The actual adsense CPC compared to the GKT approximate CPC

[Fking]

We all know that we shouldn't expect our adsense CPC to be as the one suggested by the google keyword tool CPC, since it's the average of what advertisers pay to be displayed on google's network itself. And generally they pay lower for the display network (adsense sites)

But how much lower we could expect? That's critical when researching new niches. I pulled 6 of my sites and estimated what % is the actual adsense CPC from the GKT approximate CPC.
(All of those has got few hundred clicks, on which i've taken the average CPC)

the first column is the actual CPC i get on average
the second is what GKT suggests
the 3rd is how many % is the actual click from the suggested click
0.22 0.45 48%
0.15 0.15 100%
0.47 2.1 22%
0.60 0.93 64%
0.31 0.49 63%
0.32 1.05 30%

54% is the average % for all the above 6, but as you can see for particular keyword it fluctuates between 22% and 100%
That's huge and means you can't predict even close how much you would make.

So i would appreciate some more data, if you want to do the same for bunch of your sites and report here, we will get better idea how much we could expect from a potential keyword.

[Rough Outline]

Adsense CPC isn't shown in the Google ADWORDS Keyword Tool, as that is the CPC for people using Adwords. It is shown in the Contextual Tool because Adsense is used in the Content Network.

[Tony Marriott]

You seem to have used the actual money you get compared to the Average CPC.

The money you get paid is only a percentage of what the Adwords buyer pays. I believe it's around 60%.
So your comparison table should compare

(your revenue * 60%) to the GA ACPC

So your average of 54% difference is pretty close

The variations however are a different subject.

The Average CPC is the clue here. So similarly as your 54% was average (like the ACPC) your extremes were 22% and 100%. This may reflect the differences paid by the ad buyers.

It is slightly more complex than that though as Google will give higher add impressions for the most profitable ads (cpc*clickthrough). So if your site has a good clickthrough on certain ads they may be displayed more often and raise your individual click revenues.

If they have a poor clickthrough and/or lower value ads in the first place then you may see less or even no benefit from that system.

That may explain your "swings" across different sites.

[Fking]

yeah google gives us 68% of what the advertisers pay
so that means that they pay only 14% less for the display network on average
which is pretty good

i thought they pay few times less for the display network

but again, those are just averages and the extremes are in too wide range for it to matter much

[vtotheyouknow]

hey @Fking, I've crunched my numbers as well and I had more data to go on so I know that statistical significance is accounted for.

I compared 68% of CPC from the contextual tool with my actual CPC and found only a slight correlation between higher approximate CPC and actual CPC.

CPC is like a box of chocolates, which is why in addition to choosing a high approximate CPC, you also want to check to see that there are as many relevant advertisers on the content network as possible AND if you were searching for your term would you click on any of them?

[Fking]

I played with the contextual tool a bit today as well, found to be even less accurate than the google keyword tool.

What % were most of your averaged CPC from the GKT and the contextual tool?

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Fking

yeah google gives us 68% of what the advertisers pay
so that means that they pay only 14% less for the display network on average
which is pretty good

Everybody's site is different. Every page is different.

Paul