A few days ago, I noticed that the AdSense revenues of my sites weren’t increasing at the same rate their traffic was increasing. One of my sites was getting close to one millions page views per month. However, the AdSense earnings were hovering around $200-$250.
That’s kind of disheartening. Reaching 1 millions views per month was supposed to be a watershed moment for me but it turned out to be a great disappointment.
I wasn’t expecting much. I just wanted an RPM of $1, but I was offered less than one-third of it ($0.30) instead. And I was supposed to swallow it and feel grateful about it.
Upon close examination, I found that my CPC had shrunk to $0.02, even though the CTR had increased to 1.65% . I tried to dig further and discovered that AdSense ads were not being displayed in around 30% of the pages. And I was still clueless.
The site in question is in the educational niche and I was still unable to understand why I was getting such low CPC rates. I mean, this is not an entertainment site. This is an educational site. It is supposed to be a serious topic right?
I know, that most of the traffic comes from India (>95%) and I never expected the highest CPC rates, however $0.02 for an educational site is way below what I ever could think of. A couple of months earlier I used to get $0.04 CPC on the same site and now it is $0.02.
The good news is that my overall earnings are still in the increasing trend. The overall revenues are increases almost each month, however, I expected to earn at least 3 times of what I am earning right now.
So, this is kind of disheartening as I was thinking of quitting my job once my individual educational sites reached 1 million views per month, but here I am stuck at the same place, languishing in hopelessness.
And I must tell you that hopelessness is a poison. It makes you mentally paralytic. You will not be able to accomplish anything as long as you languish in that state.
I was beginning to question the value of my websites and I became overall skeptical about the AdSense business model. I never felt comfortable selling courses and affiliate marketing is kind of difficult in educational sites.
I did not feel like working on my sites any more and seriously considered selling them off. But my partner (who also happens to be my wife) strongly warned me against it. And she is usually right. So I had to drop that idea.
I wanted my websites to make more money than they were making right now but I had no idea how to go about it.
I remained in this poisonous state for quite a few days and it felt horrible. So I decided to move on.
I conducted a thought experiment.
What if giant social networking sites like Facebook were to depend on AdSense?
Facebook gets around 194 billion views per month. If it were to get the same RPM that I get ($0.30), then its monthly earnings would be around $58 million. But, how much does Facebook actually earn per month. Its more than $7 billion. Which means, Facebook is earning 120 times more than what it should be earning had it depended on AdSense for revenues.
This revelation changed my outlook towards the advertising business model. I realized that I was earning less because I agreed to get paid less.
I realized that my site’s worth is way more than what AdSense pays me. I can’t put a number on it , but I am sure it is many times more than what my AdSense earnings projected.
AdSense is a good source of online income but it is not the final word on earnings. It doesn’t dictate the value of your efforts. And your website’s value is far more than what your AdSense earnings suggest.
So, no matter what your website is earning right now, its value is way more than what you think it is.
So don’t haste in making decisions that may have detrimental consequences.
Your website might be earning at lot less than your expectations right now, but there is no reason to think that it will continue in this state forever.
You need to have faith in yourself and in your website right now. If you have brought it so far, you can surely take it to greater heights. Just don’t bail out on it yet.