Keyword Tips

AdSense effective cost per thousand impressions (eCPM) on the decline?

Hmm... there's a scary scary thread over in the forums at WebmasterWorld about "What to do when your eCPM continues to drop". Posters are offering a slew of advice on this potential drop in earnings, like:

"I have found that either changing and experienting with different ad formats/placements or shutting down underperforming ads helps me... There is a theory going around here which I subscribe to. That theory is that bad quality advertisers or off target ads lead to a poor conversion rate which in turn leads to the dreaded effects of smartpricing."

"One potential action is to do nothing, be happy, and concentrate on producing more content."

"Generate content with higher paying keywords. Link ads ONLY on your highest paying/earning pages. Blocking ads that are irrelevant to the topic of the page."

"have you ever tried Jensense's idea: copy your ban list to notepad, save it, delete them all from your filter and see what happens? (You can restore the list later from the saved file)."

Etc. etc. There's an abundance of ideas for what to do and why it's happening. It should be noted that some think nothing's happening and that the range of comparison was affected by seasonality. But the more prevalent conspiracy theory appears to center around Google's SmartPricing. So, what's our advice? Keep reading the forums at WebmasterWorld and checking back here... maybe someday we'll have a definitive answer.