Beware of Crappy Doubleclick Ads Served At Night

I couldn't sleep, so I got up early (5AM PDST) and checked my stats.
A top-performing page had the lowest CTR ever witnessed.
So I checked the ads. All from doubleclick.

One ad's text - High Blood Pressure Symptoms Check - Your Symptoms Online.
I visited the page by typing in the URL. The words "blood pressure" COULD NOT BE FOUND ON THE PAGE! So I sent theallergyreliefcenter.com straight to the bit bucket (competitive filter). Bye-bye forever. There was another lousy ad from blogspot - also banished forever.

After optimizing my content for over 5 years, I have learned one thing for sure. After you have optimized the heck out of your page, your CTR is determined by THE ADS THAT GOOGLE SERVES YOU.

My CTR has been dropping across the board. I believe that this is because the ads that are being served are not as good as they used to be. What with the doubleclick integration, interest-based ads, and "approved 3rd party" crappy ads, your CTR is going to suffer. YOU can only do so much to optimize your CTR, then Google must serve you good ads.

As the ads get worse, it makes me wonder about just how much I want to continue doing this. The law of diminishing returns is raising its ugly head. How much time do I want to spend playing with the "competitive filter"? None. It is time to replot my course. Fighting the tide is not that much fun. I would rather just create content.

As an old friend used to say, "The problem with life is figuring out what to do next". That's where I am at now.
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I've gotten nothing but crap ads fromn the interest based and third party options so I turned them off and sent Google an email telling them they are selling us publishers down the river.

They won't listen but eventually other people will get it right and it will be time to move on.

 

I've switched to pure image ads at this point - they seem to be converting better for me (this is for a video site). I was tired of the spam ads showing up from black hat search engines and web directories, and the penny clicks...but, I hear you and I do think the ad text does manipulate your on-page content somehow.

 

Lately, many ads have been started going creepy! May be Google is focusing more on locations!

I have image only ads on my blog related to blogging and there are ads about toothpaste(a brand of my country!). Word "tootpaste" or even "teeth" is not on the page. Not even "smile"! So, I think Google is serving geo targeted ads!

 

It seems like the harder we try to make Google money, the harder they try to prevent us from doing it.

Yes, there is such a thing as "trying to be too clever." Confirmed once again.

It is no longer possible to test anymore, because while you are changing one thing, Google is changing 3 things.

As some have said, it may be time to just "set and forget". The alternative is to drive yourself nuts, fighting unknowns. Too bad there isn't a button for "DON'T CHANGE ANYTHING". That will never happen. It isn't even possible to get your fonts to behave. Why bother. Go do other stuff, that YOU can control.
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Correct.. I turned them off too ...!!!!

 

Talen,

You turned them off, meaning you're only serving direct adsense ads?..

And as far as moving on... what would you reccomend moving on to? Is there a network out there that can rival google's targeting capabilities while filling unused ad spots for you? Do you or anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks,
Chase Brumfield

 

HOw can I turn all these sreepy ads off rom adsense account doubleclick integration, interest-based ads, and "approved 3rd party" crappy ads...

Somweone help me also in this...!

 

I used to get about $2/click, now it's $0.30/click for the same page. What the heck??

 

I think people sometimes forget that Adsense/AdWords is a bid system.

The world economy has shrunk and this has impacted ad revenue. There are less people bidding on the same number of keywords, so CPC has decreased.

It's understandable that AdSense revenue has decreased along with all other economic revenue. AdSense is one of 5 internet income streams I have, and I can say that the decrease in AdSense revenue is pretty proportional when compared to the decrease in my other revenue streams.

You can't expect to get the same CPC that you were getting a year or more ago. That's like the local jewelry store expecting to sell the same number of diamond rings this month, that they sold 12 months ago. It's not a reasonable assumption or expectation in this economic climate.

 

That's terrible.

 

A couple things...

mjay68, Do you think it is really the economy that has effected the price that bad or rather advertisers starting to understand how much these ads are actually worth to them? I mean if we're being honest here (excluding brand building) the vast majority of internet ads lead to no sale whatsoever and are therefore of little to no value to an advertisor. I know this is a rather simplistic view but I'm starting to feel like the .30 mark is becomming the fair average...agree or disagree?

Also, doing some research it seems to me that both CPC and CPM have an average of around .30 right now... This strikes me as confusing because basically people are saying that 1000 different people seeing your ad is worth one person clicking on it... I don't think that exactly matches up... agree or disagree?

 

google ads are also serve by locations, we dont know how google adsense thinks..

 

Yes, I turned these options off...you can do so under your account tab...you won';t be getting crappy ads for losing belly fat and such then.

There isn't a rival to Google at the moment but there will be just give it time.

 

Actually my adsense had been going up but it's hard to get clicks on a blog about Thailand when the ads shown are for plumbing supplies and losing belly fat. Relevancy is what it's all about and something google used to do well.

 

Thought you knew something I didn't... I got excited

 

They might have done that on purpose anyway. Google always tries to put ads on the pages. There might have been some glitch in the system which made related ads unavailable. They always do try to give you the best.

 

I've noticed the same thing as well - since 3rd parties have been allowed to display ads on adsense, many ads are unrelated and the CPC has gone down. I need to check placement targetting everyday now because i find sites like sites.google.com/blablabla which returns 404 or sites which have nothing in common with my site or sites which are crap/MFA. I'll probably turn 3rd party adverts off as well and see if that makes a difference.

 

You have to go here -- Account >> Third Party Ads Preference [edit] -- click Edit, check "Do not allow advertisers to use their audience information to deliver more relevant ads to my site." then Save changes.

Is that correct?

 

I just go to Ad Review Centre (Log into your account, then go to Adsense Setup, then click on Ad Review Centre) and where it says Allow and Block Google Certified Ad Networks, i've changed it to always block them.