I don't understand the discrepancy between Adsense and Yahoo earnings

[asp4bunnies]

Like almost everyone else here lucky enough to be a part of the Yahoo beta, I'm seeing phenomenal EPC with Yahoo despite relatively poor targetting... and terrible EPC with Google, despite spot-on targetting.

Why the large discrepancy in earnings? Wasn't the reason Google implemented smart pricing and allowed advertisers to opt out of Adsense display, because it found that publisher's pages were not converting well for advertisers? If so, what do Yahoo advertisers think of the program so far? Should I be nervous that Yahoo will eventually follow Google's lead? Or do the two companies just have very different strategies alltogether, with Google targetting small mom and pop businesses who watch every penny and Yahoo targetting Fortune 500's? (Some evidence I can see in this is Google displaying PSAs with Yahoo displaying high paying Run of Network ads).

What do you all think?

[ogletree]

For one thing it depends on the subject. Anybody who runs OV and AW knows how vastly differnt the costs can be. Try some random keywords in G and Y and notice that there are some advertisers that advertise in both and some that only advertise in just one. That along with the fact they they have very differnt auction systems can produce very differnt invetory. Some people make more in Google some make more in Yahoo. I am about to find out myself I just got approved.

[FTFlash]

I think that the important thing to realize here is that no matter what direction each company takes, because there is competition, each company will try to do its best to keep its existing publishers and draw in new ones. That means that both Google and Yahoo (and soon MSN) will have comprible programs, both capable of earning publsihers money. Now, we know that one program might work better on one type of site, but that is normal.

So, just sit back and watch the big companies compete to keep us serving their ads! :D

[JuniorOptimizer]

I think it's a matter of philosophy. But the difference sure is striking.

[Jenstar]

A lot has to do with the number of publishers - there are tens or hundreds of thousands of AdSense publishers competing for the highest earning ads, while there are only 2,000 publishers competing for the highest paying ads in Yahoo. I expect the YPN EPC to slowly fall as more publishers are accepted and begin competing for those highest paying ads.

[mikey158]

It is an interesting topic. I also agree that it relates directly to AW and OV. I know that in my case, both of the Y products involve more money .. earnings and expenditures. I also beleive that Y is giving a bigger piece of the pie to lure more publishers and advertisers - with Y earning less of the transaction and paying out more, its a win win for the advertiser and publisher. Also, they are playing it VERY smart with their Categorized Targeting, which IMO ... even with the new AS features (ala #*$!xx_kw='') is head and shoulders above the competition.

Furthermore ... this is why I think its going to get very tough for G looking forward:

1. Y now has the second product - YPN and quite frankly, its much better.
2. MS now has the first product - Adcenter. Its pretty dang cool! They will have the second one VERY soon.
3. G coming up with waaaay too many 'me too' products- IM,Mail,etc - whats the point ... Y and MS rule this space.

To G's credit, public perception has not changed, but now the frenzy is not based on dominance, but more on hype.

Another thing about AdCenter - Cheapest high volume keywords around! Problem is, they dont get shown very much ~ 10%?

[Oetzi]

I agree with Jenstar, but I like to add one more consideration.

Overture is strictly an auction based system, the more you pay the higher you'll show up and therefore the more clicks you will receive. Adwords instead allows advertisers who write very compelling ads to score better than advertisers paying more but writing lousy ads.
This means that -everything else being equal- G generates more low paying clicks than Yahoo. Some of these clicks are then distributed among all of us.

[freeflight2]

depends:
- on sites with tons of traffic (1-3M pvs/day) YPN and surprisingly traditional banners ads both beat G
- on niche site with lots of content (and people actually reading and clicking if the ads are on topic) G performs still a little bit better than YPN

G heavily discounts 'accidential' and 'curiosity clicks' - YPN hasn't figured that out, yet ;)

[mikey158]

Additionally, Y is being more selective of the quality of publishers they are letting join the program.

[sailorjwd]

For my niche site Y is usually paying 4x over G and I was happy with G's EPC.

