Forum Moderators: martinibuster
anyone else expereinced this in last one or two days?
Recently it has started to recover because of an increase in CTR. However, my EPC is lower than it has been in the past.
Fortunately, the higher CTR has helped compensate for the lower EPC for the most part.
Gmail effect?
To summarize the 4th paragraph of that email, it said they we're improving the targeting to content pages, to show ads that are even more relevant than before. Even when a page contains multiple topics, they will be able to know which topic is more relevant to users. As a result, you may notice an increase in your click through rate. Went on to say, these two improvements to the advertising program are intended to increase the long-term revenue potential.
I think, in order for them to implement this “new targeting system“, ( which would greatly increase the overall CTR ) they had to lower the CPC to a level that would avoid depleting ( crashing ) the available budgets of their advertisers.
Look at it like a stock split, when a stock splits you get twice as many shares, but they are only worth half as much, companies do this in order to lower the price of the stock to make the shares more affordable for the long term. Maybe Google lowered the CPC then, ( using “new improvements in targeting” ) doubled/increased the CTR in order to make CPC more affordable for the long term.
Many advertisers ( including EBAY ) where starting to complain about a CPC bubble, maybe this was a way to deflate the bubble before it got out of hand, and at the same time give CPC room to grow. This may also explain all the recent threads about higher CTR’s. I think this would have a greater affect for publishers who had/have an above average CPC/CPM and may explain why some sites, with an already average or lower CPC are not seeing the decline.
As for me, my CPC has declined by 50%, CTR doubled, but my average daily earnings have remained the same or increased slightly. I look at it like a 2 for 1 stock split, just hope the stock/CPC starts going back up.
Case in point - on a page about Amtrak, I now have an ad for Greyhound training. (the Greyhounds that go woof, woof, that is).
So I guess the poor targeting could be just desperate or no so smart adwords keyword purchasing?
I also advertise with Adwords pretty heavily and have noticed that my CPC has declined on many keywords. Interestingly though, my expenses have gone up because I am seeing an increase in clicks.
I've had to adjust my bids by lowering them in order to avoid blowing through my daily budget.
On the Adsense side, like I said before I'm noticing a higher CTR and lower EPC. In the end though, my CPM seems to be about the same as it was before after I did some tweaking to my campaigns.
Hopefully after all this rebalancing EPC will begin to increase as well ;-) We'll see what happens.
Went on to say, these two improvements to the advertising program are intended to increase the long-term revenue potential.
I also did a little research on my stats, though they are a very small sample (last month and this month). What I found was that there is a very direct relationship between CTR and Average daily earnings. In Feb., for instance, five best earnings days corresponded to 5 of the top 7 CTR days. Pageviews varied by as much as 15% from the median.
Some pattern for March. My top five earnings days correspond to 5 of the top six CTR days.
So, it's all about the clicks. At least for me, anyhow. I know this isn't a very startling revelation, but when you think about it, there's some significance in ad PLACEMENT, SIZE, and Number of ads on a page.
If you put too many ads on a page, two things happen. 1. You get lower CTR and 2. You get lower EPC. Results in lower earnings overall.
Taking some ads down - I have 1 ad block of 4 ads on most pages. Some larger, more content rich pages have as many as 3 ad blocks with a total of 9 ads - may be useful and I know others have suggested that.
What this small sample seems to be indicating, however, is that earnings are more a function of the CTR than anything else.
Just speculating, but could it be that G, through their infinite wisdom or algorithm, has devised a way to reward better CTR with better EPC? In other words, the more clicks per pageviews, the higher your earnings overall, as the system delivers more relevant (and better paying) ads?
That would be nice, as I was a journalist/publisher in a former life and my content is usually more along those lines than keyword-centric, but I'm learning ;-)
This is on an editorially diverse travel site of about 4,300 pages with hundreds of different subtopics and monthly PVs in the seven figures. (I mention this because posts like "my CPM is down" or "my EPC is up" aren't very useful when they're presented without any statistical context.)
1. Overall Targeting
2. Targeting to pages with multiple topics
At least thats how I read it.
My AdSense CPM is up
My AdSense CTR is down
My Adsense payment amount
Is moving all around
I tried to click my own links,
and now my site is banned!
That's what it's all about.
waiting for the usual "no my cpm has gone up responses"...................
Right on cue efv. We are actually not supposed to reveal statistics, it's against the tos ;-)
Right on cue efv. We are actually not supposed to reveal statistics, it's against the tos ;-)
It's only AdSense statistics that we aren't supposed to reveal.
Speaking of statistics, I wonder how many new "My [EPC] [CPM] is [up] [down]" threads we've had on this forum since AdSense began? Not to mention new "My account has been disabled for invalid clicks but I'm innocent" threads? If we had a dollar for each duplicate thread in this forum, maybe we wouldn't need AdSense. :-)
Speaking of statistics, I wonder how many new "My [EPC] [CPM] is [up] [down]" threads we've had on this forum since AdSense began? Not to mention new "My account has been disabled for invalid clicks but I'm innocent" threads? If we had a dollar for each duplicate thread in this forum, maybe we wouldn't need AdSense. :-)
Agreed, I've been in this program since June 2003 when it first started, so I have seen quite a few. I would add that the contrarian posts which claim that they are seeing the best epc ever because their site contains better content, etc. when others are seeing a decline is equally annoying.
As far as the "My account has been disabled for invalid clicks but I'm innocent", these are the worst posts of all. People who do things that violate the tos and then claim innocence are the lowest form of life in my opinion. I think we can all agree that Google is pretty fair in the way it does business and it would take someone doing something flagrantly wrong for them to disable an account.
