Adsense earnings dropping - traffic and CTR the same

[waterburn]

So I am noticing that the last month, my earnings per click have dropped quite a bit. I used to get paid over a dollar for most clicks, but now it's down to about half.

The traffic and CTR is still about the same.

Is there a way to figure out with advertisers are giving me the poor payout, so that I could block them? Or is that a bad idea?

Any advice on how to get the numbers up again would be appreciated!

[faceblogger]

Originally Posted by waterburn

So I am noticing that the last month, my earnings per click have dropped quite a bit. I used to get paid over a dollar for most clicks, but now it's down to about half.

The traffic and CTR is still about the same.

Is there a way to figure out with advertisers are giving me the poor payout, so that I could block them? Or is that a bad idea?

Any advice on how to get the numbers up again would be appreciated!

Adsense is the other end of Adwords and adwords works based on bidding (Google only display the higher paying ads only, if an advertisor's bid is low that ad will not be displayed as long as there are some highly paying ads for the same key words exist). Whenever a niche product's market demand goes down the bids also go down and it results law payouts for Adsense. It does not mean that you get ads from perticular low paying advertisers.

[Nexus7]

Could be smart pricing. This happens when your clicks don't covert for the advertisers. One site can affect your entire account, which means your other sites will see a drop off in revenue. If you're seeing several $.01-$.02 clicks you're probably smart priced.

It could also be that some big players have dropped out for awhile, making the CPC less. I've noticed it a bit on some of my own sites in the last few weeks.

I'd wait it out until next month. If you're still seeing poor CPC then you could try removing or reducing the amount of ads on your site(s) for a while. I'm not sure if blocking advertisers will help much, but you can experiment.

[waterburn]

It seems nearly impossible to know which advertisers to block... How can I tell which advertisers are shown on my site?

The last 3 weeks have been horrible for sure, when it comes to my Adsense earnings. Not sure what to do here.

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by waterburn

It seems nearly impossible to know which advertisers to block... How can I tell which advertisers are shown on my site?

The last 3 weeks have been horrible for sure, when it comes to my Adsense earnings. Not sure what to do here.

Use the Adsense Preview Tool.

Installing the preview tool - AdSense Help

[waterburn]

Originally Posted by Nexus7

Use the Adsense Preview Tool.

Installing the preview tool - AdSense Help

Windows only? What about a Mac guy like me?

[TryBPO]

Have you tried Spyfu.com? Great resource for telling how many bidders are left and what they are paying per click.

[dburk]

Hi waterburn,

I believe you should do the exact opposite of what you are contemplating. Instead of blocking advertisers, you should be focused on attracting advertisers.

AdSense is an auction based platform. Blocking advertisers only serves to lower the competition for you ad space thereby lowering the bids required to purchase your ad space. Lower bids result in lower EPC.

Attract more advertisers to your website by building more targeted traffic. The more targeted your traffic the higher advertisers will bid for your ad space.

[TryBPO]

dburk - Good advice.

The more advertisers you have available to place ads on your site, the better chance Google will be able to optimize the ads, earning you the most revenue.

[TryBPO]

Originally Posted by Nexus7

Could be smart pricing. This happens when your clicks don't covert for the advertisers. One site can affect your entire account, which means your other sites will see a drop off in revenue. If you're seeing several $.01-$.02 clicks you're probably smart priced.

It could also be that some big players have dropped out for awhile, making the CPC less. I've noticed it a bit on some of my own sites in the last few weeks.

I'd wait it out until next month. If you're still seeing poor CPC then you could try removing or reducing the amount of ads on your site(s) for a while. I'm not sure if blocking advertisers will help much, but you can experiment.

Hey Nexus7, I believe that's wrong information.

Google won't punish an entire AdSense account due to smart pricing...only particular sites. It makes sense...just because one of your sites is converting poorly for an advertiser doesn't mean all the sites in your AdSense account are, of course. This is straight from Google...

[Jeremy Banks]

Originally Posted by TryBPO

Hey Nexus7, I believe that's wrong information.

Google won't punish an entire AdSense account due to smart pricing...only particular sites. It makes sense...just because one of your sites is converting poorly for an advertiser doesn't mean all the sites in your AdSense account are, of course. This is straight from Google...

I think there is A LOT of mis-information about smartpricing. Basically how I understand it is that it happens to everyone no matter what. It's a way that google makes the payout fair for the advertiser and the publisher. They don't pick on certain sites or accounts, they smart price everything!

[Jeremy Banks]

Originally Posted by TryBPO

dburk - Good advice.

The more advertisers you have available to place ads on your site, the better chance Google will be able to optimize the ads, earning you the most revenue.

Just let it ride, sometimes google decides to pay you next to nothing for your ads, a few weeks later you are getting $1 per click. Don't fight it, just keep driving traffic and getting that internet money@!

[TryBPO]

Here's a video worth watching if you're looking for more information about smart pricing for AdSense.

