CPM Plummeted Yesterday

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   It suddenly almost halved. Did this happen for anyone else?

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      chef-de-jourposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, CPM fell, as if knocked down. A huge drop but it often gets back up and recovers. I guess this recent shock is somehow Covid related? I'm nowhere near an expert on these things so can only hope it soon gets back to seasonal trending, nice and steady.

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         eugbugposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         Hopefully it's a one-off event. It doesn't usually slip this quickly. Maybe Maven are taking a bigger chunk of the earnings to cover expenses? It's not fixed at 40% anymore apart from what they get on Amazon sales. Well maybe it is, but they removed that figure from the TOS.

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      incomeguruposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I’m on same page with you. The difference is giving me so much concern. I have started a discussion earlier reporting the low CPM.

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      Jeremy Gillposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Same happened here, be curious to learn the reason.

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      sallybeaposted 2 years agoin reply to this

      Not quite halved but less than usual.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   Hopefully staff will respond quickly to allay our fears of doom? CPM for me was stable during July of last year and only dropped about 15% during the month.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 3 years ago

   Yes, it happened to me too and was pretty consistent across my accounts. A just below 50% drop, as you say.
   
   That's the last thing this site needs (or me!).
   
   It's only a single day, so let's hope it's a one-off.
   
   I do worry about the site getting into a tailspin though. Views drop. Advertisers lose interest, so CPMs drop. More of the good writers drift away or stop writing...
   
   At least the site is a little safer being part of Haven, one would hope.
   
   HP have turned things around before, so I'm not writing them off. But that drop in CPM was painful coming on top of all the traffic blues we've had.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   Just to compound matters, there was another algorithm update on Thursday. I lost an additional 10% of traffic compared to last week. I just checked my historical CPM figures and the last time the rate was that low was in April of 2017.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, it's pure carnage. I was worried about them recovering the lost traffic. Now I'm thinking: Please just stop the bleeding!

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   EricDockettposted 3 years ago

   Maybe because of the Olympics. Opening ceremony was last night, but some games start a few days ahead. Maybe advertisers are throwing their money at that for the next two weeks.
   
   Edit: It could also explain some traffic loss. The Olympics are kind of a big deal around the world.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I checked the data to see if something similar happened previously. CPMs remained pretty constant for me before, during and after the last Olympics in 2016. So I suspect there's no correlation.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 3 years ago

   We're back up to mediocre CPMs today, it seems.

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      eugbugposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Phew! Hopefully it stays that way. I'd still like to know what happened though.

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         Kenna McHughposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         I was so shocked by the huge drop yesterday that I was too stunned to comment. It bounced back today, but no great shakes.

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   eugbugposted 3 years ago

   It's going to be giving me nightmares of returning to live on beans and toast....

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      PaulGoodman67posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I think the golden period for CPMs was around 2018, after that, they seemed to dip. Since then, we need more traffic just to get the same earnings as back then.

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         Kenna McHughposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         Is that when Maven took over?

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            PaulGoodman67posted 3 years agoin reply to this

            I don't think it's Maven's fault. If anything, they likely have much more power at attracting advertisers being part of a bigger entity.
            
            I mean, I'm no expert on such things, so take anything I say about the advertising industry with a proverbial pinch of salt. I just read, or watch an occasional video.
            
            I do know that advertising is constantly evolving. It doesn't seem long since Adsense ruled the roost across the internet. Nowadays, it's more like a bit player.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 3 years ago

   I've got a handful of hubs going crazy at the moment. That's often a sign that Google is testing out the site/niches. We can only live in hope.

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      Kenna McHughposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      I noticed a change too. Exciting.

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         PaulGoodman67posted 3 years agoin reply to this

         I interpret it as Google just gathering data. They pick a small sample of hubs and temporarily boost the traffic to get better metrics. It doesn't necessarily mean anything major will happen, although sometimes it can foreshadow a change.
         
         Knowing our luck recently, we'll lose another 10% of traffic!

