The Super Bowl didn't seem to affect my earnings yesterday in the slightest, not a bad day at all

Same here. Affiliate sales were phenomenal, too. Maybe that shouldn't be surprising: About a third of the U.S. population watches the Super Bowl, and the other two-thirds may be trying to avoid it at all costs!

There was a time when you could really fiddle with the colours and the fonts, and the text size, and actually have them stick,

Two things to consider:

1) That applies only to text ads, which are only part of the ad mix these days (and a part that's of declining importance to sites that do well with CPM display ads).

2) Increasing CTR for the publisher by artificial means--e.g., by removing borders or matching ad typefaces to body text--doesn't necessarily translate into better performance for advertisers. In fact, it's likely to have the opposite effect--and over the long term, conversions matter if CPC ads are to remain viable.

I think the baekdal article sums it up nicely.

"Google Search ads will always outperform AdSense ads simply because they are all based on a specific intent."

and Google Search ads are always on top, blended into the page to look like search results. Many people click on them that don't know or don't care they are ads, they just want a quick answer.

people have to run a Google Gauntlet just to get to a publisher website, and if do make it all they see is crappy "download now" ads from Adsense :)

Worst-ever Superbowl Sunday for me mainly because my EPC was totally in the gutter!

Hi, I just joined today after reading some very high rpm's listed. I've used adsense for the past 8 years, I've never had the best results, but considering my site is at its busiest it's struggling right now.

Today for instance, 60,000 impressions from 3 adverts, the page rpm 0.12. I've made £7. Would you consider this poor?

I've always just created the advert and plunged them on my site, are there any tips or tricks I'm missing that would lead to such a poor return?

"Google Search ads will always outperform AdSense ads simply because they are all based on a specific intent."

If Jo Searcher types a query for "doughnut pudding recipe," sees a list of recipes for doughnut pudding in the organic results, and clicks through to one of those recipe pages, it's pretty likely that making doughnut pudding is her "specific intent"--and that she'll be a good candidate for AdSense ads that sell doughnut pudding mix, doughnut pudding molds, and other products that are used in making doughnut pudding.

The problem for many AdSense publishers (in terms of CPC ads) is simply that their visitors aren't in the market for anything. Those visitors just want to read an analysis of the New Hampshire Primary, see photos of Beyonce at the Super Bowl, check the weather forecast for Denver, or learn whether they can safely use E15 gasoline in their cars. They aren't being sidetracked by Google Search ads; they simply aren't interested in clicking on ads at that moment in time.

Faceman> Depends on the location of your visitors but it sounds very low. Try following these guidelines : [support.google.com...]

Media dot Net Red Bar

"Delay in stats: Audited numbers for February 6, 2016 are delayed and will be available in the next 24-48 hours."

Monkey see, Monkey Do :)

99% of my visitors are from the UK. I use two 728x90 banners in the header and footer.

@Face man there is potential if you are getting 60,000 impressions. Mind you, if you're page RPM is only 12p then I'm not surprised your earnings are down. My page RPM very rarely drops below £2 and quite often exceeds £3. I think if you could get yours to this level then you would be earning quite a lot of money each day. But I suppose it really depends on what your niche is. How many hits are you getting each day?

It ranges from 100,000-200,000 page views a day.. it is a messageboard, I've never had decent return but I've never worked out why. It just gets less the more it's grown over the years.

@faceman Message board says it all for me - advertisers rarely pay top dollar for those especially if the niche isn't competitive in the first place.

Awful CTR so far today, PVs totally normal!

@Face man

I see, I would agree message boards don't really pay much money at all. I have a forum on my website and I can see I've had 1174 impressions so far today, that's generated three clicks from a leaderboard at the top of the page and paid 18p

I can also see that the page and impression RPM are both at 18p.

Forums and message boards seem a waste of time for Adsense. I ran a particularly busy one back in the 'glory days' of Adsense and even then the returns were pitiful. In the end I shut it down, extracted the best posts/threads and turned them into web content.

My RPM has improved quite a bit in the past 3-4 days. Still below average but a lot better than the 50% I was getting in January. Also seeing the return of the 'big click' (had a $9 one earlier today).

Feb RPM pretty low still

Really low CPC this month. Drop 40% against January CPC. CTR is good but Cost per click is very low and don't know why.

Yes, I also had a big click last night, I think it was £3.90 ($5.60). And that was from a 300 x 250 rectangular ad unit. Silly thing is, I all but done away with these, there are just a few left on various articles on my website.

Earnings haven't really got off the ground much today, however I have the red bar so hopefully that is why

Red bar here too. I also noticed they reclaimed a click as I refreshed. I never ends.

Delay in stats: Audited numbers for February 6, 2016 are delayed and will be available in the next 24-48 hours."

They haven't said so, but I'd be willing to bet that that reason that media.net's stats are so far behind is because Bing Ads hasn't updated *anything* for several days now, and since I manage significant client spend on the ad side and run a significant number of ads on the publisher side, it's kind of driving me nuts.

The red bar has disappeared now and my earnings have started to move

@netmeg Hi! As a fellow media.net user, can you recommend a forum similar to this one for them? It would be great to have a similar reference point as I do for Adsense!

Yes, red bar is gone and hings are looking good today.

I use media.net as well. Is anyone else experiencing delayed daily earnings report? I still haven't had an update of my weekend and Monday earnings. A little message does come up occasionally saying that there is a delay and it may take a little bit of time before we get them. Just wondering is just me or if anybody else has the same thing?

@Ironside, yes I'm having the same issue

Hey guys - read my post ^^^^ Media.net stats are probably down because they serve BingAds and BingAds Reports have been down for days.

Maleda - I don't know of a media.net forum. They occasionally get mentioned here because a lot of us run both, but we don't have a specific forum for them.

Thanks @netmeg! It would be handy to have a specific forum for them too! Any thoughts on how we contact the powers that be at WW?

Yes I have the same media.net problem.

Mates. Fortunately, I've eexperienced a slight change in RPM (increasing of it) in last few days? What about you? Please, could anyone explain me what's Red Bar how it's affect RPM and how to check its presence? I'm not so experienced user)So, please help. Thank you in advance!

@dinet Its risen a little for me. A red bar means there's a delay in reporting meaning your numbers are frozen and not updated like they normally are. You can find out whether you've got a red bar on your account by going to 'Performance Reports'. The red bar will stretch along the top just underneath the navigation :)