I've been reading all the complaining about smart pricing recently, but prior to that I've been studying this with several of my own sites. I had a site that I was using a cms system for, and filled it with content and information. I noticed that the impressions were fairly high, and while I was only getting a few clicks it was earning about x.xx per click so I was pretty happy. So I played with the layout, and instead tried building a site that had fewer pages, but was much more effective at generating a number of clicks due to the ad placement. It went well at first as I had double the amount of clicks, and what the site was earning was terrific. However about two weeks later the cost per click dropped to .xx and then even to .ox. I had several other sites that I've been working with, and have found this to be the case with all of them. So I put the ads back to where they were and replaced the content, and found that the CPC a few weeks later began to rise and is back to normal. Needless to say sites that seem to provide people with more information and don't have ads all over the place, long-term are paying more than they did when I lowered the number of pages but had a much higher percentage and as a result more clicks. The odds are pretty good that as a result they simply convert better for the advertisers. We're 8 days in and I've already earned more from one site than I did all of last month. So for all the people who are frustrated with Smart Pricing, I've been through what many of you are dealing with, but try taking a step back and focusing on building your site to have more content and to be more of a resource for your users. I'm going to warn you, I've been running this expirement over the course of a couple of months, so don't expect immediate results. But I can tell you first hand that if you focus on quality you'll find that your sites will suddenly begin earning more even if the number of unique users stays the same. Ian
Ian, do you believe a lower CTR will actually result in a higher CPC over a period of time? The lower CTR sites looked at as being more quality sites then say a site that seems to leak 30% of it's visitors to adverts? From my brief experience I could say this may be the case (or one factor to the calculation), but I can't be sure. Pete
I would absolutely believe that a lower CTR pays better, and I think that is the reason. In my niche the site is an informational site about a product, and it appears that the longer the user stays the better the CTR has been compared to a site with more ads. While the number of clicks has dropped, the earnings have gone up dramatically. I've done this twice, the first time on accident, and over the last two months I've done it on purpose to see if it was really true or not. Ian
It all depends on how well the clicks are converting for the advertiser. A quality site can certainly generate clicks that are more likely to convert vs. a MFA site where the user is quick to click a link because it is blended or as an exit. If your site isn't generating clicks that convert for the advertiser, then you are going to get smart priced.
Interesting to find out. So your saying that within a few weeks time the actual earnings per click increased? I'm not trying to discredit, just understand, but are you absolutely sure that the ads clicked were of the exact same topic. This type of test would have no bearing on say a blog that covered every topic under the sun, because different ad topics earn different amounts.
I've had junk AdSense sites pull in more than the ones that have had loving effort put into them. Seems as much a matter of topic than anything else. Richard
That's exactly what I'm saying. I've done this on two different sites that were already performing well, and watched the CPC drop dramatically despite the increase in clicks. Ian
Well, the bottom line is traffic. And it can be difficult without a huge SEO effort to bring traffic to a crappy site. I agree. Good content makes good sense for long-tem AdSense payouts.
Could be a coincidence, but whenever my CTR is low, my CTC is high. When I have a few days with a high CTR, my CTC goes down for a few days to "compensate".
Very true. It's just funny to watch the dramatic drop off in revenue even with the same number of visitors despite the higher number of clicks. The idea is that we all work so hard to optimize and drive traffic to the site, that it doesn't make sense not to follow through on that effort with good content. Especially when it really does seem to impact the amount of revenue the site generates. Ian
I wouldn't be surprised if google ratcheted down the CPC if the CTR got too high. As CTR goes higher, at some point, google must start to think MFA.
This could be related to the Google statement that they would not disclose how much % they give the publisher but make an effort to beat other networks eCPM... does that make sense ?