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   Holly Howardposted 3 years ago

   The only major hit I noticed to CPMs on all of my accounts was on Thursday (7/22) and from there they've climbed up and in some instances are actually like, way more than I've ever seen before. My traffic is *chefs kiss* as well. I think we're dealing with volatile algo updates and nothing about the last few weeks or upcoming weeks can be taken too seriously.

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      PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this

      I agree that these things should be measured in months/years, not days/weeks.
      
      I think what colors my judgement is that truly awful period that lasted from the fall of 2019 through to the end of 2020, about 15 months. That was a dreadful period for the site. It's not just the low earnings. Good writers drift away or stop editing their work, it undermines the site further.
      
      I guess my concern is of another extended period like that. There have been more bad times than good in the last few years. I thought we were through it when things improved at the start of this year, but alas!

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         robhamptonposted 2 years agoin reply to this

         I respectfully disagree. CPM DID plummet by well over 50% in one day.(a few days ago)  I can see where people would be concerned about that. a glitch? who knows, but it was certainly not normal. Good writers drift away? Well..listen.. I'm here ONLY for the money. Many writers have expressed that they just like to write. Good for them, and I have no issues with that. But keep in mind that many people (including myself) would rather watch a video than read an article. I'm not saying EVERYONE, but understand that video is more prevalent now in even just the last 2 or 3 years than written articles (bandwidth, high speed availability, cost of data, etc..) Just saying..Ya, I like to read things sometimes, but personally, it's easier to just watch a video. This is why I understand now why my traffic is slowly dropping. I was all ready to do a youtube video on cleaning a pool filter. I searched it on youtube.. Geez!! ya, there's already a million other guys that thought of this. I'm just saying that video is overtaking written articles.

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            Kenna McHughposted 2 years agoin reply to this

            I agree. Video is the way it goes, especially for how-to articles/videos. I worked for eHow as a talent producer during their heyday. The competition got so fierce. The company sold out. Now, it's influencers and the like that make the dough. However, there are some writers here that still make money. I am hoping this downward spiral will stop and go back up. Fingers crossed.

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    bravewarriorposted 3 years ago

    I had  a major hit on the 22nd as well. GA now shows that as of yesterday, my users are up by 34.1% and sessions up by 35.4%. I still don't know how to read my reports, but when the lines/boxes go way up, I consider that a positive.

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    PaulGoodman67posted 2 years ago

    Every HP weekly newsletter I've received in recent weeks seems to say that my traffic has dropped by another 10%. July's been an entire month of downward hits.
    
    Maybe I should stop complaining. But what else are the forums for?

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    eugbugposted 2 years ago

    Mine's down another 10% too after the Spam Update this week.

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       PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this

       Payday earnings were down substantially this month, but the grim truth is that they're going to be even worse in August. It might be time to crack open the baked beans...

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          eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this

          My earnings this year for the last 6 months were actually higher than they've ever been in the last 10 years. It's just a pain they didn't stay that way. Traffic has fallen 50% since the start of June compared to a fall of about 30% or less for the same period last year.

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             PaulGoodman67posted 2 years agoin reply to this

             Yes, we had a really great patch at the start of the year and I was lulled into a false sense of security.
             
             I thought they'd finally worked through all essentials of the HP to Maven transfer stuff and we were being rewarded by Google,
             
             I really wasn't expecting an algo hit, never mind a series of them.
             
             Amazon hubs seem particularly badly hit, so this might be about site content.
             
             Over the years, a lot of the Google trouble has been Amazon-related, but who knows in this case. 

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    bravewarriorposted 2 years ago

    What happened on July 26th? My traffic spiked and now it's going down again. Bummer.

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       eugbugposted 2 years agoin reply to this

       Spam update by Google. I don't know whether there's a penalty site-wide or per article. Probably a good idea to make sure all links are no-follow:
       
       https://www.seroundtable.com/google-lin … 31820.html

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    JerryFisherposted 2 years ago

    Google might take exception on their algorithm to ads not being their own? Why thrust a site up their ladder when they don't benefit. I do wish though that Maven would cut the ads in half. I sent a link to one of my sites to my son to read and he came back with - got maybe a third through before a gave up - tripping over ads all the time. Not a great experience. And actually one that Google themselves punished a decade ago when people were spamming their sites with excess Adsense to make Adsense money.

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