How do you know if you are being smart priced?

[elitesalesgroup]

How do you know if you are being smart priced and how do you get it to stop?
Shouldnt your income go up with increased volume and increased clicks...Why would the income not increase with increased traffic and clicks. Traffic source is not paid btw.

Thanks!

[smwordsmith]

Yes, you would think that your income would go up.

Have you set up AdSense channels to get more detailed information?

[paulgl]

You can have paid traffic.

The logic google gives on smart pricing does not hold water.
If you read between the lines, there is no way your income
is going to increase by being smart priced. The only way is
to dig your way out of the smart pricing.

Smart pricing in its barest form is google lowering the cost for
an advertiser on your site because your clicks have not been
leading to sales or action. If you get the same amount of clicks,
your income has no where to go but down.

The fact that google admits that they don't make money when
they smart price is cause to read into it differently.

Google doesn't make money from 'smart pricing'

In fact, we make less money, since the cost to advertisers is reduced in order to provide a strong ROI. Ultimately, this leads to higher payouts for publishers by drawing a larger pool of advertisers and rewarding publishers who create high quality sites.

Since google gives you a percentage, and they make less, the conclusion fails.

But if you read it again, they are referring to sites with high quality. These high
quality sites are not prone to smart pricing.

What they mean is that if YOU get smart priced, it's better for OTHERS that are
not.

I don't think one can ever really tell if they are being smart priced. There are
just too many things that go into the price of an ad. In fact, a great adwords
customer will get a lower CPC. If your site rocks, you may get great adwords
customers targeting your site and the price would go down. At least for
awhile. If your site continues to rock, more want in, and the price goes up.

But people might be clicking on the lowest paying ad. You just can't tell this
100%.

Paul

[elitesalesgroup]

Thank you..Its just that I am working to improve my volume, my clicks are improving but my income isnt. My content isn't bad.but maybe I dont have the kind of traffic that converts. I think my visitors are just information seekers. Its just me talking about the things that interest me.

[paulgl]

What is strange, and it seems to be the norm, at least for me is this:

On the days I have a stellar CTR, my CPC takes a dive. Many days I
make less than on the days with a lousy CTR, but a sky-high CPC.

The best days seem to be days with a lower CTR.

Not always, but 9 out of 10.

It just proves one thing that google says. The CPC is calculated by a huge
number of factors that change almost constantly. Remember the ads
are put up through an ongoing auction.

I would not worry about being smart priced. Pump up your targeted
visitors with targeted content and targeted ads.

You really need to use the competitive ad filter. You should monitor
what ads are showing on your site.

Over time, if you keep doing good things, your income will go up.

Paul