Adsense Revenue per click

[ChrisM]

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I know the T's and C's prevent revealing actual figures, but I've noticed a trend and was wondering if anyone else has noticed this...

When I first set up a new site, I tend to get about 20 mins before PSAs convert to targetted ads. Over about three or 4 days they tend to settle down and be reasonably consistant (ie the same ads showing 90+% of the time).

Here's the odd bit - I tend to notice that to start with the average revenue per click (taken as daily earnings divided by clicks in that day) decreases over the following weeks, usually settling at about 60% of its initial average revenue per click.

I've got two theories on this, and I'm not sure which is more likely -

1) Adsense revenue share isn't static - i.e. Campaign1 might get revenue share of 40% whilst Campaign2 might get 50% or more. perhaps this may even go down to ad group or keyword level and depend on the competitiveness of the subject? This maybe starts at a default level for the Adsense account and adjusts over time.

2) Theres a sliding scale on revenue share depending on the number of impressions - so when a site first launches, there's only a few impressions so the revenue share is higher, encouraging the site owner to keep adwords. As there's no column in reports to highlight the revenue per click, many users will no doubt not have thought to work it out, so as the number of impressions increase, the clicks should too. So long as the user sees an increase in revenue, perhaps Google think we wont notice a drop in the value of a click?

I'm sure theres other possibilities too - but has anyone else seen this pattern?

Am I being paranoid? Eight sites with exactly the same pattern is starting to make me wonder!

Chris

[angelabx]

Perhaps they kick off displaying the highest paying ads.

Then once they see the pattern of clicks they tweak the ads to deliver the most relevant (based of highest click throughs). These might not be the highest paying.

Seems a reasonable explanation?

[ChrisM]

Sounds reasonable - apart from they still seem to be the same ads after the first few days. The slowdown of revenue seems to occur over alonger period. I guess it might be that I won't necessarily see the ads other people see.