Forum Moderators: martinibuster
If this is true it could make sense to intentionally keep your CTR low. Maybe fewer ads.
- Grant
Mike and Sailor: if you say so. What do you think it results from?
- Grant
It seems like Google drastically lowers your EPC once you reach a certain CTR
There is no evidence for that. It's a myth in the making. One of my sites regularly gets over 40% and I'm very happy with the EPC.
- Grant
IMO a 30% CTR shows that you've gone to great lengths to maximize clicks, and this is the logical result. This is expecially true with AdSense, where you can't even control what ads are being shown.
If I were to change things and reduce my CTR to 3%, who have I weeded out? There's no reason to believe it's the non-converters.
- Grant
IMO a 30% CTR shows that you've gone to great lengths to maximize clicks
Nope, that's not a foregone conclusion. On one site I push very hard and don't get more than 5%. On one niche site - a very small niche - I do no pushing at all. There's a useful 1500 word review followed by one Adsense LB with three ads and no other outbound links below the fold. Nobody gets to that page unless they are really interested in that niche (they don't come from SERPs). CTR has been at 40% for over a year.
Since that day it appears as though smart pricing has kicked in site-wide, and daily earnings are now down around 30%.
Still, at least I earned a decent sum that day!
- Grant
In any event I think it's dangerous for an advertiser to allow Google to track conversions. That's data Google can use to their advantage and against the advertiser. Smart charging, anyone?
Also, anything can be done server-side. Not serving the tracking image every other time would be extremelly easy.
- Grant
The 5% channel has ads that are mixed and not 100% on target. I'm selling Widget Stuffers on the 50% channel. There are 4 adsense ads for 'Widget Stuffers' at the top. I'm advertising on Adwords for every 3 & 4 word combination that mentions widget stuffers (within reason). So, it makes perfect sense that visitors would click on those ads since my widget stuffers are expensive. Although i make more ROI selling clicks than selling my own stuffers.
I have over 20 channels that work like that and the higher CTR the better (for all).
- Grant
And 30+% CTR doesn't necessarily mean the page has been tweaked unreasonably to get clicks.
I also don't believe there is any specific CTR number where Google automatically lowers the payout.
We are constantly analyzing data across our network, and if our data shows that a click is less likely to turn into business results (e.g. online sale, registration, phone call, newsletter sign-up), we may reduce the price you pay for that click. You may notice a reduction in the cost of clicks from content sites.We take into account many factors such as what keywords or concepts triggered the ad, as well as the type of site on which the ad was served.
[adwords.google.com...]
Google has three sets of ads to show your users.
Set 1 has a CTR of 2% and an EPC of 10 cents
Set 2 has a CTR of 2% and an EPC of 5 cents
Set 3 has a CTR of 6% and an EPC of 3 cents
The estimated CPM of the three sets:
Set 1 is $2.00
Set 2 is $1.00
Set 3 is $1.80
If Google is optimizing which set does it show first?
Set one because that pays the highest CPM.
When or if set one ads run out, what set of ads should Google show?
Set 3 because it has the next higher CPM.
Net result:
Your CTR climbs from 2% to 6% but your EPC drops from 10 cents to 3 cents.
You call foul: why is my EPC dropping because my CTR is increasing? Well, that is mathematically what you expect when you optimize TWO variables at the same time.
In theory, CPM should be relatively stable compared to EPC and CTR . . . in theory.
Of course, there are so many factors and the black box called smart pricing seems to put the veil over any constructive guesswork.
What I really want to know is why an increase in traffic so often leads to a decrease in EPC with all other variables being equal. Because in theory, most of us have do not enough traffic to effect the market pricing so if I double my traffic I should double my earnings. But I often see (on my sites and talking to other webmasters) that doubling traffic leads to a reduction of EPC and to only moderately increasing earnings.
But again analysis is hard. Some people argue that smart pricing is coming into effect because the quality of traffic must be lower. I'm not so sure about this but can't prove it either way. My feeling is that the traffic has just been more of the same.
Of course, it could also be that the market is generally sliding downward as more and more advertising space becomes available. This seems reasonable and I certainly predicted that EPC would not stay at the level of June 2003. And so maybe, the market downward slide is just coincidentally related to our increase in traffic.
