Adsense Quicksand

[MissMandy]

Its now been close to a year since I joined Adsense, and im sending FIVE times the traffic for the same results. Im sure advertising rates have not decreased by the same amount during this time frame.
What annoys me is its almost like guirella warefare, with Adsense using a type of quicksand strategy.
You start off thinking how great Adsense is, then things start to drop a little, so you add new pages, sites to pick up lost ground and it works for awhile, then the quicksand starts again, so you respond by sending more traffic. things balance out for awhile.
Then you start sinking again, so you make changes to add placement , etc, and miracuosly you get a boost in earnings and you think great, ive solved the problem, only for things to start sinking again after a few weeks. So you start sending more traffic and so on. Its like a trap, the way the earnings go up on changes to give you a confidence boost, then after a few weeks the sink starts happening again. Maybe its just my imagination, but there seems to be a high level of physcology behind this strategy.

[KLB]

I really don't see a Google conspiracy. What I see is the laws of supply and demand at work. As more and more publishers jump into AdSense, the supply of clicks goes up and thus the value of those clicks goes down. I see this affect every year as I go through seasonal fluctuations in traffic levels. In the summer, my traffic levels drop dramatically at the same time my eCPM and average CPC goes up tremendously. Come fall as my traffic levels again climb, my eCPM and CPC goes down.

At the same time, over the course of several years (I joined AdSense in 2004) the overall eCPM for my site has increased. I attribute this to better targeting of ads and more advertisers of higher quality.

[MissMandy]

Well, im pleased to see Your eCPM has gone up. It gives me hope.

On a side note, are You from Russia? My Dad was from there, although we live in the land downunder now.

[KLB]

I'm not from Russia, but my wife is.

The thing to keep in mind that it can take a while for your earnings rate to stabilize after you join. In part this is because Google has to build up enough data about your site to properly target ads and "smart price" the ads on your site. Also one needs to remember there will be seasonal fluctuations, as a result it can really take two or three years to have enough data to see any realistic trends. Seeing stats from say July to July is more important than comparing July to November.

[Todd W]

I notice this with all companies not only google. Send more and more traffic but earn less and less. New Geo-Targeting and more publishers cause it to happen.

[john190]

I don't really see much difference in my earnings per click since I started. Maybe it's down by about 10% of so compared to when I started. The thing that I have seen decrease slightly is the CTR mainly because more people are aware of them these days.

[MissMandy]

Just to update this since I started this thread end of August, I now find in the last two weeks my earnings have trebled. go figure. Still sending the xact same traffic, but finding im earning a lot more through higher paying clicks, Is anyone else experienciencing this? Im guessing its the chistmas factor?

[paul]

It seems to be part of an annual cycle for us. (home improvement stuff). Sept. & Oct. are great. December takes some of the joy out of Christmas :)