Revenue Versus Traffic Versus CTR: I'm Totally Lost!

Okay. It's summer, traffic's down 15-20% as I expected. Revenue is down, too, but only like 5%. And then to totally confuse me yesterday I have my biggest day ever ($140.73). And it's a Friday, which are typically pretty middling for me (Saturday and Sunday are the worst, Monday the best).

So it was almost 23% over my previous high and 94% over the previous Friday. WTF? And the traffic? 8,587 visits versus last Friday's 8,717! WTF? Nearly double the revenue on almost identical visits. Yesterday there were 163 clicks versus last Friday's 146. So the difference is clearly CPC, right? I had one ad click generate $15.67, but I have no idea what it was, only the page it was on.

Today's Saturday. Usually my worst or second worst day of the week. The day isn't half over and I'm $13 over last Saturday's total. WTF?

I feel like I have very little control over what happens ad-wise on my site and very few tools (or maybe lack of knowledge of the existing tools) to gain any insight. I just watch the revenue go up and down.

Of course I love that yesterday's revenue is unexpectedly high, but I wish I had some clue as to why so I could maybe, perhaps, with the stars aligned just so, duplicate this.

Thoughts anyone? Or am I looking a gift horse in the mouth?

 

Last I posted I was seeing unusual revenue on normal traffic.

Saturday ended at $209 and change, which is three to four times a normal Saturday. I was able to track down the increased revenue to one page that accounted for about $124. It is a database driven site, though so this page does present a lot of different information.

The traffic to this page was totally normal. What was exceptional were two things. Its click through rate was huge, for my site, at 23%. I typically see 1.5 to 2.5% for the site as a whole. Second, the cost per click was also huge, again for my site, at over $4.50 per click. Typical is something like $0.50 or $0.60.

So was this just a newbie advertiser spending foolishly on my site? A competitor clicking maliciously? Something else entirely? Is there anyway I can find out more about what happened?

BTW, I know I'm not supposed to look at today's revenue, but it's back to totally normal for a Sunday.

Don't all rush to jump in, now.

 

If you're making more money - enjoy it haha

It could be any reason that some days are better or weeks are better than others, the internet is as unpredictable as it is great

 

Thanks for the reply.

I just wish there was some way to better track this stuff. Honestly, I don't even know if these two days were a good thing or bad. For all I know, come next month these earnings will be subtracted from my total.

 

23% ctr is not normal,you might got "click bombed" by competitors

 

Yeah. This is my worst fear, of course. I hope I don't get banned.

 

you should not get banned unless you clicked or arranged those clicks yourself or placed your ads in such a manner that confused visitors into clicking on the ad

 

Well that's some consolation, anyway.

Still not sure what's up. Sunday, while not nearly similar to Saturday, was still roughly double what I would normally expect. Whether this is click bombing, a new referral or a big change in my SERPs, I still have no idea.

 

One other interesting point regarding these two days of unusual (and probably invalid) earnings, the Friday revenue that was $20 above my previously daily high at $140 was reported nearly the same in both Adsense and Analytics. The over-the-top Saturday earns of nearly $210 reported in Adsense was only reported as about $85 in Analytics.

Anyone have a clue as to why this would be? Frankly, I expect this revenue is invalid and will be removed before disbursement, but it would be nice to know what's going on.

 

It's a strange one... just take the money and run wish it was me

 

up to 2.5% is a great ctr but 23% is unrealistic of course. i don`t think you will get banned but i don`t think you will get the money anyway

 

Agreed. That 23% CTR revenue isn't mine.

 

Did google take any action against you? Did you email them to notify them of the potential click bombing?

 

I'm also curious to know what google said if you contacted them, if you find anything out please let us know! I like when people post things like this so we can all learn and tweak if necessary, thanks and good luck!

 

Wow... $140 in one day! I'd be so happy and worry too, lol

 

Now that the month in question is complete, the revenue adjusted and disbursed, I thought I'd follow up with the final results.

Google adjusted my revenue down by $160. This is 10 to 15 times past amounts and accounts for a lot of the unusual activity over the Friday-Saturday-Sunday of weirdness. I reported nothing to Google. They reported nothing to me. For all I know, this was someone clicking the same expensive ad over and over just to get back to the ad page. Maybe it was a competitor click bombing, but I don't think so since it was pretty much confined to one page.

So the upshot is everything came out as normal. No extra revenue and no problems from Google. I'm happy and relieved.

 

Can you teach me how you make so much money using adsense share tips please.

 

Honestly, I'm an Adsense noob. I started off making $20/day. After following advice given here I pushed that up to $50 and eventually up to $100 today about seven months after adding Adsense to my site.

So the secret to my very limited success isn't any special knowledge of Adsense. I think it is due to my SEO skills and my ability to drive traffic to my site. Basically, that's all I've done to the site over the past six months. Just make sure I'm still ranking and the traffic still flows.

My site is content poor, but rich in functionality. People come to my site to accomplish a task using the tools I provide. My bounce rate is 85%. Average visit duration is about 55 seconds.

The other key, of course, is that I am a programmer. I have the ability to create useful tools. It doesn't matter that they are niche-y. In fact, that's a big benefit (much easier to rank in the SERPs!). You'd be amazed at how a seemingly simple, unpolished site that provides limited, but useful functionality can garner significant traffic and turn a nice stream of income.

This site, http://www.asciitable.com/, ASCII table, comes to mind. It's not an impressive site, but I'm certain it generates a lot more than $100/day. I know its traffic crushes mine.

There are a lot of little sites out there that do things like this that make good dollars. I never realized it until I put Adsense on my silly little site. I always sort of looked down on these sites. I was ignorant.

The other thing that's really great about this type of site is that once it is up there is very little work to do. On my site, I might add a new feature or tool two or three times a year, and not because I'm trying to make more money, but just because I like to program, I like my niche, it's fun. But in a typical month I do no work on the site whatsoever.

So, to sum up my accidental formula for Adsense revenue:
1. Functionality, not content.
2. SEO.

The downside is you need to be a programmer.

 

Wtf 85% bounce rate what theme you are using? http://www.asciitable.com/ with no content earning $100 this is weird?

 

Consider that a very high bounce rate is not necessarily a bad thing. When a visitor comes to your site and clicks an ad 10 seconds after arriving they've bounced to your benefit.

Also, a visitor who can accomplish their goal on the page by which they entered your site will leave happy, but is still a bounce. My site is very much like this. So is ASCII Table.

I'm not using any theme. I'm not using WordPress or any CMS. I wrote a custom site.