YouTube - ‪AdSense Smart...

I really wonder how they determine "conversions" for the advertisers. Based on a quick bounce rate on the click-through to their site maybe?

[InitialEffort]

Could also be that your main bidder of ad placements reduced or cancelled their budget.

[Nexus7]

Originally Posted by TryBPO

Hey Nexus7, I believe that's wrong information.

Google won't punish an entire AdSense account due to smart pricing...only particular sites. It makes sense...just because one of your sites is converting poorly for an advertiser doesn't mean all the sites in your AdSense account are, of course. This is straight from Google...

Everything I've read says it does, and my own experience says it does. Sure, Google says otherwise but I don't believe it.

I removed the ads off a new site that I suspected was causing it and earnings went back up across my other sites within a week. That site had a low CTR, whereas my other sites were much higher. It happened again with another new site that had low CTR. Eventually, I put ads back on the first site and it didn't seem to affect my other sites. CTR is still low on that site, but EPC has wild swings.

If it's not smart pricing then I'll admit I'm wrong, but searches reveal others that have experienced the same thing.

[TryBPO]

Originally Posted by Nexus7

Everything I've read says it does, and my own experience says it does. Sure, Google says otherwise but I don't believe it.

I removed the ads off a new site that I suspected was causing it and earnings went back up across my other sites within a week. That site had a low CTR, whereas my other sites were much higher. It happened again with another new site that had low CTR. Eventually, I put ads back on the first site and it didn't seem to affect my other sites. CTR is still low on that site, but EPC has wild swings.

If it's not smart pricing then I'll admit I'm wrong, but searches reveal others that have experienced the same thing.

What possible motivations do you think Google could have to lie about that, do you think? Remember, smart pricing is done on the AdSense side, not the search side. Also, smart pricing is related to conversion on the ADVERTISER's side, not on CTR from your site or page.

To your other point, I can't say what happened specifically, of course, but remember that correlation doesn't imply causation. If you had a couple of bad days or weeks (lower than your historical average) and you're trying to improve your sites, it would make sense that it would return to get you back to "average". As someone else mentioned, you might have had a couple major advertisers pull out and then hop back in or something...who knows.

Definitely can't prove it either way...but pointing to other people who may be misinformed as well doesn't help. I can't point to people saying all kinds of things here and on random blogs that are proven to be untrue.

Anyway, don't meant to be a pain...it's good to give the OP plenty of suggestions of course.

[Mjoseph83]

same problem I am facing. But my past experience tell me that it happens sometimes when google updated its advertiser ads data. It is also depends on pick season for marketing.

[brettb]

Never forget that AdSense money comes from advertisers. Sometimes they don't spend so much on their campaigns.

[seoforu]

Blocking the ads would not be a good idea.Ups and downs in the rate is an inseparable part of this industry and all of us has a face it.

[waterburn]

Thanks for the suggestions. I might also contact some Adsense advertisers directly to see if they are interested in bypassing Google altogether. Or is there a risk I could end up getting my Adsense account terminated if I do that?

[TryBPO]

Hey there, waterburn.

I can't remember for sure, but I'm pretty sure contacting the advertisers directly is against the rules. More importantly, though, I'm not sure it's in your interest. (Or the advertisers)

Using the AdSense platform, if any new competitors start bidding on that keyword you win! Yes, you're giving up a little to Google, but they're also allowing advertisers to bid against each other, monitoring the effectiveness of the ads on your page and adjusting accordingly, etc. What if the ads put directly on your page didn't convert as well? What if the cpc went up considerably with AdSense and you're missing out?

Too much work, I think, to keep up with it, heh.

[paulgl]

Google does not just display the highest paying ads. They would
be crazy to do so. That's not how adwords works. Google wants
to show the BEST ad to the given visitor (or searcher). The
highest performing ads and adwords users get the top spot,
many times for a lower price.

Even adwords users think otherwise. If your QS is low, no matter
what you bid you aint gonna be on top. Google would be a fool
to do that. Their whole business model would sink like a stone.

They are not #1 by letting junk users with junk sites take the top
spots.

That's why so many former adwords users can't believe google bans
them. They are begging google to take their money. Google doesn't
want it, nor need it. And why some adwords users can't figure out
why they bid high and still no ads shown.

Paul

[losare1]

It could be smart pricing.. Check out your entire Channel's CPC, is it all drastically falling down?

If you're still seeing poor CPC for a month then you could try removing ads on your site(s) for 3 weeks. And after that, you can put the ads back..

it's affect to our account

[waterburn]

All of my sites have gone down a bit in Adsense earnings, yes.

[networm]

@TryBPO
Thanks for the video... I now understand what Smart Pricing is. I though it was a settings that can be set by publishers, but it turned out to be the opposite.

[DSepanik]

I just started making money with adsense a few months ago. My earnings have been increasing. My highest payed clicks are around $2.5 and lowest around $.3
I have been writing content around high cpc keywords.
Dan