AdSense Earnings and Observations - March 2023

[not2easy]

February did not end well, can we hope to see improvements in March?

[Calisto997]

Naah,I don’t see it getting better anytime soon

[allhearts]

Not a good start here, very, very bad day.

[DarkSide83]

Beginning of a month is always bad. The beginning of a quarter is even worse.

I don’t think numbers will improve before Christmas 2023. Maybe it will take time till 2024+.

[Breathofair33]

Extremely bad.

[Calisto997]

I have couple friends who are in this for long time, they’re still getting good $ but they’re saying last few months are the worst since they started so basically everyone is getting affected by this

[ember]

Stats have not budged in hours. When they do, I'm hoping for a big increase. Hahaha. My adsense sites have now ventured into hobby territory.

[dolcevita]

Not so good and not so bad for the beginning of March. But still enough to make a living from Adsense alone.

[csdude55]

I compared January 2022 to January 2023.

My pageviews were down 8.44%. Number of users were up by 6.69%, but mobile pageviews went up while desktop pageviews went down. This means that some of my desktop users switched over to mobile, and my pages per session for mobile users is always a lot lower than desktop.

The RPM for mobile dropped by 15%.

The RPM for desktop dropped by a whopping 41%!

I don't know what I could possibly change on my end. The traffic is there, it's just that Google isn't putting up the numbers they used to :-/

[gatormark]

I’ve been in this game since 2005 and this year is starting off almost as bad a 2020 (COVID year)…the worst year to date for me.

Page views and clicks are about the same as last year, but CPC is down 33% and Ad RPM is down 29%.

Income is down 27%

[csdude55]

Same, @gatormark. I started my business in 2002, not sure when I began using PPC banners. But each year has gotten progressively worse since 2016, with no major change in traffic.

My income last month was roughly 25% of the same month in 2016. Seriously.

The unfortunate thing is that, with a lifelong career focused on coding and design, if this streak continues then I have no clue what else I'd be qualified to do. Bag groceries at Walmart, I guess...

[Ad2023]

Since January 1st, RPM just halved, as result incomes are at 50%
Page views are on par to last year, so I can't see a way to fix it.

[dolcevita]

I just compared the first two months of this year, until March 02, with last year, and CPC and RPM are around +12%, while pageviews are around -14%.
Total earnings -3.8%

For me, miraculously, CPC and RPM increased almost identically proportionally with the decrease in traffic (pageviews), so earnings are almost the same as last year for the first two months.

[csdude55]

That's amazing, @dolcevita! Did you do anything that might have caused the increase? I didn't do anything to cause a decrease on my end, so if there are any new tricks that might help then I'd love to hear about them :-D

[dolcevita]

@csdude55
I don't believe there are any special formulas. It all depends on the advertisers and the type of website.

If something could make a small difference, it is that the hard challenge via CF traffic from China, Russia, India, Turkey and a few other countries, as well as that Bot fight mode is included.

Threatscore is also included, where every visitor with an IP address that falls between score 5-60 will be a challenge. Anything over score 60 is automatically blocked.

[Mentat]

The payment is down again.
I had an UP week ~14.02, then is down again and after a week of March, is not improving at all :(

[Pistoche]

Today I've had a noticeable increase in CPC in comparison to the first 5 days of March (40%) .

Pet niche, 7 year old website, mostly US visitors, 10,000 page views per day.

[adsenseuser]

March is turning into a disaster for me.

[csdude55]

A close friend works in the office for a freight broker. She told me that their industry is in a major downturn, too, with trucking companies literally disappearing overnight!

[fleetowner.com...]

So it's not just us, we're looking at a global dip in every industry. Which, of course, will be reflected in lower advertising budgets.

Brace yourselves... it looks like a bad year's a-comin' :-/

[Calisto997]

Oh it is going to be bad year for sure…

[gatormark]

Things are looking like a repeat of 2020. Get ready for a bumpy ride.

[DarkSide83]

I would look forward to a bumpy ride. It's super low for me all the time :-D

[Breathofair33]

Depressed earnings haven't stopped me from creating content and new sites - yet. I'm wondering if YouTube ad earnings for top earners are as depressing too.

[CommandDork]

Same here, been hard at work launching new stuff since mid-2022 with the hope that, by year's end, it all pays off. The days of relying on a handful of top-tier sites are over for me.

[gatormark]

The last two comments are on point. When the economy is down and things are bad, keep upgrading and building your websites. When the downturn is over, your websites will be in a much better position than others.

The same principles apply for advertising. My advertising budget has not changed, even though my income is decreasing.

I’m thinking we still have another year of this nonsense before we have an economic turn around.

I am five years away from retirement, and I’m trying to hold on until then. I do not want to go back to the corporate world. Fortunately, I have one website that is keeping me afloat. My websites are my retirement income, so if I can get to retirement With even half of what I am making now I will have a comfy retirement with my Social Security income.

[ember]

Gatormark, I'm with you. Retirement is just over the horizon after doing this for 20+ years. Trying to hold on, keeping the sites up because they should (fingers crossed) come back at some point. Until then a new part-time job to tide me over and soooo looking forward to Social Security (assuming it doesn't go bust, too).

[DarkSide83]

I just found the following article and I find it interesting. It reflects my situation very well.

[playwire.com...]

Let's hope they're right and revenue will increase in the second half of 2023.

[londrum]

Interesting article, makes me feel a bit better about our lousy earnings the last couple of months.

[fearlessrick]

Posted this on the March 2023 Core Update thread, thought it might be of interest to some here and maybe hope the slump in ad revenue is ending...

Traffic has remained consistent over the past two weeks, but Adsense revenue (which had been very low) began to pick up after six poor months, starting September, 2022. Had revenue 30-40% better on the 6th, 9th, 11th, 12th, and on the 17th, best day in seven months. So far, the 18th is already close to average revenue for a full day and it's only 9:25 ET here in Tennessee.

I have been upgrading many pages the past few months. Seeing that the core update began rolling out on the 15th, I'm hoping my efforts were well timed.

Mine is a small site, but I've been at this for almost 20 years. After the slump the last six months, keeping my fingers crossed.

[Whatagreatdayitis]

Let's face it. The internet continues to evolve or devolve downwards towards the lowest common denominator. Social media has taken away a lot of traffic from the older websites that dominated the internet prior to the arrival of cell phones that provided easy connectivity to the internet. If you want to remain competitive, figure out how to link your site to an instagram account or TikTok or Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Girls in bikinis also help increase traffic.

After having sold my website pre-pandemic, I'm getting back in with a new website and trying to figure out how to leverage social media to gain traffic. There's a lot of crap out there, but if you can put together a helpful website, people will visit it, especially if the content is free. Remember, the beauty of Adsense is that you can provide free content online supported by advertising. That paradigm is still strong.

Try to stay positive and remain ahead of the curve. Be a first-mover. Imagine the future.