Travel related and CPM down since Feb 1 as well. All of Jan was spectacular though (one of our highest months), so it kinda offsets it. And Feb 2007 CPM is down even from Feb 2006.

I know for a fact there was a minor snafu with the 'algo' on Feb 9-10, because I reported it and it was fixed the next day. Apparently with this new channel taregeting option, every channel targetted impression was registering as a clickthru which drove our CTR up to triple (of course no increase in revenue since it was only PPI.) So this may have affected other smart-pricing type calculations accross the board. To check if you had it as well check your entire channels list for Feb 9-10, by individual ad with "show data by targeting type" checked and look at the CTR for site targetted ads as opposed to content. Ours showed many 100%'s. If you don't have channel targeting set up it may mot have impacted you.

Could be a lot of advertisers (I know a couple in particular) are simply frustrated with Adwords and trying other options.

>>The bright site about this is that we are able to offer direct advertising to some of the advertisers.

Not that I personally care, but I thought GAd added a little TOS no-no a while back about persuing adwords customers directly. I wouldn't want to get caught doing it (of course most of ours were advertising with us before GAd came to be, and later went with them too, so maybe we can accuse THEM of stealing our... )

I've also seen a sharp drop of about 50% in my eCPM 2 weeks ago. I can't really see a pure supply-and-demand explanation explaining such a sharp and sudden drop...

eCPM Pattern still holding steady for the eighth day : One day single digit, next day high double digit. Could it be I'm getting a click dump every alternate day?

As if that's not enuff... Two weeks at #1 in Goog serps, then totally MIA for 3 or 4 days, then #1 again and the pattern repeats!

These cycles are getting so regular I wonder if Google needs a box of tampons...

Not that I personally care, but I thought GAd added a little TOS no-no a while back about persuing adwords customers directly.

I no longer have any adSense ads on this website. At the same time many of these advertisers were advertising with us long before adSense even existed. At that time, they mostly paid monthly listing fees because we, nor Google had PPC system in place.

At the same time I referred many customers to AdSense when we used AdSense. They wanted to have link on our website and we were using AdSense. It was win-win situation until our eCPM was cut by 80% and advertisers were paying double price per click.

It is not easy to run your own PPC system but it was our only long term option.

Edit: Would I ever go back to AdSense? Yes!

But only under these conditions:
1. We will have an option to approve advertisers
2. We will be able to set minimum CPC and CPM
3. We will get better control over ad formats

[edited by: Januuski at 3:49 pm (utc) on Feb. 24, 2007]

so far today, 26 clicks, 71 cents. Absurd. Simply not reasonable and of course, no explanation for the sudden drop which started about 10 days ago.

Would I pay .027 per click-through to my site? Gladly, all day long. Would I sell advertising at that rate? Never in this or any other lifetime.

I don't care whether a .027 cent converts or not, it's still an absurd number and not worth supporting the billionaires at Google for any extended period of time. I'm giving them another week and then I'll start removing their code. It was mostly good while it lasted, but these numbers are insulting.

My eCPM today is the lowest it's ever been since I started adsense 2 years ago. I will make less than 50% of what I made on this day last year. I noticed it start to go down around Feb 13. :(

February 14 was the day I saw the dramatic fall off. Now get this:

I wrote a very stern letter to Google this morning, expressing my displeasure in no uncertain terms and complaining that my returns were not consistent with my #1 ranking in their SERPs for a number of keywords and key phrases.

I went out for the day and upon returning just minutes ago, I checked my stats. My earnings are already the 2nd highest they've been for the past 10 days and will likely exceed the highest day by a rather large amount.

Coincidence? Or did advertisers in my niche all of a sudden, on a Sunday, find more in their monthly budgets with just four days left in the month?

Maybe Google needs to hear the displeasure of their publishers. I certainly don't think it hurts. In any case, my eCPM is more than double what it has averaged the last 9 days.

If my earnings continue to trend downward again, I will not hesitate to voice my opinion. My experience with AdSense has been fairly positive, and I work on my site regularly. Work should produce rewards, it's that simple. If G's algo doesn't understand that principle, then they need a lesson in the most basic economics.

AdSense should not be so mysterious that it cannot be useful for even the most rudimentary web sites. Additional pages that contain relevant, cogent material should result in higher earnings for those in robust niches. That's elementary. I am fully aware that there are other factors such as saturation and seasonality, but it has been my experience that as I have grown and enhanced my site, my earnings continue to rise.

This recent downtrend was outside the normal range of expectations and, for me at least, a severe statistical anomaly, which is why I am somewhat convinced it had something to do with something Google did, rather than normal fluctuations.

