Sad earnings since Sep 1 - am I alone

As many of you know, I have been here whining and complaining since Sep 1 about my huge drop in earnings per click.

From what others have said it's something called 'SMART PRICING', man it sucks ! I tweaked my sites all year, followed the things said here in the forum, and I had my traffic increasing more all the time, my clicks of course increased, do to the nice traffic increase, I was averaging $20 a day for a long time, and was so happy.

Then BOOM ! Sep 1 'smart pricing' hits, all my sites the earnings per click plummeted, numerous 1 cent clicks, 2 cents, 3 cents.

Now I average 100 clicks a day, and am lucky to make $5.00 where before Sep 1, if I got 100 clicks a day I would of been making $40-$50.

No matter what you do, tweak, add more sites, more content, etc, once smart pricing hits, I guess you might as well not worry much about adsense anymore...... it's just sad after all the work.

Am I the only one this has hit here ?

Anyone know when yahoo is launching officialy ? (of course I will switch over if it earns me more, I would be foolish not to go with whatever program earns me more)

 

erm...........

my dream $40-$50

 

I dont know. With my site it seems cyclical. Few days of low paying ads ...then suddenly I start getting higher paying ads.

I was wondering if I use small rectangle, button and half banner formats, will my average click value increase.

If there is just 1 ad displayed, then Goolge should be giving me the best paying ad(CTR*click value) for that page....isnt it?

 

i think so.

as google will try to make "you" (itself also) earn more

 

count me in. I'm too affected by the so call "smart pricing". On August, I get $4,500 a month, but on Sep, I just got half of that amount with the same number of page impression, clicks and CTR. Lucky that adsense is not the only source of my income, I still get a steady revenue from fast click and recently from chitika too.

No doubt that, the "smart pricing" is just for the benefit of Advertiser not Publisher.

 

I make approx. 30% more/click then before.

 

seems like its depends on which industries you're in. My website is a desktop customization free download site, which is I believe the conversion rate is very low due to most of the visitors is a kid that just looking for some free stuffs on the internet. The reason I join adsense is because I know that affiliate program will never work for my site. But with all the "smart pricing" system, adsense has turn to be like affiliate program too.

 

bluegill_catcher how about trying ckitika? I replaced 1 adsense ad with them and complimented 2 others with it. My adsense took a small dip but I made $18 from those 3 ads alone yesterday.

My selected chitika ads are in the really low dollar priceclass, but they get clicked so much it more than my adsense, and to boot the CPC is better than what I get with adsense.

Ofcouse this is unaudited revenue and I'm really courious what I'll end up getting paid, but so far it looks great. However it all depends on wether chitika has ads that target your visitors.

 

I have chitika ads on my site since august and already got payment for august. The different between unaudited and audited revenue is very little to me, less than 5%.

If you have high traffic, you can try CPM program too as an alternative or put it alongside google. For the time being, I'm still not ready to completely remove adsense from my site but each day, the percentage of revenue I get from adsense is lesser compared to the other program.

 

bluegill, my numbers seem similar to yours. I was doing ok through September (ignoring a site hijack problem that temporarily knocked me out) and looking forward to continued increases as traffic building was kicking in. But this week earnings dropped by 50% for the same impressions and CTR. Maybe its cyclical as sachin said. If not I'll be increasing my focus on other options (affiliates, etc) and decreasing my focus on Adsense.

 

I am in the same boat. I make like 50 cents a day only. . But I'm still trying to get more $$$, and advertising more. Let's hope something good comes out this month.

 

Yes, It's a sad month.
Usually I got about $ 20-$ 30 per day from just one site, now will be lucky enough if I get just $ 15 from 3 sites.

 

My earnings since Aug 2005 have been the best they have ever been. Remember 'smart pricing' relates to SERPS, so work on that and you'll see a sharp increase...Rotza ruck

 

Noob question...again...
What's SERPS
(sound like a disease)

"Hey man"
"yeah"
"Oh my god, get away from me, you got the friggin' SERPS"
(LMAO, got 2 have a little fun today).

But seriously though, what is SERPS

 

Getting knocked down in the SERPs would explain my problem. My site got hijacked in late September (subject of another thread).

 

SERPS = search engine result position

 

Search Engine Result Pages.

Supposedly, you increase your ranking in the SERPS, the better your price outs for advertisements. Can someone post a link to that please, curious to read about this "smart pricing"

 

The site that I got most of my revenue from has dropped over 50%. It's interesting that people are mentioning Chitika. I was looking at it very seriously because I like it's little interactive thingamibobs.

Problem I have is that my site is related to selling cars and I question what
sort of targeting I would achieve.

If there is some science to smart pricing and it seems that people have variable results depending on the industry perhaps we can throw round some ideas to maximize results in the new landscape.

 

This has been an educating thread. I honestly had not heard of the smart pricing but reading this and doing some home work would explain why my revenue has actually gone up since September - great information; thanks.

 

Same thing for me since Sept 1st, my traffic increased by 20% but the $ made through adsense increased by 40% while the CTR stay almost the same.
I'm happy as I'll get a monthly check from Google.
I'm worried as it can come from click fraud.

May be smart pricing effect depend on the market you're in.

What do the DP big players thing?