Unusually low CPMs this month (January)

1. 66

   OldRosesposted 11 months ago

   I'm noticing lower than normal CPMs on my hubs.  Way lower.  Like half or more.  Anyone else noticed this?

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   1. 93

      Kenna McHughposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      Yup, sadly so.

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   2. 99

      chef-de-jourposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      I hope these miserable CPMs mean the system has hit rock-bottom. We're as flat as can be.
      
      The only way is up from here on in surely says the optimist. No we can go lower says the pessimist. Much lower says the realist. How about paying HP to write for them says the surrealist.

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   3. 95

      ChitrangadaSharanposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      It’s the same with my articles too. Every day, I find the views getting less and less.
      Not sure, when the declining views will stop, or will it stop at all!

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      NateB11posted 10 months agoin reply to this

      I wasn’t sure what was happening but I’m not even reaching payout, I think this will be the 2nd month in a row. It looked like to me maybe things were about to wind down so to speak but I wasn’t sure what was happening. Somebody said there’s a new CEO or something.

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      1. 95

         greenmindposted 10 months agoin reply to this

         To be clear, no one at HP or the Arena Group has any control over CPM's. They are basically a feature of the world economy. We can go somewhere else, but it's like the story of the man under a tree in the rain, who thinks that when his tree is saturated he can just go to another one...

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         1. 96

            PaulGoodman67posted 10 months agoin reply to this

            You're absolutely right that they don't have any control over trends in the ad industry as whole.
            
            The structure is also always the same in the sense that financial advice will always be more lucrative than poetry, whatever the system.
            
            However, I believe Hub Ads is an in-house system so I think they do have some control over the advertising and revenues and therefore the CPMs.
            
            I mean, when we switched from Adsense to Hub Ads, the CPMs seemed to go up dramatically.
            
            Also, I'm sure that they maximize their income from advertising. However, what proportion we get is unclear as they no longer guarantee a 60/40 split, as far as I'm aware.

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               eugbugposted 10 months agoin reply to this

               What do Hub Ads look like?

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                  PaulGoodman67posted 10 months agoin reply to this

                  They resemble squirrels but they have longer tails and six legs.
                  
                  Or maybe it's not a thing but a system/strategy, where they draw from a mixture of sources (including Google) and the makeup varies over time.

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                     eugbugposted 10 months agoin reply to this

                     All the ads I see indicate "Ads by Google" when I click on the icon in the top right corner. I've never noticed anything different.

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                        PaulGoodman67posted 10 months agoin reply to this

                        For sure, there's a preponderance of Google nowadays.
                        
                        I wasn't suggesting that "Hub Ads" meant that HP design their own ads and videos.
                        
                        I'm pretty sure that the fluctuations in CPMs over the years relate in part to corporate advertising strategies, though, they're not purely dependent on what's occurring in the wider world.
                        
                        The CPMs went up dramatically when we moved from Google Adsense to Hub Ads. But now we seem to have gone back to 2010 in some ways.

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                           eugbugposted 10 months agoin reply to this

                           If the automatic bid system knows what traffic is like, maybe less is offered for a bid. So the bidding finishes ends with lower prices paid when a reader loads a page and ads are served. I presume there's a mixture of paid for up front ads and bidding ones. I wonder would sponsorship of sites be more lucrative?

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                           1. 96

                              PaulGoodman67posted 10 months agoin reply to this

                              The CPMs are dependent to a large degree on TAG's relationship with its advertising partners and won't significantly improve while there's so much turmoil going on at a corporate level.
                              
                              Given the bigger picture, I don't think that there's much to be gained from going into their current relationship with Google Ads and the details of how it works.
                              
                              That's how I see it.
                              
                              It's a problem rooted in what's currently happening at TAG leadership level. The advertiser partners won't be happy until they're convinced that TAG are on the road to success.

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                              1. 94

                                 eugbugposted 10 months agoin reply to this

                                 By advertising partners, do you mean Google or individual companies? I've never seen any ads from specific companies.

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                                    PaulGoodman67posted 10 months agoin reply to this

                                    The situation was not always the same as it is now.
                                    
                                    As I've said before, I believe that the current preponderance of crappy Google Ads is a symptom and not a cause of the advertising revenue problem.
                                    
                                    Google CPMs can fluctuate to a small degree over time. But they are not the cause of the big ups and downs in CPMs over the years.

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                              2. 95

                                 greenmindposted 10 months agoin reply to this

                                 "The CPMs are dependent to a large degree on TAG's relationship with its advertising partners..."
                                 
                                 But aren't bids on ad space blind to the platform where the ads appear? Maybe that's just my assumption. I thought that advertisers choose the keywords they want to target and let it go from there.

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         2. 93

            Kenna McHughposted 10 months agoin reply to this

            Good point. We have to work smart and better.

