Back in July, I posted an entry about my use of Adwords to drive traffic to this site.
Here is the stats summary since August:
| Month | Clicks | Impressions | CTR |
| August | 239 | 278,701 | 0.086% |
| September | 299 | 324,611 | 0.093% |
| October | 178 | 217,258 | 0.082% |
| November to Date | 54 | 66,122 | 0.082% |
You can see that the number of impressions started dropping off in October. Based on where we are at this month, we’ll be lucky if we do half the number of impressions from October.
Since I started, 99+% of the impressions have been coming from content targeting ads. It seems that Google has decided that my ads don’t fit with some sites where they have been showing it. They must be changing algorithms to better match ads to page content.
Following that line of logic, I would think that the click-through rate would improve with better targeting of my ads. As you can see, the CTR is essentially the same over the time I have been advertising.
The argument could be made that the 54 people who came to the site this month are better qualified prospects and will become long term readers of the blog. No way to know.
I’d be interested in hearing others’ experiences.
you might also assume that other people are likely paying more for the same targeted audience you’re asking google to provide, and because of that you’re receiving less impressions… just a possibility…
john – my rank is no less than position two for all of my search choices. So, I don’t think that is it.
danny – the blacklist idea is interesting. For the impressions to drop by 200,000, there must be alot of people who don’t like the competition.
I still think Google is doing something to better match ads to content.
I’ve only been using adwords for about 2 months, have a small budget for now and very targeted keywords.
October: 55 clicks 3,446 impressions 1.5% CTR
November: 105 clicks 4,517 impressions 2.3% CTR
Another possibility is that you have been blacklisted by some of the content advertisers, as you may present direct competition to their readership.
I thought that Google wasn’t allowing Blogs into AdSense? I fought with them on this and was denied.
My comments are directed toward the Adwords ads that I bought to direct people to A Penny For…
I haev heard similar things about Adsense, but have not pursued selling advertising on my site.