Looks like the eCPM drop is also related to the CTR drop. I was getting a CTR of 0.77% 2 weeks ago and now I am getting 0.55%.
I’m sorry to hear about everyone’s drop. The largest reason ad networks like admob go through a period of low revenue is when there is a lack of campaigns that are not relevant to your app. This causes a huge problem between the amount of available revenue and an over abundance of publishers that are requesting ad calls from their server. I’d be interested to see overall fill rates with Admob and what kind of ads are really being pushed along the network.
I’ve been in your shoes before in the past and know how stressful it can be. Especially without warning.
CEO at mobiMicro | the first mobile product network | www.mobiMicro.com | CPC pricing | consistent revenues | honest support
Check my fillrate which is the average of my 5 apps:
Hey armando - can you repost this? I’m not seeing your fill rate.
Also, keep in mind that while fill rates may be high, it ultimately depends on how the ad network tracks and reports this data. For example, fill rate can be 100% but if the same ad is showing over and over - of course results will suffer. Again, it goes back to which campaigns and revenue they have available on a daily basis.
So this leads me to believe the following:
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Same advertisers, less revenue to go around for everyone. Ads are definitely being shown, but by how many different advertisers? if Google only has a handful of campaigns going on - they will likely give the advertiser more volume at a much lower cost in order to avoid showing no ads. This gives much less available revenue for all the publisher partners while keeping the advertiser very happy to continue advertising with them.
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Is there a change in the process? There was a lot of talk earlier this year at conventions and IAB meets I attended that there would be major changes to how ad networks viewed successful advertising. One instance where they would start implementing/testing the “double tap” in order to avoid the fat finger issue advertisers are complaining about. Here’s the link: Google brings a double-tap to in-app advertisements - SlashGear. Not sure if this is what’s going on now but worth looking into. This would definitely decrease CTRs overnight.
Either way, all developers are at the mercy of these fluctuations until advertisers are satisfied with their overall results from spending money. This leads to constant changes and price structures until we as an industry find the right medium for advertisers to feel like they got great value out of a campaign and publishers can feel they’re generating revenue that’s consistent. It’s the natural progression of what happened in desktop advertising where there were millions of “parked domains” that just overloaded with ad content to generate revenue and no real content - eventually the advertisers caught on and the money stopped.
My advice would be to start integrating an ad strategy for your app that makes sense from a user experience. The more value you can create for an ad network or advertiser, the better off in the long run you will be. A good question to ask yourself is “How can I increase my CTR % without the risk of losing my fans?”
Your first point sounds reasonable. This is absolutely possible, more developers signed up for admob, but the volume of ads remained at the same level. Thus less money for each single developer.
Your second point does in my opinion not have any impact on my performance. I´m relatively new to publishing apps at google play (since about 2 months now), however the double-tab integration took place before I started. So that cannot explain the eCPM drop I mentioned (70%)…
This happen so fast, I don’t think just because more developers joined admob, that would impact on so many and specially in a very short period of time (two weeks for most of the users that complain here).
How many users would had to join admob to impact on 30% to 70% of the eCPM or revenues that are dropping? I think too many!
Maybe google changed something on the admob system?
Actually I believe it to be the opposite. Advertisers or some major spenders cutting their admob spend is the most likely culprit. Especially with most advertisers optimizing their budgets for the Q4 holiday season - they double down what has worked throughout the year and cut the rest.
Your point is reasonable, but wouldn’t other ad networks besides admob also be affected by the cut in spending just as much? If so I can’t say I have noticed a drop yet.
Well, it’s all dependent on which advertisers are spending with which network. Given Admob is a Google brand/company it commands some bigger advertisers - if they lose a large account, then publishers with higher amounts of traffic will definitely feel the affects of that. When I was with Gameloft, we saw this volatile nature week in and out because ad networks would opt to give us first crack at premium advertisers.
When however, those budgets were exhausted - our revenues would diminish overnight (a lot of times without warning) and we’d scramble to get another ad network our available impressions to make up for the revenue drop.
I also think that the advertisers would have a bigger and faster impact on the eCPM than the developers. I really hope their saving for Christmas 
The only think that keeps me in doubt is that the revenues drop in every app. And some of my apps are “country related” (90% of the revenue comes from a specific country), and the drop is general, in Europe to South America.
My eCPM continues to drop, I am earning 50% less than I was 2 weeks ago. Is everyone experiencing this problem or are we just a few?
I´m earning overall 70% less.
70% less just from the eCPM drop or did your impressions drop too?
How many impressions do you have daily?
My eCPM dropped by ~60%, the other 10% less are due to reduced impressions. I´m always between 55 and 60k impr. now.
How much did your CTR drop? Mine dropped with around 30%.
It didn´t drop, au contraire, it even improved… The only values that went down are eCPM (a lot) and impressions (only a bit).
So this drop is definetly mostly due to eCPM drops and a small impression drop.
30% CTR drop, thats strange…
Yeah, a lot of strange things happening with admob lately.
As I said before, my revenues have been decreasing in the past two weeks. But for some magic reason yesterday it almost returned to normal.
Waiting to see next few days.