But for this reason alone, I don't think it would be right to automatically assume that the widespread claims of declining cpm, epc, etc are unfounded. They are simply too widespread and all seem to coincide in terms of timing. Something, whether it is the affect of gmail, a new algo change, etc. seems to be affecting publishers overall and I don't think it would be right to simply shrug it off as another "my cpm is down" thread without any foundation.
I'm beyond talking about it and have been focused on testing other contextual networks and boosting CPM sales but there is something going on and it's really not helpful to have constant sarcasm from those not affected.
Perhaps if you are not affected by whatever is afoot, you might want to direct your attention elsewhere? Many of the sites affected are quite obviously legitimate sites with serious content. They deserve to be taken seriously.
I have fiddled with Adsense on my site to the point at which it has become somewhat of a joke and a waste of my time.
My site is not large, and perhaps mor importantly, it is not owned by a corporation, and therein, I believe, lies the problem. I will surely be branded "paranoid", "socialist" or "conspiracy theorist" for this, but I believe that the corporate world (Google included) butters each others bread and could give a hoot for the thousands of small, privately owned sites, operated by individuals instead of corporations.
So, the reason EPC is cratering for many around here who have valid, popular sites, is that high paying clicks are directed to larger corporate sites, and we get the crumbs.
Having said that and being publicly available, I welcome any response from Google. I am assuming that I will receive none.
I'm sure that my analysis is not 100% on spot, not even close, but I do believe I am on the right track. Google's penchant for secrecy with adwords publishers is unwarranted. I willingly signed the TOS, but I also reserve the right to terminate the agreement as does G.
At this point it is barely worth playing this silly game as EPC goes into the toilet.
Seriously tired of corporate BS.
I look at the conversion per visitor and I feel somewhat like a google slave. Isn't this true in any multi-level marketing scheme?
I am sure there are a number of people that do well with AdSense, and I know there is another group of brilliant people here that are seriously shorting themselves and could do much better elsewhere.
When I look at my stats I see that it's possible to be moving in both directions at the same time. The bottom line in that respect (at least for me) is the amount of the check when it arrives.
But there may be more to this up/down story that's worth hearing. That is if the movement is on sites that are unchanged from a week ago, or a month ago.
Are the pages channels where the stats are changing unchanged?
Are new pages or channels drawing traffic to areas of the site that perform less well?
Has the source of your traffic changed? Could that affect the performance of Adsense for your site?
The point here is that there are many possible reasons for the changes we are seeing, and the way those changes are different for different sites.
Without knowing the background details of what else has changed for a given site it may not be reasonable to assign all positive, or negative, changes in Adsense performance to Google.
But for this reason alone, I don't think it would be right to automatically assume that the widespread claims of declining cpm, epc, etc are unfounded.
I don't believe anyone on this forum has ever said that claims of declining CPM, EPC, etc. are unfounded; what has been said (by me and by others) is that the problem isn't universal, so alleging that Google has "cut the payout" (as some members persist in doing) smacks more of frustration than common sense.
I also recall suggesting that publishers with declining CPM or EPC compare notes on their topics, types of content, etc. So far, there haven't been many (if any) takers. So how about it? If the decline of your EPC or CPM has been dramatic and isn't readily explained by seasonal variation or other obvious factors, why not post your complaint with background information that goes beyond "I was making a lot, but now I'm not"? For example, you might tell us:
- Your sector or general topic
- Your approximate traffic level
- Your type of content (editorial, e-commerce, affiliate site, forum, blog, etc.)
- The number of AdSense ad units that you're running
- What changes, if any, you're making to the default ads (e.g., colors or borders)
- Whether your EPC/CPM decline is across the board or is only on certain channels
Maybe other members can suggest additional types of data (other than statistics that violate the Google TOS) which might be useful in helping our little community figure out what, if anything, is going on. But just saying "My CPM is down, is yours?" and acting miffed when someone else answers "No" doesn't expand the body of knowledge about why some (but not all) of our forum members are seeing their numbers slide.
Perhaps if you are not affected by whatever is afoot, you might want to direct your attention elsewhere?
The only thing I've learned is AdSense is a:
ROLLER COASTER
Your CTR/CPM go up and they go down, AdSense, AdWords, SERPs, there's just no reason to dwell on it as it seems to cycle as part of the nature of the beast. I checked my stats yesterday and 20 Keywords sank a bunch, 30 more shot high, that's just the way it goes. For every thread about CPM dropping someone else is in a panic about 2x CPR and fears he'll get banned from the program.
We take it seriously, but there's nothing much you can do expcept refine your keywords, and keep your traffic up, beyond that it's preaching to the choir as we see it every day.
...or try out yahoo when that's made available.
I don't believe anyone on this forum has ever said that claims of declining CPM, EPC, etc. are unfounded; what has been said (by me and by others) is that the problem isn't universal, so alleging that Google has "cut the payout" (as some members persist in doing) smacks more of frustration than common sense.
The problem certainly isn't universal. My own sites prove that. The problem actually appears to be somewhat random, which one would expect given the current implementation of "smart pricing".
The problem actually appears to be somewhat random, which one would expect given the current implementation of "smart pricing".
I don't know how you define a random but in my book it's not a random. When we say country X is poor, it doesn't mean there isn't a rich person in that country. Eight out of my 10 channels are declining while the remainders are not, month after month. A random distribution?
I am defineately going to give Yahoo a go. Google is too inconsistent and secretive.
It's a bit early to assume that Yahoo will be more publisher-friendly than Google is. Don't forget that Yahoo has been charging a directory submission fee for years, and its search engine has a pay-for-inclusion scheme.