Looking at Y's ads I Don't see why people are paying so much for a click and I often don't understand why visitors are clicking on them so much - often barely on target and lots of repeats from page to page.

[Clark]

Some nice insights in this thread. Jenstar's point and warning are on target. Hopefully the influx of more advertisers using the YPN content network will somewhat offset this coming adjustment.

[chicagohh]

Personally, I believe Adsense dials the profit down and then back to normal on a regular basis.

My reasoning - A few of my sites are in the same category. Two sites are ecommerce and one is an Adsense driven site. These are very niche sites and the Adsense displays highly targeted ads. I use Adwords on the ecommerce sites.

Adword bids can remain fairly costant for months while the Adsense EPC will drop dramatically, stay there for a while and then rise back to the old levels. This is an ongoing cycle. When the data is charted out is looks like a nice wave that is slowly going downward.

IMO, someone is fiddling with the payouts.

I moved the Adsense site mentioned above to YPN and earned an immediate 2x EPC. Course, maybe all the off topic phone ads pay more...

[jonknee]

I think some of it might be that Yahoo is being aggressive. They have nothing to lose, unlike Google half of their income isn't tied up into YPN. If they make money it's extra income on the balance sheet. Almost like the Wal-Mart approach, razor thing margins that are made up for on volume.

[Swebbie]

As someone who had hundreds of pages with YPN on them since late August, I can tell you that what Jenstar suggested turned out to be prophetic. I assume a lot more publishers are in the beta program now, and sure enough, I've seen a big drop in EPC recently - across several sites that are not in any way related. Looks like good ol' supply and demand has caught up. More publishers, same number of advertisers, lower EPC. Well, it was a nice ride for about three months. Back to Google now. LOL

[asp4bunnies]

It's been the opposite for me. Since I joined YPN, over the last month EPC has continued to rise. Of course a month isn't much to measure, but still... definitely not heading back to google.

[NoLimits]

Google hasn't ever come close to the EPC that I see from Yahoo on a daily basis.

If Yahoo's targeting gets much better, I won't run AdSense at all.

[mike158]

remember grasshoppah-

only put 95% of eggs in one basket.

[janethuggard]

I don't know about lower epc. We finally got in a couple days ago. I put one of my smaller sites on for a test, and was very impressed. So impressed, I added another small site today, and am going to expand that to two more small sites over the weekend.

I am holding back my larger sites, mostly because YPN doesn't have direct deposit, and we are retired on the road now. I need my EFT.

How impressed were we? YPN is out performing Adsense at 7-1, in our early stats. Our CPC is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH (did I say much?) higher. It is enough for us to go forward with more sites for a full blown test.

If this is low epc, I wish our summer application had been approved in the first beta round.

Do you hear me Yahoo? EFT, sooner rather than later.

Now, with two sites off the Adsense system, we have seen no drop in Adsense income. The YPN income is bonus, so far.

We will see how this goes in the coming 30 days. But, we compared the first site, apples to apples, from last year at this time. It was the first site put on Adsense, just a year ago. So, we can really compare things equally. Not only that, we compared it to recent earnings at Adsense.

I don't think we will fully pull out of Adsense, even if Yahoo goest to EFT, as the diversity helps us sleep at night. But, we will certainly carefully choose, and add more sites for testing, to see which sites are better on YPN and which ones perform better on Adsense, when YPN goes EFT.

[annej]

Well I am just putting my little toe in the water with Yahoo. So far I am not at all impressed with the targeting. It seems to me it isn't going to matter how well Yahoo pays per click if they don't have any related ads for my pages. Right now they are so off target I can't imagine anyone clicking on any of the ads.

[JuniorOptimizer]

The targeting takes a few days to kick in.

[digicamhelp]

annej,

According to a phone call I had with Yahoo two days ago, it does take time for targeted ads to kick in, so give it some time.

If you haven't found it already, when you're in the Ad Setup area, click on the Ad Trageting tab and make a few selections. It helps. Besides, from what I learned in another thread, I've started thinking outside the box that every single ad must being targeted. While I do want targeted ads, it's fine that some are not. In fact, some pay a lot higher than the targeted ads.