Yeah I have the same feeling. Some time I get 100's of clicks from Stumbleupon in a very short time but no addition to the adsense earnings. People at Stumbleupon looks to be really smart as they are able to differentiate between the content and ads
That means your ads were not of their interest to click. If I am looking for rims for my cars and I see advertisements related to wedding dresses, obviously I will not click the advertisements. People who stumble, digg and yadda yadda fall into the smart category of computer users. Most of them definitely know what adsense is and if they do not have a reason they will not click the ads. So if your sole intention is to drive traffic to your website and make people click ads blindly you need to target - 1. People who have known the internet for a few months. 2. Aged people (retired) who spend surfing websites and dont mind clicking. 3. Kids who are just learning to click with mouse and their daddy trains them for it. Adsense ads on your page will be just great for this. 4. People who search for free stuffs, lotteries etc. If you can spice up your page they will click the ads hoping they will get a mobile free from it. Although you have to mention somewhere on the URL from which they will visit your site.
Lol think for a sec - sites that appeal to nerds are not going to convert adsense. Because most of them know full well what adsense is - at the very least they realize its an ad and treat it like a banner (in other words - ignore).
I run a tech site and my readers are obviously web savy. What is being missed here is that, whilst they may not click on the ads as much as none web savy users, when they do click its invariably a quality click - and, in the scheme of things, I'd rather have quality than quantity as, in the long run, I believe you earn more (thanks to advertiser's positive feedback). Having previously run a site that gained far greater CTR, but obviously of lesser quality, there really is no competition - or at least that's my experience. These days, whist I blend ads to a reasonable degree, I don't go out of my way to blend them to the point where they get clicked on by users on an accidental basis. (I learned that lesson the hard way).
True... People who stumble on DP only click ads. There aren't too many users who are members that click ads around here.
i know I've made people money in the past, even thought i know exactly what google ads are, and someone is making money off me. If I'm interested in the info i click on them. I don't avoid them. I'm guessing poor ad content, there not targeting your visitors. Very true, some people just train our brains to ignore them. But most of the ads on this site do not interest or target me.