Bottom Feeder slaps Google?

[ArtColombia]

According to "Death Of Adsense" I am a bottom feeder.
I use Adsense.

Anyway, I have been testing a new site (not on my sig) with Adwords, looking for affiliate sales and Adsense arbitrage.

Contrary to expectations, as I ELIMINATED search payments and LOWERED my content bid to 1cent, my Adwords CTR JUMPED from 0.23% to 0.91%
(Does Google TOS allow me to discuss Adwords CTR without mentioning the site?)

So I have doubled my daily Adwords spend and whether it is just luck, my eCPM tripled on Adsense!

So is this bottom feeder slapping the big G or what?

Maybe I´ll make a buck from Google today ! :)

[ArtColombia]

Edited at the request of Art Columbia

[basnl]

Interesting :)!
So you lowered the content bid to 1cent, which resulted in a higher CTR. You doubled your daily Adwords budget, but now I'm wondering: with only bidding 1cent per click, what happened to your number of impressions (and total number of clicks)?

[BoogalooDude]

According to "Death Of Adsense" I am a bottom feeder.
I use Adsense.

So what, 'bottom feeding', low hanging fruit', 'snagging scraps', 'low traffic keywords' etc etc

All perfectly valid strategies that don't mean going head to head with the big spenders and getting creamed.

[ArtColombia]

Interesting :)!
So you lowered the content bid to 1cent, which resulted in a higher CTR. You doubled your daily Adwords budget, but now I'm wondering: with only bidding 1cent per click, what happened to your number of impressions (and total number of clicks)?


Impressions are going sky high !
But who cares right? I only pay for the clicks!!
As I said, my CTR fell back a bit from this morning, but is STILL triple what it was at 3cents a pop !!!!

I am waiting for my peak time of 2 - 5 pm . . . . I hope this thing explodes!!!

[ArtColombia]

Interesting :)!
So you lowered the content bid to 1cent, which resulted in a higher CTR. You doubled your daily Adwords budget, but now I'm wondering: with only bidding 1cent per click, what happened to your number of impressions (and total number of clicks)?


. . . .you made me think, always a tricky thing to do !!!

I am going to check my BW stats - though I should have the headroom to handle this !!!!!

No point of the $$$$moolah coming in the front door if it goes straight out the back !!!!

[basnl]

Let me explain why I asked about the impressions: the overall profit and ROI could have increased
for each click, but if the total number of impressions and resulting clicks have declined (even though the CTR tripled)
below a certain point, your overall profits might actually be lower...

Take this simple 'small-scale' example:
(Presuming that a lower max CPC actually causes less impressions)

Situation1: Max CPC set to $0.01, much less impressions, you received 20Clicks even though a higher CTR, each click generating a great profit of $1, = $20
Situation2: Max CPC set to $0.20, more impressions, you received 300Clicks, each generating a much smaller profit of only $0.20 = $60

You'll need less money to invest in situation1 with the higher ROI, but total profits will be higher in situation2.

It would be great if the total number of clicks would remain the same (or only drop slightly) when you lower your max CPC to only $0.01, so that's why asked about the number of impressions :)

[ArtColombia]

... of course you are right about the profits in your examples.

Given that I am working CONTENT and not SEARCH the impressions are naturally VERY high . . and the CTR on the ad is VERY low.

I started out with SEARCH but it didn´t flip on the Adsense and nothing was selling and I was losing money...but then I noticed that my cheap 3cent content bids were BRINGING A LOT MORE TRAFFIC than my SEARCH.

I LOWERED my bid and my CTR went UP by almost a factor of 5.
It has since dropped back to a factor of 3 - in any case I now am getting TRAFFIC and it is flipping ok on the adsense at about 100%. (Though traffic has dropped back -probably due to the hour - maybe I would get more by increasing the bid but would my eCPM increase to compensate given that the site CTR is pretty much pre-defined under this scenario).

So increasing the value of my click doesn´t really come into play, UNLESS:
if by upping the value I substantially increase my traffic and/or improve my eCPM while maintaining an equivalent CTR on the site.

But I will stay with what I have for today and hope that I also make some affiliate sales to generate some real profits as the site eCPM is quite low.

Thanks for your contribution.

[ArtColombia]

Well, here is some more info for those of you interested in this thread.

Having delved into my analytics - I see that almost ALL the traffic came from Europe, some from the Middle East and some from Asia - ZERO traffic (or as good as) from the US.

Now - I am betting that one of two things is involved:

1. The low CONTENT CPC works outside the US but not in the US because there is more competition there.

2. The Thanksgiving in the US has stopped people from going online.

3. Or it is a bit of both.

We shall see as this thread develops over the next few days.

[ArtColombia]

That´s the US starting to come in now.
Everybody has eaten their turkey and has tuned into the internet.

Claiming 100% profit is a good feeling!

You know, I think I have this figured out . . . . my only question is:

1. How much will I be able to spend each day before I hit a "click-wall".
2. How can I improve the REAL monetization of my site.

With this in mind I´ll keep you all posted....
(and you know, I am still in the sandbox!!!
Can´t wait till the organic kicks in!)

[Biff_Tiberius_Farnsworth]

Salutations Art

Might I suggest adding Yahoo Publisher Network http://publisher.yahoo.com/ to the mix. If you alternate between adsense and YPN you might be surprised. YPN is funny. Most sites it sucks on but occassionally, I find a site where it surpasses my adsense revenue (especially if smart pricing kicks in).

Keep us posted.

~B

[ArtColombia]

I have a Yahoo account (and they´ve had my money sitting there for a while!) and have yet to use it. I am still learning to "Adwords" correctly - hope to go for the Google test in January.

Once I get the big G down "pat" I´ll start learning Yahoo.

Today my eCPM is a little higher and I seem to have settled on a 0.6% CTR - very low - but today it is giving me a 400% return on my Adwords payments!
Hope that keeps up.

I love the experimenting and hope to make some changes over the next few days to improve the stats and create real sales from the site as now I now that however much traffic I drive to it, it will be 100% (or even 400%) profitable!

[ArtColombia]

Well - I have been slapping Google on a regular 122% daily ROI for over a week now on my Adsense flips. Still haven´t been able to significantly improve my traffic. Having got this far, I now believe it to be the easiest thing in the world and should definately enter the BM Handbook as a Beginner´s chapter 1 as I think it could be applied to ANY semi-decent and informative website.

Will test with more expensive CPC program this week and an attempt at improving my ad targetting. Will let those on this thread stay informed.

[Biff_Tiberius_Farnsworth]

I'm considering spreading a rumor through my many aliases that Google now has a 'sandbox' for Adwords like they do/don't for search.

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

~B

[ArtColombia]

I'm considering spreading a rumor through my many aliases that Google now has a 'sandbox' for Adwords like they do/don't for search.

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

~B


?

Sorry - but as a newb I need more info to enjoy the subtleties (sp.) of that one Biff! Can you elaborate?