Did anyone's Adsense CTR just drop, like, a lot?

[bummed.out]

Yesterday, my CPC was lower than average, as low as 7 cents; today, my CTR, without revealing the number, is between 5 and 8 times lower than average. I've no idea what could have happened...I mean, it's really low.

I know that weekends can be slower, but this is a bit much. The last month my sites had very good performance, with above average (for me) CTR and CPC, then suddenly, come April 1st...where did it go?

A few days ago I'd considered putting Adsense on a site that I had a press release made about, but changed my mind and removed it. Can't say I've done anything else to my sites recently. Could it be time for a theme change/appearance overhaul?

The site's rankings don't appear to have changed; my publisher ID is correct in the ads. Anyone else experiencing this and/or have some thoughts?

Cheers

[butnotbush]

Hello,
I've been doing some keyword research lately and collecting data.

And I just double checked like 5-10 different keywords and all of them are having significant CPC drop. I checked the most ''expencive'' keywords and they all have very big CPC drop.

Can someone double check that and just randomly check some of your top keywords and see if you're experiencing any CPC changes?

But for me it looks like global CPC price cut from google.
Not sure what is going on...

Thanks.

[Lainie]

Yes, I've noticed this lately too.

CTR rate is up but CPC is down, so at the end of the day my earnings are about the same.

Shame really, with improvements in traffic and CTR I was hoping to earn a bit more.

[butnotbush]

On most of the keywords I see 2-3x CPC price drop.

[paulgl]

Did you know that stellar adwords users are rewarded with a lower
CPC? Did you know that if you have a stellar site, then these stellar
adwords users target your site?

The trick is to just keep getting targeted traffic.

The more better site you have, the more people are willing to pay
for an ad on it. The more people you have bidding, the higher the
cost of a click.

If the quality of your site drops, the quality of the visitor drops, all
things drop.

The CPC is calculated on an ongoing basis. It can rise and fall in
the blink of an eye.

Dramatic fluctuations are more common than people think. Big and
small companies start and stop campaigns constantly.

Paul

[butnotbush]

Thanks for you reply.

I agree with what you say. BUT.

I've checked very random keywords for CPC few days ago. Insurance, mortgage, drugs, finance, education - random industries. I've collected all the information. And today I double check them all - and I am getting totally different CPC results. Bit strange. I understand, when one company starts or ends a campaign, but not very random industries at the same time?

Simple check, lets say you have some data about cpc of a potential keyword that you're interested in - check them now and see if it has significant changes?

Thanks.

[bummed.out]

Hi all,

Today, so far, my CTR is very low, in fact, only one click, but it's at a much higher than average CPC. Maybe it's just a very slow weekend, but if this keeps up into the week, I'm revamping my sites.

Cheers

[tfawkes]

One day statistics are not trends. If you find yourself worrying enough about a single day drop in either CPC or CTR, you need to take a step back.

Check your AdSense and SERP 1/week.

To those who are finding that their CPC is lower than they would like, but CTR is fairly consistent, try testing affiliate offers in different ad blocks. If you need help figuring out what is relevant, just look at the ads google's adwords customers are running on your site.

Enjoy irresponsibly.

[Fatiana]

I agree with butnotbush, while doing keyword research the last two days, I also noticed a big drop in CPC that is why I even ended up on this thread, hopefully it is a temporary thing.

[bummed.out]

Thank you for helping me to not freak out about a couple of days of abnormality. I will keep an eye on things. FWIW, the CTR and pageviews have still been lacking today, but the CPC is still above average.

Originally Posted by tfawkes

One day statistics are not trends. If you find yourself worrying enough about a single day drop in either CPC or CTR, you need to take a step back.

Check your AdSense and SERP 1/week.

To those who are finding that their CPC is lower than they would like, but CTR is fairly consistent, try testing affiliate offers in different ad blocks. If you need help figuring out what is relevant, just look at the ads google's adwords customers are running on your site.

Enjoy irresponsibly.

[butnotbush]

I am talking about just random checks of industries, random keyword research looking for really high CPC keywords. No matter the search volumes etc. - They are gone. The CPC prices are reduced 2-3 times with what I saw days or a week ago. On all random keywords. If you recently added some really high CPC keywords to your ''to-do'' list - I advise you to check them again - and most likely you will see huge difference in the price change.

