Any ideas why my AdSense CPC dropped so much?

On all my sites I used to get an average of .25 to .35 CPC but now they all dropped to around .10 to .15

This 20 cent drop is costing me a lot of revenue. My sites are all still getting just about the same amount of traffic though, so I don't understand why CPC is so low. The ad positioning seems to be in good locations on all of my sites. I use mobile responsive ad sizes, and also the 160 x 600 banner that shows up for desktop visitors. I use the text and image ads setting, and I don't block any advertisers.

In the past, January and February are usually lower than average earning months for me while December is always the best. However this December of 2014 was the worst December revenue I had in years, and so far my January earnings are the worst of any month for me in many years.

Maybe advertising is on a downside right now? I get a lot of search engine traffic and those people seem to be the ones who make me the most money. Maybe I need to start an Adwords campaign? I don't do any advertising, never needed to until now.

 

Your demographic has changed most of the clicks come from countries where the rate for a click is lower you can't affect on that a lot. You can try to advertise on sites where most of the users are from USA, Germany, UK, Spain,
I have a forum that has 0.16 CPC as the highest but that is just because the countries have a low rate on AdSense

 

My traffic is still mostly United States, always has been. Not sure why CPC has dropped so much but these CPC numbers I am getting since December are horrible.

 

I have just had a bad couple of months for the same reason as you. My page views, ad placements and so on are constant, but my CPC's are way down. This is across multiple sites in different niches. My traffic is mostly from the US as well.

I am planning to ride it out before making any changes. It is likely that it is a short term anomaly. Perhaps this festive season has been a bit tight for advertising budgets. Adsense works an a bidding system so perhaps there has been lower demand.

Darth, depending on what products or services you have to offer, you ought to experiment with buying advertising anyway. I would experiment with Adwords, Facebook, and anywhere that you could spend a little money and test. There might be a scale-able opportunity that you have been overlooking.

If my CPC's as a publisher stay down then I might start to look at Clickbank, Commission Junction or many other places that I should have been looking anyway.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the info, sorry to hear that you are having the same issues. I noticed that my search engine traffic is lower these past few days, maybe people are on vacation. That could be the reason for my terrible CPC right now. But still, my overall CPC these last few months is the lowest it has been in years.

Unfortunately for me, AdSense is the only ad network that has always made me good money. All others are too low, or display ads with malware.

I might try Adwords, but usually that doesn't work well for me. I notice lately more sites, as well as YouTube users have been using Patreon or Paypal to try to get donations from visitors. Makes me wonder if website ad revenue is down for a lot more people.

 

I agree that most ad networks are disappointing. Do you have a block under your articles that has photos? The ones that say "You might also like" or "from around the web"... These earn reasonably well and don't seem to affect the Adsense revenue. If you do not have one of these blocks take a look at Taboola if your traffic is high, or Content.ad if it isn't. This might help plug your 20% drop.

 

I tried taboola and content.ad
My RPM with both has just been around $1 while my adsense RPM is $15+
Showing related articles from my own site to try and retain the visitor proved to be a better strategy for me.

 

My adsense RPM is down by around 50% over the past 10 days or so. I guess this is because of the holiday season. I hope things will get back to normal from Monday.

 

Adsense is better for sure. But also bear in mind that the chances are that you will only have one Taboola or Content.ad advert at the bottom of the post. You might have 3 text and 3 image Adsense ads. So you could divide the RPM of the Adsense by 6 to compare.

My original point though is that these end of post ad revenue should be in addition to the Adsense, not instead of. You can configure these widgets to show your own content mixed. You can choose 0-100% ads vs internal content which is interesting to play around with.

 

I have never tried these types of ads before. I've seen them on many, many websites and clicked them in the past, but they often led to really bad articles and/or sites. Sometimes a few of the linked sites from those that I click on appear to try to install malware, because my antivirus often alerts that it blocked an attempt on my PC.

