Is Smart Pricing A Black & White Issue?

[Blackthorne]

When I get an unexpected traffic spike, my revenue per click (RPC) goes way up!

After the spike is gone, RPC is way down again.

On any given day, RPC is between 20 cents and 90 cents.

Is smart pricing a black & white issue? Either you're smart priced or you're not?

My wildly varying RPC makes me feel like it's partial smart pricing.

My CTR is not bad. One site has around 3%, others have more than 10%.

The total average CTR is around 3%. Mainly because my highest traffic site has the lowest CTR. It drags down the total average. Hubpages and Infobarrel also play a part in destroying my total CTR.

But still, with 3% I would not expect to get (partially) smart priced.

So what causes these changes in RPC?

Why are 25 clicks worth 5 bucks one day, and 10 the next?

Do other people witness this phenomenon too?

[Phillip]

When I get an unexpected traffic spike, my revenue per click (RPC) goes way up!

After the spike is gone, RPC is way down again.

On any given day, RPC is between 20 cents and 90 cents.

Is smart pricing a black & white issue? Either you're smart priced or you're not?

My wildly varying RPC makes me feel like it's partial smart pricing.

My CTR is not bad. One site has around 3%, others have more than 10%.

The total average CTR is around 3%. Mainly because my highest traffic site has the lowest CTR. It drags down the total average. Hubpages and Infobarrel also play a part in destroying my total CTR.

But still, with 3% I would not expect to get (partially) smart priced.

So what causes these changes in RPC?

Why are 25 clicks worth 5 bucks one day, and 10 the next?

Do other people witness this phenomenon too?

http://www.forum.makemoneyonlinewith...32&postcount=1

[Blackthorne]

Yeah I read that.

Now I'd like to hear YOUR experience, Phil.

[Blackthorne]

From the thread Philip quoted.

I have sites with 1k visitors a day and a CTR of .03% and my account has not been smartpriced.

That's good news. I don't get CTR nearly as low as that.

A couple of days ago, I was making 10 bucks with 30 clicks per day. For the last 2 days it's 5 bucks again.

I'm hoping that I'm just shit outta luck these last few days. There have been no major changes recently, so I cannot imagine why I'd get shit RPC all of a sudden.

But I do hate it how I've tripled my clicks and now I'm making the same as weeks ago.

Feels like somebody is fighting back, ya know.

I'm going to try and keep my paranoia under control here and stay calm...

[Phillip]

Yeah I read that.

Now I'd like to hear YOUR experience, Phil.

LOL. Imo it is not definitely black and white. for eg. I have a site which started out great when I first set it up - it was ranking on the first page thanks to the "new content" bonus. That time I got about 10 visitors a day the CTR was through the roof (over half of the people that entered the site clicked away through ads) and the CPC was high. I mean that I would be making nearly 10€ per day from this site. All the people were highly targeted because they came through the search engines because of that high paying keyword.

After the first few weeks the site dropped to #80 or something similar and all the traffic that came were people coming from sites that are linking to my site. The keywords used in the anchors are all high CPC and very related - most of the time even with higher CPC than the one I was targeting. The CPC has dropped down to shit. But since I am seeing 1euro clicks in my account still I am not considered as smart priced. Hence I think that your website can be "smart priced". The higher your serprank the better is your CPC. People who find websites from google page #56 are not going to be targeted traffic and that is why you are not going to be paid as much for the clicks because google thinks that your webpage is not that related to the keywords. Might be, I am just shooting here :P

Also there is a possiblity that the people who found my site through the backlinks, are actually reading through the posts and clicked on the footer ads where are the lowest paying ads. The highest bidder gets the very first spot on your webpage and the lowest gets the one after all the content.

that is my 2cent click on the matter.

[Blackthorne]

Well, I just got a click higher than 40 cent. I had 1 or 2 other higher paying clicks today.

I'm probably not smart priced. But when I get very few high paying clicks, it sure feels like it sometime.

I've read up about smart pricing. All my CTR is above 2% (except the low, low traffic hubpages and infobarrels), so most people would say I haven't been smart priced.

My traffic is targetted and my ads are targeted.

Everything should be fine.

If it doesn't improve in the coming days, I will probably remove adsense off my hubpages and infobarrels.

Those sites are much shittier than my own higher traffic sites.

[Blackthorne]

I'm at half of my regular adsense impressions for this day (400).

I'm at a few measly clicks worth 60 cents with a CTR of <1%.

The lowest piece of shit accomplishment in MONTHS.

NEVER... would I have even DREAMT of stooping to this level again.

Is this just because I made the url's in adsense grey colored?

Because if it is, I'm changing the colors back to bright red first thing tomorrow morning!!!

I'm back to the newbie level after having made 58 euros in one day just a week ago.

I love my life.

If I'm not back to the level of income I'm used to tomorrow, I will fucking OFF myself.

I'm NOT.

Fucking.

Kidding.

[BenK]

With adsense you have to be careful not to get caught up in your day to day totals. You really need a lot of clicks to start to see a regular pattern -- say like 100+ clicks a day. If you are getting a handful of clicks, you are going to see a lot of lows and highs. The more clicks you get, the more patterns start to emerge.

When looking at your stats, it's best to look at weekly/monthly totals rather comparing from day to day. One day you may have a super high day, the next a super low. But it usually balances out into a reliable average over a week or more.

Adsense is a bit like stock, it can rise and fall. You can protect yourself by having a lot of sites in a lot of different niches -- this way you won't be banged around by high days and low days. You also don't want to use spikes in your traffic, such as this bing deal you had, to base your income projections. The reason is that when the spike dissapears, you feel like your income has crashed.

Focus on building lots of site, getting lots of quality backlinks, and diversifying into different revenue streams.

Ben

[Blackthorne]

You're right about everything Ben. And ofcourse I already know all of this myself as well.

I'm starting to think bigger now. Like you, I will slap 10 posts on my new sites and hit them with around 50-60 web2.0 properties, all linking deep with different anchors.

Right now I'm doing the promotion work for my existing adsense sites. The work I should've done around their inception. But better late than never.

I know how to make money online.

It's just work from now on.

[Blackthorne]

After some layout fixes to keep the ads in the user's view, I'm having another shitty 2 dollar adsense day.

I did not foresee dropping to these levels again after having tripled my SE traffic on some sites.

Who would've guessed that there exists non-converting SE traffic.

I thank life for this.

Now where is that fucking ex-boss of mine. I need somebody to maim and kill.