How I am beating Adsense Smart Price and getting back to $3000 a month

if you're converting then your epc should not be affected; if you have a good EPC then you're not smart priced. If you're not smart priced then of course no need to weed out too low or too high ctr sites , you wouldn't kill the goose that lays the golden egg, right?

But if you're indeed smart priced (and if it's not because of lack of content or because you try to trick adsense) then I can but reassert that checking your ctr along your epc (and comparing with what you think/know is your niche average) is a way to detect where the problem could be.

But debating further is pointless: just happy that my epc and my revenue went out of this smart pricing curse!

 

Just because all of a sudden you have a low ePC doesn't mean you've been smart-priced I'd be willing to bet that in most cases the low ePC is NOT a result of smart-pricing.

No one has yet to answer how changing the CTR on YOUR site is going to help the situation. Folks, smart-pricing is all about conversions.

 

i should say this is a post of the year (for 2008) .. great share dude...

 

Really good to know that. THanks for sharing.
Seem I need to cut some Ad unites from my website.

 

I wonder how much traffic you're getting per month 2000 from adsense really i cant believe that m getting arround 80

 

Very informative thread, thanx.

 

Good tips. I also felt the impact of smart-pricing.

 

I care what CTR I have (from now on)

Please take a look at this picture. I REALLY don't think this is a coincidence. The black line is the moment(september 2008) when I have inserted 3 blocks of ads on every page instead of one. My earnings dropped from $850 to $180 and I have already lost few thousands bucks.

Now I have just removed lots of ads and hope to see some good results.

 

I seriously doubt it was because your CTR was too low. I'll say it again: "I seriously doubt it was because your CTR was too low"

By trebling the number of ads on the page, you increased the odds monumentally that someone would click on a lower paying ad. No one has been able to tell me why a low CTR on the PUBLISHER's site would get you in trouble. A low conversion rate on the ADVERTISER's site, yes, but NOT on the PUBLISHER's site. Would anyone care to give a reason for it on the Publisher's site????

 

Do you mean that my visitors suddenly stopped converting when visiting sponsored sites exactly when I added more blocks of ads?

I think I have an ideea about "why a low CTR on the PUBLISHER's site would get you in trouble"
Low CTR = high server ussage (for Adsense) and no clicks. No clicks = no proffit for Adsense. If I would have my own cpc network I wouldn't like to have sites with low ctr.

 

No, I don't mean that at all. You are assuming you've been smart-priced. You may want to look at the ads showing up on your site. Whenever my ePC has fallen, it's been a result of MFA sites advertising on mine. After I weed them out, my ePC has returned to normal. By you adding more blocks, you've trebled the chances of low paying ad appearing on your site. Remember, Google claims that the higher performing ads are served to your site first. By trebling the number of ads, you've dramatically increased the odds that lower paying ads will appear. Thus the odds of visitors clicking them also go up, thus your earnings go down the toilet.

You are starting from an uncertain and probably false premise. Low CTR does NOT mean high server usage. Not at all. Therefore the statement you follow with has no bearing regarding not liking sites with low ctr.

I've used this example numerous times before and no one will answer it:

Imagine that you have 100 page views and 1 click. That one click leads to a conversion on the Advertiser's site. You have a 1% CTR, but your click converts at 100% Someone...Anyone...Answer this question: Why would that 1% (which translates to 100% conversion) get you in trouble and thus smart-priced?

Conversely, say you have 100 page views and 5 clicks. None of those 5 clicks convert.

Which of the two preceding situations is the Advertiser more likely to be unhappy with? The 1% CTR (1 click that converts), or the 5% CTR (5 clicks that don't)?

 

Adpubster- I don't even know how you have the energy for this thread. Too many myths for me to start....

I think that Smart Pricing in general is a myth, until I see it myself. Every time I see a drop it is because of the sites being served.

 

It's still hard for me to find the link between the number of Adsense ads on my site and Advertisers conversions, but I think it worth to try to decrease the number of ads.

 

I agree, too many blocks can look spammy if not done right.

Regarding conversions...I don't know that that is the issue. Check what I wrote above.

For example, let's assume three ads in each block. Google supposedly populates in decreasing order of ad performance across the network. So, now you supposedly have the three top performing ads on your page. Now, you add two more blocks. You still have those three top ads, but now you also have 6 lower paying ads which statistically (placements aside) have twice the chance of being clicked as the three highest ones do.

This is very likely not at all even a case of smart-pricing. With more ads there is a higher chance for lower paying ones. If the odds of clicking a lower-paying ad go up, guess what, your earnings go down with respect to the number of clicks. Simple as that.

Yes removing the blocks may be a good idea, but not necessarily for any reasons having anything to do with smart pricing unless those blocks were set up in such a way as to get more deceptive clicks...that WILL hurt conversions.

If you determine that the ads on one page have a low ctr, you do not have enough information do decide whether or not those ads are hurting you unless you can look at how the visitors who click them perform on the ADVERTISER's site.

 

The answer is clear, not everyone uses Google Adwords/Analytics to keep track of their conversions. I know I don't. If this is the case, then how can Google determine for certain whether or not the ads are actually converting? They CAN'T.

This is why I think they leave it up to the advertiser to decide whether or not to remove a specific site from their list of advertisers, which, in turn, could very well be the cause of what we call "smart pricing".

 

Great post and usefull information

 

If Google can't determine if ads are converting, they are NOT going to just say..."oh, that site has low CTR, let's smart-price them" Think about the illogic of that!

And, if the advertiser reports the site or blocks it, it's because of low conversions on HIS site and HAS NOTHING to do with the CTR on the publisher's site. Thus, the question remains unanswered.

 

My point is, Google would not use the conversion rate as a reliable method to smart price all sites (as you have indicated), since many advertisers do not report their conversions to Google.

It is very possible that CTR could be a factor in deciding whether or not to smart price a site, as I doubt Google favors sites that do not send visitors to advertisers because no visitors = no revenue.

 

This is exactly what I wanted to say. Google is not getting revenue from advertisers conversions but from clicks. This is why a friend of mine who is running adsense of hundreds of cloaking and spamming sites was warned by adsense team 6 times until now but never banned.

 

Why? With the number of advertisers out there it's not a big deal...no visitors simply means no paying out for clicks to that particular publisher. And again:

If the CTR is low but the traffic is very targeted, resulting in conversions, Google nor especially the Advertiser is going to want to lose those few but converting visitors.

All the info you have is your CTR...you cannot make any decision based solely on your CTR because you don't know what that visitor does once he leaves your site.

But, by all means, go ahead and remove the ads from any pages with a CTR below...below...below what? What would you use as a cutoff? What do you think would be "low enough" to get you "smartpriced" If you don't have that info, either (flawed as the concept is), you're really guessing in the dark and could end up doing more harm than good to your earnings.