I don't know I'm a little skeptical on trying these, I'm afraid they will make my sites look like a mess of spam. Maybe I will give Taboola a try, I might have no choice with the way my AdSense revenue has dropped.

Here is an article about these types of ad networks:

http://fortune.com/2014/08/18/taboola-outbrain-battle-bad-reputation-each-other/

The holiday season was always the highest revenue for me, but this 2014 season was the worst holiday season ever for me. And now this January is the worst month for me since back when I 1st started years ago. Maybe the mobile phone era with more mobile users is killing off advertising revenue.

 

You may want to just hold out on this, it happens every year.
Most people do not release their advertising budgets / are back from holidays until mid - late January.

I personally am still seeing quite high CPC's on my network.

 

Facing the same CPC issue here, but like others have said, it's probably due to the holidays.

 

I looked at my analytics in January of last year, and even January of year before and I actually have a little more traffic this month than previous January's, however CPC is .15 to .20 lower this year as opposed to previous years. Mid November and entire month of December were always my highest earnings, however this holiday season the CPC was still at the .15 lower drop, and now its even worse.

It's so bad now, and has been on a steady drop over the last 12 months that I am considering giving up and going back to working for companies. Traffic on my sites have not dropped at all, its been the same or even a little more. However the CPC dropping by an average of .15 has killed off all my revenue. Maybe Google lowered my CPC because of low CTR or conversions. Either way my income right now is virtually nothing.

 

Darth, if there has been a downward trend for a while it is probably a niche specific thing.

I would be searching for alternative monetization methods entirely. Adsense and other CPC or RPM type ads are often out performed by electronic or physical products. Depending on your niche, I bet there are alternative ways of monetizing your traffic.

It could be that email marketing with an auto responder series, or a niche specific affiliate tie up will make you a lot more money.

 

Yes, I used to play around with the ads vs internal content mix when I was using content.ad. Taboola didn't offer this option; at least I couldn't find that on my control panel.

In November, when I was using the 4x3 Taboola widget below each of my articles, my website was averaging $1000 a day with adsense and $70 a day with Taboola. It made sense to remove Taboola and use my own "Related Articles" widget. This increased pageviews/visitor significantly and subsequently my adsense revenue.

Results will of-course vary for different websites. The only way to find out the most profitable combinations is by split testing.

 

I was probably smart priced, I bet my visitors dont buy much from clicking ads so Google lowered my CPC. I'm still getting the same amount of traffic (or more) and same amount of clicks that I have been for years. Many of my sites are game related or host games that I make myself. I was surprised that I lasted this many years, but then got used to it and thought the ride would never end.

I have tried Amazon affiliate in the past and made very little money on it, always seemed like AdSense was the best source of revenue for me. I never liked relying on them only, but really had no choice as I tested many other methods over the years,

 

Hi I have experienced the same exact issue and almost the same circumstances and I do not think it is seasonal. I have an education based portal and was getting a $6 to $7 cpc for 2 months staright. For the past 2 months it has dropped to $2 to $3. My only thought is some advertisers with bigger budgets and higher cpc dropped their campaigns from my site due to it not backing out for them. Not 100% sure why though just a guess.

 

I'd personally be trying to find option monetization strategies entirely. Adsense as well as other CPC or perhaps RPM kind advertisings can be away carried out by simply electric or physical product. According to the specific niche market, i bet you'll find option means of monetizing the site visitors.
Maybe marketing with email having an auto responder line, or possibly a specific niche market unique affiliate marketer wrap up will always make anyone far more money.

 

it somehow depend to the advertisers, those advertisers who pay well for their CPC probably had paused their campaign these months so you guys get lower CPC from other advertisers which isn't that related to your niche.

 

Hi Darth and Jason,
Did the CPC increase after the drop in January? My CPC has dropped very low this month.
Also my website is new only 8 months old, so i have no idea if this a seasonal drop.