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.

[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.

[noah0295]

I have used adsense since 2003. My highest earnings period is actually between August and October with the spring months being second. My site is sports based with the football and volleyball seasons drawing the most interest. So I would agree it depends on the focus of your site. I would also have to say that earnings in general have been down over the last few years, but this has turned out to be my third best year ever and I have seen a significant increase in earnings this year over the previous two years. The last two months *Sept and Oct, have been the highest earning months I have had.

I would agree that I tend to see higher earnings per click the first half of the month versus the later.

[Happy Times]

My site is sports based with the football and volleyball seasons drawing the most interest.

There's your answer. Most items sold have a niche period that interests peak.

I would agree that I tend to see higher earnings per click the first half of the month versus the later.

We try to target customers around paydays when they are more likely to have extra cash to spend. Again around the middle of the month we see a spike in sales thus warranting an increase in advertising spends. Second and fourth weeks tend to be slower in sales. We have been in a family owned business that was started by my grandparents in 1886. My folks worked it for nearly 75 years and now my sister and I continue the tradition. This trending is something that has been steady throughout the years but with the economy being what it is, we really see the spikes around paydays, IE. Fridays - end of the month to a day or two after the first and so on. Whether it be food, clothing, fishing poles or car tires; we tend to spend on discretionary items more around paydays or so our records show.

For much of how the monthly budget is spent on Adwords we rely on these historical figures. Even the time of day is now important and understanding YOUR targeted market is extremely important to your sales totals. This is why we hired a professional to run our Adwords campaign and the sales figures have proven her a valuable asset to our success.