When it rains, it pours. Sometimes your Adsense account is pouring cash. What happens when its slows to a gentle dribble? What happened to all the earnings your were making for months? There has been some really very informative threads on Webmaster World talking about this very issue with Google Adsense and how changes in the system can cause an EPC collapse of Adsense revenue. If this happens to you it can cause a flurry of questions what you might have done wrong or better yet what is wrong with Google. Martinibuster has an excellent synopsis on possible reasons why an earnings collaspe could occur.
One of the most common is the perception or illusion about what is a normal range for earnings per click. 6 cents or 15 cents? Martini has an excellent point:
Too many newbs complain about having been smart priced because their earnings collapsed after their first couple of months. The base amount they're comparing is not large enough if it's only one or three months. If five months out of six you're earning six cents per click, six cents is normal. Twelve cents per click for a month is a newb advertiser that didn't know his content network was turned on.
He goes on to list other factors why a campaign could drop in EPC.
- Too much inventory - As more people enter the space, the EPC is going to drop. This is sometimes a characteristic of MFA sites that enter in a niche area and put strain on the inventory. He also mentions this can affect older sites as well.
- Newbie advertisers - In general this happens to most systems, prices go up until the money runs out. If there no one to step in to pick up the slack, then the EPC will drop.
- Savvy advertisers - Advertisers leaving contextual networks in order to prevent lower quality clicks. Martini says "I suspect that all it takes is one or two bidders dropping their bids to cause a collapse and let the air out of a high EPC gravy train. This is not fact, and I admit it"
Great thread. There is continued discussion at WebmasterWorld - Anatomy of an EPC Collapse
