Adsense Observations

[DaveSawers]

I've been earning from Adsense for more than five years now and have some observations to share.

The best month of the year for earnings is December and the worst is August. No big surprise there, but the next best part of the year is the spring (April thru June) which is perhaps not so obvious.

The earnings per click at the beginning of each month are always higher than at the end of each month. This seems to suggest that most advertisers are on a monthly schedule starting on the 1st of each month. Towards the end of each month, budgets run out so the cost of targeting competitive keywords drops over the month.

I would therefore tentatively suggest that if you are using Adwords to promote your business and you want to keep advertizing costs down, then you make your advertizing schedule run from the middle of each month.

[deepsand]

The best month of the year for earnings is December and the worst is August. No big surprise there, but the next best part of the year is the spring (April thru June) which is perhaps not so obvious.

Why should the observations re. AUG & DEC be either universal or obvious?

The earnings per click at the beginning of each month are always higher than at the end of each month. This seems to suggest that most advertisers are on a monthly schedule starting on the 1st of each month. Towards the end of each month, budgets run out so the cost of targeting competitive keywords drops over the month.

I would therefore tentatively suggest that if you are using Adwords to promote your business and you want to keep advertizing costs down, then you make your advertizing schedule run from the middle of each month.

AdWords provides only for daily budgeting. I find it difficult to believe that so many would manually be both monitoring spending and pausing ads.

[Tubby]

I have been using Adsense for a good while. . . . I wish I could find a pattern.

The best I can work out; Now and then an advert (something appealing) is displayed on site and my users merrily click away. . . . then the clicking gradually returns to the plod, plod, pace that preceded the advert that caused the interest.

Most of the ads displayed have minimal interest to my users . .

I am gradually phasing out adsense, every month the adverts get less niche specific. It seems a shame that Google has evidently opted for concentrating on the multinational customers and not offering a competitive service to the little business searching for specific niche traffic.

The only obvious statistic I can offer - Three years ago an average income on my sites from adsense- offered me around 1cent per page view - currently My site needs around three page views to earn the same cent . . and heading towards four page views. .

[DaveSawers]

Why should the observations re. AUG & DEC be either universal or obvious?

I don't claim universality. My location, most of my work and all my Adsense sites are based in North America.

AdWords provides only for daily budgeting. I find it difficult to believe that so many would manually be both monitoring spending and pausing ads.

It's merely my observation. Do others see the same thing or not?

The only obvious statistic I can offer - Three years ago an average income on my sites from adsense- offered me around 1cent per page view - currently My site needs around three page views to earn the same cent . . and heading towards four page views. .

Interesting. I'm consistently seeing around 0.8c/page view and that hasn't changed much over the past year. I don't have records that go further back.

[deepsand]

Even within a given geo-location seasonality trends must differ with the product/service being offered.

For example, the fact that your Augusts are so unproductive relative to others tells me, at the least, that the ads in question to not relate to products/services related to either the back-to-school activities in general, or high school/college football in particular.

As for the apparent intra-month spend trends, I am at a loss to explain such, unless it is the case that the ads in question are those of a few large advertisers who have deployed PPC management apps on top of their AdWords accounts which automate such monitoring and pausing/reactivating.

[DaveSawers]

Even within a given geo-location seasonality trends must differ with the product/service being offered.

Probably true. My earnings come from shopping directories of various malls.

For example, the fact that your Augusts are so unproductive relative to others tells me, at the least, that the ads in question to not relate to products/services related to either the back-to-school activities in general, or high school/college football in particular.

I think it's more to do with people being on holiday and away from their computers. Apparently, there are some people who leave the internet at home when they go on vacation. :O

[PhilipDunn]

You do have the option as an advertiser to either spend your monthly budget as quickly as possible, or to dole it out throughout the month with a daily ceiling. It seems this would account for the income falling off halfway through the month. It also seems that the bids would lower as a result.

[deepsand]

Actually Aug is usually a slow shopping month or more to the point in USA, July 4th through Labor Day. Why? Lot of people on vacation, traveling, spending time with family before school starts again. Not a hard and fast rule but in sales there is a reason these are called the "Dog Days".

"Dog Days" refers to the effect of hot, humid weather on fauna, as evidenced by the excessive panting of dogs; it is not derived from spending habits.

And, there are very many activities generating sales during such times. In addition to the two cited, there are also, among others:

• Fairs;
• Festivals of all stripes;
• Concerts at stadiums and Summer sheds (outdoor pavilions);
• Auto shows, both indoors and out;
• Countless travel related activities.

Actually you must not have used Adwords lately (I haven't but I check in to see what changes have happened now and then and to keep an eye on my account to be sure nothing funny is happening with it) there are so many ways to automatically do things with your account so I bet a lot of the advertisers have it set up to shut down when certain limits are met..

ROTFLMAO.

Do you really think that I am so uninformed and inattentiveness so as to make the sophomoric mistake of making such a statement without a factual basis?

All of the AdWords accounts that I actively administer provide for Daily budgeting only.

Probably true. My earnings come from shopping directories of various malls.

Around here mall traffic is seasonal and location dependent. Malls at tourist destinations, such as the New Jersey shore, do well in the Summer but die in Winter. Malls close to where people live experience the opposite.

You do have the option as an advertiser to either spend your monthly budget as quickly as possible, or to dole it out throughout the month with a daily ceiling.

My AdWords accounts provide only for a Daily budget, with optional intra-day smoothing.

[PhilipDunn]

My AdWords accounts provide only for a Daily budget, with optional intra-day smoothing.

Perhaps they deleted the option, but the last time I used Adwords you certainly had other choices besides the daily budget.

[DonOmite]

Even within a given geo-location seasonality trends must differ with the product/service being offered.

For example, the fact that your Augusts are so unproductive relative to others tells me, at the least, that the ads in question to not relate to products/services related to either the back-to-school activities in general, or high school/college football in particular.

Actually Aug is usually a slow shopping month or more to the point in USA, July 4th through Labor Day. Why? Lot of people on vacation, traveling, spending time with family before school starts again. Not a hard and fast rule but in sales there is a reason these are called the "Dog Days".

As for the apparent intra-month spend trends, I am at a loss to explain such, unless it is the case that the ads in question are those of a few large advertisers who have deployed PPC management apps on top of their AdWords accounts which automate such monitoring and pausing/reactivating.

Actually you must not have used Adwords lately (I haven't but I check in to see what changes have happened now and then and to keep an eye on my account to be sure nothing funny is happening with it) there are so many ways to automatically do things with your account so I bet a lot of the advertisers have it set up to shut down when certain limits are met. I have noticed such trends when I was advertising with Adwords. I made sure I started my campaigns after the 15th and I got lower PPC prices and better results.

Of course right now people are spending less because the economy sucks all over the world.