Check your CPC prices today, I guarantee you that they are considerably higher the average MTD.
I went back through 5 months worth of stats. About 1/2 the time, end of the month avg. CPC was slightly lower than the rest of the month. The rest of the time it was slightly higher. Except for this month, all the numebrs were within about 5-10% of each other.
Yet another conspiracy theory shot down.
One person responds 'no my prices are not higher' and my theory doesn't hold any water :)
Nor mine.
And one counterexample does disprove a conspiracy theory in most cases, unless you think we're all secret paid PR for G...
Rgds
Damon
[edited by: DamonHD at 8:26 am (utc) on Aug. 1, 2006]
I am very interested in this, and when my Team has more time I shall ask them to investigate and get back to you. It's possible, but I can tell you, based on empirical evidence, that Yahoo's prices fall towards the end of the month when advertisers' budgets run out. Imagine Google countered this drop in revenue by putting up prices! That would be some move, and smart as there are definitely some that want to spend, spend, spend.
Wel, thanks for the theory.
The reason prices tend to fall on Yahoo at the end of the month is that their bidding sytem is not designed to take every last penny of your designated max cpc - Google's is. When Google notices less advertisers
(or drop in clicks) at the end of the month their system is designed to make up that lost revenue from the active advertisers. It's a common business practice; don't forget, THEY control the prices.
Google employs about as many MBA graduates as they do engineers at this point - they know what they are doing when it comes to maximizing their revenue.
Anyway, just thought I'd post because end of the month always results in a decline in performance for me...might want to check your end of the month results.
Have put my best MBA on to it myself!