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   5. 77

      Oscarlitesposted 10 months agoin reply to this

      its seems the last four days or so, they're all on vacation.

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2. 96

   PaulGoodman67posted 11 months ago

   Yes, it's particularly bad, one expects a dramatic drop after Xmas but this is dire.
   
   I hope chef-de-jour is right about hitting rock bottom but every time I've thought so previously, the site has subsequently sunk even lower.

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3. 98

   Eurofileposted 11 months ago

   Mine have been low for a while. The general downward trend is sadly matched by lower output too. I get far fewer notifications about new articles written by hubbers I follow. Some very prolific writers have either stopped, or more likely gone elsewhere.

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   1. 96

      PaulGoodman67posted 11 months agoin reply to this

      Yes, it looks like a vicious circle is happening. As the views and earnings drop, more writers drift away.
      
      The other thing with creating evergreen content is that the internet gets increasingly saturated. Years ago, it used to be easy to find topics that weren't well-covered already. Not so nowadays.
      
      The competition out there is so steep that HP has to be at the top of its game to survive and right now, it isn't.

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      Kenna McHughposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      The political posts on HP seem more prevalent, which doesn't help the writers improve their work or determine what is happening within the Internet and HubPages.

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   3. 97

      CYong74posted 11 months agoin reply to this

      I just did a comparison. Compared to 2022, my 2023 traffic and earnings dropped by 12++ percent. But this might not be a real drop because I only published two new hubs in 2023, whereas I published over 10 in 2022. I might have been able to maintain revenue levels had I published slightly more last year.
      
      And so I don't think all hope is lost, yet. Things are undoubtedly going to be tougher this year but maybe there are still opportunities. The big question for me at the moment is whether I want to do the whole update-your-hubs-for-the-new-year task again, or use the time to write new stuff.

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         Kenna McHughposted 11 months agoin reply to this

         Ced, How about both?

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            CYong74posted 11 months agoin reply to this

            I don't have the time and energy for both, unfortunately. I shouldn't say this but it's really wearisome to keep doing the same updating thing every Jan. It's like looking at New Year fireworks and thinking, sh*t, a whole mountain of editing work just began.

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               PaulGoodman67posted 11 months agoin reply to this

               I tend to do my big edit in late summer/early fall before the (formerly lucrative) Xmas period. My New Year edit is typically just some basic stuff like checking Amazon links.
               
               My traffic dropped by over 15% in December alone. It feels like every major algo update has been giving me drops of 15-20% for the past two years.
               
               Early on in the decline, I was able to tread water at times. Prolifically producing new hubs seemed to cancel out the drops to some degree. Then even that stopped working.
               
               If this was Squidoo, the site would've folded over a year ago. In fact, I was still actually making reasonable money at Squidoo when it went down, despite its decline.
               
               I wish I could share your optimism. In theory, they certainly have the resources to figure out what the issues are with Google. I'm guessing they have a reasonable idea what the particular problems are but there's a barrier to fixing them, some sort of challenge... one can only speculate...

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                  CYong74posted 11 months agoin reply to this

                  I have a Holidappy Christmas hub that I update every Nov/Dec. It has never been phenomenal in performance but I do at least get several hundred views each year end.
                  
                  Last December, I don't think it even hit 200.
                  
                  But on Jan 1, one of my sleepers suddenly had a traffic surge. The surge is significant enough that I'm actually having a better January than last year, despite slightly lower CPMs.
                  
                  It's all very bizarre. I'm inclined to think that we have never attended to the real issues too because we don't know what's wrong.

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                     PaulGoodman67posted 11 months agoin reply to this

                     There was that period (early last year was it?) when there were lots of huge surges. I don't know whether HP was helping our articles to get onto MSN etc. but it was certainly a thing for a time. Some of those surges were dramatic. Often it happened with new articles but not always.
                     
                     HP have a tremendous amount of data available to analyze. They can also look at what's working and not working elsewhere. They can experiment. TAG have SEO-savvy folk like Paul Edmondson.
                     
                     The issue after the Panda update wasn't that they didn't understand the problem, they did, but that they wanted to hold onto their we-accept-anything business model. In the end, after the subdomains failed, there was no option but to radically alter the site and heavily restrict what they published.
                     
                     If this decline continues, we may also see radical changes.

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                     Kenna McHughposted 11 months agoin reply to this

                     Ced, thank you for some positive vibes. I speculate other writers are still making revenues to keep them going and happy. We rarely hear from them for various reasons.

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                        PaulGoodman67posted 11 months agoin reply to this

                        Writers' experiences will vary. I have multiple accounts and they don't all behave exactly the same. The same goes with particular niches, some are doing worse than others.
                        
                        However, when one looks at the stats for the niche domains at places like SEMRush, there's no doubt that HP is doing terribly overall.

