Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Unless you just want to know you're not alone in losing income. In which case, I can assure, you are not alone. The update threads have plenty of comments indicating such.
Back to what else might have happened to cause the drop.
Has your traffic also dropped?
Have you changed the ad format or location?
Have your traffic sources changed?
Have you added or removed content from your pages?
Have you added new links on your pages?
Have you added other ads to your pages?
Has your traffic also dropped?
Have you changed the ad format or location?
Have your traffic sources changed?
Have you added or removed content from your pages?
Have you added new links on your pages?
Have you added other ads to your pages?
you get paid on the first click? or is it on the next page when they click a link?
Those can have a huge affect.
And also if your visitors are entering through the same pages, or has their entry point changed? That can make a difference also, and isn't always real obvious.
I asked about adding new links, internal or outbound, to your pages because I've seen this have an effect on my site.
In my case, I got the desired outcome of getting folks to move around the site more, but it did have a small negative affect on the earnings of the pages they left in some cases.
If you are leading people off a given page that could happen. If the pages you are sending them to don't have an equal or greater chance of getting an ad click, at an equal or greater price, you could see a significant hit.
The too early to make changes theme is probably off topic a bit, but I think it's important. Here's why I think it's early to make big changes.
In February I took about a 25% hit (when adjusted for the shorter month) compared to January (Feb. was still above October which was the last month before the Holiday bump kicked in for me).
But my March earnings were right back on track compared to January.
I did nothing that wasn't essential in the meantime, only updating time sensitive pages. That may not be feasible for everyone, but it seems to have worked for me.
I havn't changed anything at all on the pages, and they still rank about the same as before.
Moral of the story... NEVER trust the income you get from adverts to be steady....
I should also have asked if your CTR and/or eCPM has dropped a lot.
Bingo! The CTR is also about half of what it had been. I tend to think that is largely due to targeting being partially off, and poorly written ads. I have been seeing some really, really uninteresting ones lately.
I would recommend:
1) reducing the number of ads you display.
If you haven't already, implement just the vertical banner in a central part of your page.
This way you get fewer irrelevant ads and the ads you get pay more on average.
2) Diversify your ad streams.
Selling direct advertising can be a challenge, but is worth it in the long run. If you can generate leads in a certain field, contact lead purchasers and let them know about the quality of your site.
I used to think advertisers were interested in quantity - they're not. They want quality. 20-30 clicks/day is big if 1 or 2 are legitimate leads.
I hope this is helpful.
