I think this is the culprit most people see when they see their earnings drop. I've been watching my traffic stats go up, down back up and my adsense earnings seem to be completely unrelated. I'll make over $2.00 one day and 30 cents the next and then back to a $1 for a few days... it's completely random and is certainly not related to some mystery 30 day cookie that google has placed regarding my account.
Smart pricing is more of an urban myth than reality because most advertisers don't track conversion rates.
the digital camera example is valid only as an example of how targeted the traffic is to the ad content... that example would work the exact same way if you were running affiliate ads instead of adsense. so not all sites with high quality content and natural traffic will be able to sell products... you need traffic that is actively looking to purchase products. stackman has a good point, but it's all that we have to go on... sometimes conversions are defined by simply driving traffic to the advertiser site. no, because you could be in a sector that doesn't pay well to begin with.
10cents for me would be amazing. I'm getting 2-4 cents a click (more towards the 2) So, to answer the question: You are getting smartpriced when you get 280clicks for $6.50 like me But then again, I'm in a crappy niche.
If it's a crappy niche, you may not necessarily be smartpriced. It could just be that you have reached the max that you will in there. Try making another site with some other subject matter and check what sort of earnings you get there. If also low (and you've purged the Arbitrageurs from your site) then you could be smartpriced, otherwise, the original subject area is just low-paying. Remember, smartpricing supposedly resets itself after a while, so if it's CONTINUALLY low, then it probably is something else.
I thought I'd never been smartpriced, but a while ago I came across http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/adsense-charts/ and plotted a chart of CPC over the last year or so. It was clear that CPC had suddenly fallen about 25% at some point in April - I hadn't noticed because traffic had been rising at the same time. This adsense graph covered a range of sites so I don't think it's because a major advertiser pulled out at that point.
Thanks for the info guys. Google doesn't seem to let us know what happen to our site. We just have to take a guess and try to do everything according to the TOC. Regardless of what reason that Goolge gives for this "smart priced", to me it's just another way for them to pay less for adsense users.
I'll stay with the "urban myth" version. In the end, there's nothing or little you can do if indeed, "smart pricing" exists.
it's all about raising the percentage of conversions for the advertiser... these days, if you send them junk traffic, they can put your site in their version of the competitive ad filter. and guess what, advertisers don't have a 200-url limit on their filter... if the best advertisers in your sector permanently ban your ass like that, your epc will of course go down, because there is less competition for your ad slots.