AdSense Earnings and Observations - February 2023

[dolcevita]

We started with optimism in January 2023, and we were greeted with one of the worst months in the last period. Will February stop the negative trend? Lets see...

[dolcevita]

January 2023 was worse for me than usual, but not catastrophic. What worries me are the last two days in January, which I don't remember being so bad in terms of CPC and RPM for a long time.

[Mentat]

Something is happening and is not good at all.
eCPM is very low compared with 2022 or 2021 and this mean that a lot of advertisers cut their buget, because Google Ads is a huge machine.
For me, the first sign was that BF 2023 I saw almost no ads.
Christmas season was also a bust.

My site was affected by the multiple "Product Review Sites" updates in a curious way.
SERP traffic is even rising a little, but the problem is that I've almost disappeared from Discovery and Google News in waves since the end of September '22.

[Calisto997]

Yesterday was officially the worst day I ever had with AdSense.

[Sissi]

Same here for yesterday
Jan 23 / Jan 22= - 22 %
However Jan 23 /Dec 22 = + 10 %

Small publishers will certainly give up
Probably the objective of Google….

[rafraf]

Jan 23 /Dec 22 -28%, traffic up 11%

syncs well with mild reccession

all people complaining here, go learn some economy, it is the worst month for advertisers and worst month in 10 years economically, what do you expect from google, to print money?

[frostitomik]

what do you expect from google, to print money?

We expect from Google to communicate with people. If they sent an announcment email to publishers about what is happening, instead of automated monthly reports, we would get a better picture.

[kegnum]

Been with AdSense since 2008. Never had a non-automated email from them ever. Even when they sent my 1099 with my personal info to the wrong address.

[Breathofair33]

Anyone have an account manager and what do they say?
My organic traffic isn't earning well with Ads however boosted Facebook traffic has done very well (I boost some types of content to a couple websites, major difference in CPM and RPM on those). That said, i think the returning visitor traffic to my site has been the worst cpm in my 7 years.
Terrible earnings continue

[Breathofair33]

Anyone also tracking this: [npr.org...] could potentially breakup the ecosystem for good. They have been a monopoly for 15 years and more. I do think it's time others get a piece of the pie. I think publishers could participate in some income return depending on what happens

[not2easy]

There is a thread U.S. D.O.J. Sues Google Over Monopolizing Digital Advertising Technologies (1/24/23)
here: [webmasterworld.com...]

[Sissi]

Strange thing that I still get low double digit USD per click sometimes
many are mentioning recession, definition of recession is different economic growth is still there
online business will still need ads to run the business
Or have you noticed any TV ads reduction since 6 months

[ember]

Pretty much collapsed here. This is beyond a mild recession. Something is up, but I imagine Google is too distracted with the ChatGPT threat and the DOJ lawsuit to be paying as much attention to this as they should be.

[puente]

my jan 2023 revenue was 12% lower than jan 2022. for me it's a side business so whatever g tosses my way, i'll take.

[Sissi]

USD 2 digit click occurred yesterday
Still a hope that Adsense will recover

[frostitomik]

Strange thing that I still get low double digit USD per click sometimes

This is normal if your site is about law, insurance, web hosting etc., or if your audience gets personalized ads in those categories. Those will still have very high CPC even in recession.

On the other hand, if your site is about entertainment, games, sports, retail, etc., targeting younger audience, you will never get double digit clicks.

[allhearts]

February up to a slow start here as well. Hoping for some sort of improvement as the month goes on.

[Mentat]

02.02.23 is a new low for me in the last years.
Traffic is also down.

[Mentat]

On the same revenue problem, we have:
- Euronews strike [newsrnd.com] - "We have an economic model that does not work." - CEO of Euronews
- The Verge article about Cnet [theverge.com] and AI generated conent scandal = more money, writtters are too expensive.

We all write for Google now!

[Sissi]

Ubercontent (Adsense) got too many drivers and less clients
Use a limousine and the clients will like you

[Breathofair33]

For those that saw Google earnings yesterday, Ad spending was down considerably. Google did not give guidance. This year likely to be big question mark but turning point in the industry.

[Sissi]

Revenue: $76.05 billion vs. $76.53 billion expected,

Cost cut via firing a couple of 1000 people

[Mentat]

Yes, Google's financial figures do not reflect this threat at all!
We must be doing something wrong.

[Sissi]

@Mentat
Indeed it confirms my assessment that advertisers are not impacted by any recession as there is no recession (inflation is impacting the life quality not the lack of economic growth nor unemployment rate).

Combining Adsense revenues trend and the fact the share for publishers remains 68 % than the changes are somewhere else.

These changes affect publishers in different ways.
We see in this forum only complaints, what about publishers who are happy.
Look at your sector and quality of content and more.
This issue is more complex than we think.
One thing is certain times where building any website about useless subjects while generating passive income are over.

[Sissi]

Adding that publishers have a partnership with Google it s up to them to attract advertisers via quality contents to make sure advertisers achieve a good ROI.
We all have made billions as a mass of publishers in the past. They are always difficult times and to address this only hard work pays off.
During the last 18 years I ve applied the say
Don t bite the hand that feeds you

[dolcevita]

After a below-average first two days in February, yesterday was a normal day with RPM above $5.00 and CPC near $0.20, and today, as far as I can see, the trend continues. I hope things will return to normal.

[Whatagreatdayitis]

I have a question regarding Adsense arbitrage. Is this still a concern for publishers who use Adwords (Google Ads) to drive traffic to a fully developed website? When I was using Adwords or Google Ads ten years ago, it was always in the back of my mind that Google was going to penalize me for using advertising, but gradually I became less and less concerned.

It worked for my website. There was a correlation between money spent on advertising and money generated by Adsense. The more I spent on ads, the more money I made from Adsense.

So, does anyone here use ads to increase traffic and increase revenue?

[Sissi]

Still a volatility there
Saturday was much higher than Friday with less traffic, unusual
Overall a positive trend for recovery

[Soulofmonk]

Feb RPM, so far, is better than Jan. It's almost at last year's level.

[Breathofair33]

Somehow worsening here. Can't imagine a new web publisher starting out