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by butnotbush

Thanks for you reply.

I agree with what you say. BUT.

I've checked very random keywords for CPC few days ago. Insurance, mortgage, drugs, finance, education - random industries. I've collected all the information. And today I double check them all - and I am getting totally different CPC results. Bit strange. I understand, when one company starts or ends a campaign, but not very random industries at the same time?

Simple check, lets say you have some data about cpc of a potential keyword that you're interested in - check them now and see if it has significant changes?

Thanks.

There is nothing to check. Google tells you flat out to not expect high
paying clicks. You need to do research on how ads are placed on your
site, who is bidding, who gets top billing, etc.

If one word as a CPC of $30, you will not get that. That's what the going
rate on a page light years older and better than yours. High paying ads
will not be targeted on your site unless they are warranted. You can't
just build a site on student loan consolidation and expect high paying
words. That's why the nonsense of getting rich via some keyword
research is just that. Nonsense. The content network rate is much
lower than search.

Google will not put high paying ads on your site unless you have a proven
track record for traffic and quality. You could get smart priced. That is,
if your buy rate sucks, google will put ads on your site using fire
sale prices.

They are looking out for their adwords customers, not you. They want
as high a ROI as they can get.

Google also has many large customers who target every site. Drives
adsense users crazy with the irrelevant links thing. But google puts what
adwords users want, not necessarily what you want.

If you find a word that pays $50, that's probably top spots on search.
The content network is closer to $25, maybe higher if your site is
targeted. Out of the ones bidding $25, your site might not warrant the
top ads. Now you are down to people bidding under $10. But those people
probably won't go for just any site. You get lucky to get a top bid of $5.

You get the leftovers.

If you have 3 ad blocks, the last one may be $1 or less. Now all your
research on a $50 keyword goes out the window as you only get
65 cents for that $1 click.

If more adsense users knew how adwords works, they would build any niche
and get solid, targeted, buyer-minded traffic. Then no matter what the
niche is, your site will rock.

Paul

[rain21]

yes, that happens to me time to time. I think its normal

[butnotbush]

Originally Posted by paulgl

If more adsense users knew how adwords works, they would build any niche
and get solid, targeted, buyer-minded traffic. Then no matter what the
niche is, your site will rock.
Paul

Hey Paul. Thanks for the reply.
Ok, so what do you mean - buyer-minded traffic, targeted.
This is exactly what the keyword research is for - no? You research and then you stick to your keywords and build your websites around them. How more targeted can you be? And if I end-up ranking #1 for that keyword - what else can I do? I mean - then I should be getting not only ''leftovers'' as you say, correct? Ofcourse, I understand, that PR is very important too. Because if you rank #1 and you have a good PR - then you must be getting that good stuff?

Cheers.

[paulgl]

Adwords across the content network is different than search.

If you get clicks, but nobody completes a deal, buys, etc., or
that rate is very low on your site, it means that your site
is not a good deal for certain advertisers. To make up for
this, google lowers the price on your site, trying to up
the ROI for adwords users.

The more people buy after clicking, the better it looks to
adwords users. They will target your site. It is true that
initially the best adwords users will get a lower rate just due
to QS. But if your site continues to drive paying customers to
adwords users regularly, your price will increase as more
adwords users will be targeting it.

Here is a good quote from google:

If our system determines that a click is less likely to lead to a business result, the advertiser's maximum bid may be reduced.

You can read some good insight here:

https://www.google.com/adsense/suppo...&answer=190436

The facts about smart pricing - Inside AdSense

The trick comes in as to how they determine this. One way I can think of is a quick
rate of bouncing back and forth between your site and the advertisers site. I'm
sure they have other ways.

Paul

[bummed.out]

A lot of fluctuation going on; yesterday I disabled two sites temporarily, yet still had an above average day; today, I finished revamping one site and put it back up and have had really low CTR again. I don't know...last month was excellent, and if anything, my sites have gone up in the SERPs.

[mrfusion]

I noticed this too right at the beginning of April but it's back to usual by now.

[Sayn]

My CTR is also went from 15% to 3%. I don't have idea what causes it. Do you still have low CTR or its normal again?