessions as Google Analytics). The two analytics tools used to be fairly consistent before then. As others mentioned, CPC has halved since January, but my page views have quadrupled according to one analytics tool (and doubled according to Google Analytics). All in all I'm doing fairly well but something seriously weird is going on.

[kireb]

First 2 weeks of March were terrible, lowest in years, then the world started closing schools and my sites made record days in traffic and especially CTR. Im in the elementary education niche and had, against all odds, the 2,nd best month in my Adsense history. Clawback was only 1%.

I realize that things will go down again , once the global Covid situation improves, but feel quite relieved to see a good month again since my free fall that started in November 2019.

[immrrobot]

Have someone noticed a high clawback? I just got 9% ripped out of the pennies I've earned in March.

[ivok]

@kireb - yes, you can see a spike in traffic and CTR so it's good to monetize the best of it. It will also give you a good idea what it will be like when you reach that level of traffic in normal days.

@immrrobot - just the opposite. Lowest clawback in months if not in years. Less than 1.5%

[azlinda]

@immrrobot, yes, and there was no click fraud going on at my site.

[Testifypanda]

A very strange thing has been happening with me for a while. Since December 2019, I see a cut of at least 60% in my monthly earnings. Last time Google deducted 80%, and this month it deducted 70% of my revenue as "invalid activity". I have checked my whole site thrice and found no issues which would cause accidental activity. Anyone else experiencing a similar problem or anyone else who can help me with this problem?

[gatormark]

Adsense is doing OK today. Exponential has dropped off the face of the earth...22% fill rate down to 6%. Maybe Adsense got back some of their former clients.

[Mentat]

I see a total meltdown on my Admanager account.
Is like -60%.

[Pistoche]

I'm nearing negative CPC, wonder how much I'll owe Google at the end of this month.

At least my clawback is decent: 0.26% for the month of March.

[Chewee]

About 33% clawback this month... As in february.
It's time for me to say good bye to Adsense...

My RPM gets lower and lower and now they take me 33% of that amount ? We can't work like this !

And it's also a problem for me for my ad optimization as I don't even know on what site this clawback is taken... All statistics are potentially false !

[MayankParmar]

CPC dropped here too

[BoredMeteor]

Since about March 27, CPC has been in the gutter over here. I'm expecting this month (and probably longer) to be a disaster, but who knows.

Clawback was average for March, btw.

[Mentat]

Wtf, is a disaster.
I presume that a large portin of advertisers just paused the campaigns for April.
60% drop in eCPM!

[Runfun]

One of the worst months in about the last 5 years for Adsense at my website despite a record breaking amount of unique visitors (almost 60K). But it was the best month ever thanks to affiliates that I serve with Ad Manager. So I'm glad I can adapt easily to developments in the world.

[browndog]

The ads I am seeing are horrendous, not that I ever click on my own ads but usually see ads that I would be vaguely interested in, right now I'm seeing a tonne of ads for freight logistics. I think everybody is pausing/cancelling their Adwords account, and they're having to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

[NickMNS]

No doubt it's bad.

I presume that a large portin of advertisers just paused the campaigns for April.

Hopefully this wont be the case. The current situation Covid-19 is likely to persist for some time, so I assume that advertisers will be rolling out new strategies based on this new reality. There are certainly deals to be had for advertisers.

I'm trying to be optimistic.

[Cralamarre]

After yesterday's surprisingly good results, today is churning out some of the lowest AdSense earnings I've seen in quite a while. Usually things pick up near the end of the day, but they haven't so far.

[ember]

My EPC is down about 30% from what I would expect it to be this time of year. CTR is steady, so people are still clicking at the same rate. I see some of my regular advertisers but a lot that in normal times could not afford to be on the site. I am hoping that once most major cities reach their virus apex (and I hope have enough hospital capacity) and once the stimulus hits the U.S. market, prices might start to inch up.

I do count my blessing that I have some income. So many people have none now.

[gatormark]

I do count my blessing that I have some income. So many people have none now.

@ember, Agreed. While my income is the lowest in 7 years, I still have some and I am thankful for that. People are losing jobs left and right. We’ve cut all of our expenses to the bare minimum and fortunately I can still survive off Adsense (barely). We’ll see in 2 months...

[Runfun]

Earnings remain high here and not because of Adsense. Most are not familiar with Ad Manager but it's just a product of Google and you can use Adsense with it. It's the only advice I'm giving here for months but most keep complaining and don't try it ;-)

[ember]

Runfun, I don’t run anything but Adsense and some Media.net because my sites are too small to qualify for other networks and there aren’t any affiliates that fit well. So I am a case, unless I am missing something, that would not benefit from Ad Manager.

[nomis5]

My CPC is about 50% of what it would normally be.

Luckily enough the subject of my site is hugely popular in this virus situation and is attracting far more page views compared to normal.

But overall, earnings seem to be down by 20%.

I am hoping that once most major cities reach their virus apex (and I hope have enough hospital capacity) and once the stimulus hits the U.S. market, prices might start to inch up.

I am definitely in the "glass half empty" as far as recovery is concerned. Many businesses will have gone completely, the banks will be very adverse to lending. Recovery will take years and we will probably have a mini-depression before business returns to normal.

[NickMNS]

@ember

unless I am missing something

You are and you aren't.

You are in that:
Ad Manager is an Ad server software that allows you to serve and manage ads from different sources all with one service. So in your case, you could use Ad Manager code to serve both AdSense and Media.net, but more importantly you could also set rules, typically pricing targets, say if Ad Sense is paying less than 2$ cpm to then show media.net ads instead. This is powerful stuff, that when managed properly can really increase revenue.

Your aren't in that:
For this to be really effective, you need to have a lot of interest from competing ad networks and managing all this can be complex and time consuming. So for a small site it is unlikely to be worth the added effort.

In your case, by the fact that your are using both Ad-Sense and Media.net using Ad Manager could be beneficial as it would allow both networks to compete.

[ember]

NickMNS, thank you for that. So the point is to get the system to only show better paying Adsense ads and if it can’t, then use Media as a filler? Is that better than just letting Adsense fill everything since Media.net pays a lot less than Adsense?

I did test Ad Manager a few years ago. The learning curve was steep.

[Mentat]

The strange thing is that adsense is pretty stable.
The ad manger performance is 35% of the usual!

[Still Not Shiny]

For the record we had the biggest claw back ever...80%. We have never done any black hat. And of course nothing that can be done.

[Runfun]

@Mentat, Ad Manager is a tool and you can connect networks with it or serve affiliate ads, etc. with it. So the performance is still what you connect with it.

@Still not shiny, maybe your ads are placed against the policy of Adsense. Very high claw backs are mostly related with policy violations.

[Mentat]

Ad Manager is automatic, is not like you really select advertisers.
Is a bidding system with big advertisers and you can even serve affiliates or adsense ads.

[burkul]

Hello all,
beginning March 13th, my coverage ratio dropped from ~78% to ~58% as of today. Anyone noticing drops in coverage?
thanks
Faith

[Mentat]

Drop in coverage since 2 of April