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                        CYong74posted 11 months agoin reply to this

                        I hope traffic gets better for you and everyone else, Kenna. (Though it does look very grim) Or at the very least, it doesn't slip further.

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                           Kenna McHughposted 11 months agoin reply to this

                           Thanks, Ced. It's an interesting time for HP. I hope it weathers the storm.

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                              chef-de-jourposted 11 months agoin reply to this

                              Something's cooking. TAG is in turmoil at the moment. I don't know if this is normal business practice or what but the new interim CEO Bhargava - the one who took over once the AI scandal broke and Levinsohn got kicked out - had to quit due to vested interests. TAG debts need to be paid off and the company loaning money must be connected to Bhargava in some way, so according to this page:
                              
                              https://investors.thearenagroup.net/node/11156/html
                              
                              and a big hit to the stock value, there's little doubt as to why HP isn't attracting big ad money.
                              
                              TAG is still in charge of HP and has a few months breathing space in which to turn the ship around.
                              
                              We're heading for the open desert? Better a handful of dry dates and content therewith than to own the Gate of Peacocks and be kicked in the eye by a broody camel.

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                                 PaulGoodman67posted 11 months agoin reply to this

                                 Thanks for the update!
                                 
                                 Yes, while I'm no legal or financial expert, that doesn't look good. Having big loans isn't unusual for a tech company or publisher but missing interest payments is bad.
                                 
                                 I wonder who's the captain of the ship now that the interim CEO's going or gone... the post looks like a poison chalice from where I'm standing.
                                 
                                 This latest news probably deserves its own forum thread.

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      2. 66

         OldRosesposted 11 months agoin reply to this

         I'm not updating my hubs this year.  I just don't have the time or the energy.

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4. 96

   Rupert Taylorposted 11 months ago

   Updating is difficult when dealing with historical articles such as Henry VIII's Gigantic Appetite. Unsurprisingly, little new information comes in each year on such topics. What to do? Change a "that" to a "which" so as to get a new publishing date? I think Google is wise to that strategy.
   
   As with most others, my earnings hit the skids following the holiday season. Views have remained stable - ish, but the money is pitiful. I suppose nobody is advertising Christmas must-have trinkets.

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5. 94

   eugbugposted 11 months ago

   I didn't update last year. It seems pointless and there isn't anything extra that can be added to most of my articles without making them overly fussy. Also they're already very long, most of them, and I think Google penalizes long articles and favours short crap. (I'm blue in the face telling DOS about that.)

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      Misty Mayposted 10 months agoin reply to this

      The word count thing drives me crazy for that reason, which is why I only posted one recipe post on here. No one wants a long story on a recipe article, I at least put mine at the bottom of the recipe because I hate to read a essay when I just want to make dinner.

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   PaulGoodman67posted 11 months ago

   I spent a long time getting all the photos to match the latest advice. Also, Amazon hubs are maintenance intensive and require regular work.
   
   It is more difficult with evergreen info hubs.
   
   One common edit that I used to do was to widen the keyword net for successful hubs, try to rank for related keywords and not just the primary. The problem with that is that I no longer really have successful hubs, as most of them have dropped in the rankings.
   
   One can attempt to improve or revive poor performers but it can feel a little futile. I've had quite a few articles worked on by the editors and it doesn't seem to have made a great deal of difference so far. If they can't work some magic, I'm not sure I can.
   
   There's a psychological side too, though. I think most writers prefer creating new material. I certainly find it more fun. I think most people find editing and updating relatively dreary. I do it but it's a chore.

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7. 92

   Janda Rakerposted 11 months ago

   I used to write for another site that paid WAY better, but it closed down. And sadly the low pay on this one doesn't inspire me to produce as much as the previous one! I need some encouragement! (But as we writers know, it IS about sharing the stories, so there IS that!)

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      Kenna McHughposted 11 months agoin reply to this

      Janda, that's true! I make money off my other site and from clients. I am hoping HP stops swooping and jerking.

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   psycheskinnerposted 10 months ago

   I like hubpages overall, but it pays (literally) to always keep an eye out for other options.  I recently got my Facebook page accepted to the performance bonus program and make much more over there now. But I am sure that will also only pay well for some period of time, and then it will be something else.  Hubpages was a good run - paid well for years - but it doesn't really seem worth it for me anymore.

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      Solarasposted 10 months agoin reply to this

      I never heard of this before. Can you post a link to your Facebook page?  Are you doing videos or text?

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         psycheskinnerposted 10 months agoin reply to this

         If you have a Facebook page you can set it to professional, then apply for the performance bonus program.  They are looking for people who post original content on a regular basis.  In my case cartoons.

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            Solarasposted 10 months agoin reply to this

            Very cool - If you send me a link, I will visit, follow, share your cartoons.  Dog related ones go over well with my 3500 friends lol.
            
            Edit: Do you ask for stars? Is that the only way to earn?

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