I'm fairly well convinced that Google's AdSense algo is routinely tweaked and that they can control it down to the website or even channel level and they likely do so. I'm also convinced that keeping your mouth shut if you're unhappy is counterproductive.

Don't be afraid to express yourself in the strongest terms possible to Google. Behind the slick veneer there are real people working there, and they are likely learning all the time as well.

The success of AdSense depends on satisfaction from publishers and advertisers. If those two groups are well served, the shareholders will be rewarded. If not, management will have to answer to more than just the complaints from us.

I wrote a very stern letter to Google this morning, expressing my displeasure in no uncertain terms...

No doubt you put the fear of God into them.

...and complaining that my returns were not consistent with my #1 ranking in their SERPs for a number of keywords and key phrases.

LOL, I would never do this, for 2 reasons: (1) there is no logical connection between SERP position and the amount you should be getting paid for clicks, and (2) you're just begging for them to drop your site in the SERPs as well.

"I'm fairly well convinced that Google's AdSense algo is routinely tweaked and that they can control it down to the website or even channel level and they likely do so."

I believe in this comment.

Dec/Jan, I got mostly 1 cent clicks.

Suddenly from Feb 2007 onwards , I get 15X.

How the hell is this possible, unless they keep tweaking the algo?

Same traffic, same advertisers (mostly)

Today has been one of my best days this month, so I don't feel insulted at all. :-)

For what it's worth, the day-to-day AdSense eCPM peaks and valleys seem to be more extreme than they once were--at least on my site.

Last night Google left the room and dropped some change in a glass on her way out, I crawled out of bed and checked to find that it was few cents per click, I am feeling dirty, very dirty and used.

Someone earlier in this thread wondered out loud if AdSense eCPM declines are due to AdWords advertisers getting smarter and either bidding Content separately or turning it off.

My firm manages ~3-4% of all of the PPC $$ spent on Google, and I would tend to agree with that notion. Whereas Content makes up 15-20% of G's revenues, it only makes up 4-5% of our clients' spend. Given that our and other SEM firms' management of clients' spend is done leveraging historical and actual impression/click/cost/revenue/margin data, you could say that the advertisers *are* getting smarter and Content CPC's are the first things that are being devalued as a result.

It's funny, 'cause Googlers are always trying to tell us that we're not doing all that we could with Content on behalf of our clients. Well you know what, they're absolutely right, we're not doing all we could.

We're doing all we should.

I am feeling dirty, very dirty and used.

Thanks for the laugh, Hobbs. And for the poster who sniped at me, I've seen your sites and read your posts on similar topics... Well, that's all I can say if I want to be polite.

BTW: Yesterday turned out to be the best day of the last 10, easily. Somewhere, somebody turned a knob, pulled a switch or hit a button. I'm not saying that my email was the cause, but I am saying that I felt much better after writing it. I didn't expect as good a result. In fact, I expected the bad eCPM and low earnings to continue. My somewhat shaky faith in AS has been restored, for now.

I have to reiterate, though, that AS's success depends in a large degree on a very simple formula for publishers. More (relevant, original, well-written) content should equate to more pageviews, more clicks and higher earnings. I don't think that's too much to ask.

I've never felt the need to be nasty with Google's employees. When I've had problems, they've been very responsive.

Would I personally believe that an email sent on a Sunday morning resulted, within hours, in somebody's modifying the ads displayed on my site? I would doubt that anybody would even read it before Monday, and also would doubt that a hostile tone would inspire anybody to devote part of their own Sunday morning to dealing with a complaint. But stranger things have happened.

I never said I was hostile. The word I used to characterize was stern, as in harsh or tough or uncompromising. And I also doubt that my letter had any impact on Sunday's earnings and said so, but like you said, stranger things have happened and something definitely happened.

Today's numbers are not exactly awesome, but better. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed and working on my site(s).

Fearless: Let us know on this thread if your stats migrate back to prior (this week) PPC over the nest week or two, or swing back and forth and finally settle on your old (month ago) avg. I have a theory about these 'resets' (which I think is actually a very appropriate term for them) after we had the identical thing happen twice. I think there are known 'holes' or inefficiencies (to put it politely) in their algo which lets sites get stuck in an inappropriate smart-pricing rut, and when they manually reset the smart-pricing coefficient (for a lack of a better term) back to 1, it results in the temporary surge you're seeing now, until it settles back to it normal state.

>(1) there is no logical connection between SERP position and the amount you should be getting paid for clicks

'Logical' or not, how can you be so sure jomaxx? ;-) I have analyzed stats that just might prove otherwise. How do you suppose they determine "appropriateness" for ads placement amd smart-pricing?

If you think you are stuck in an inappropriate smart-pricing rut, how do you get reset? Write to adsense support and say...?