Member Avatar for 3oltan

I would really like to know if anybody else has experienced collapse in CTR+ECPM+CPC-wise starting in February (Jan 31 was totally normal day).

Facts:
- Same traffic
- Same advertizers with the same budgets (small niche, everybody knows everybody)
- Everything was rock solid the last year
- Last minutes of January looks normal

... then... February starts and CTR drops 20%, eCPM 25% in one second and has stayed at the new level every since.

Is this something only I am experiencing, or...?

I just cannot figure this one out... If it is penalty (and the level of the jump would support this), why has my CTR jumped down?

Only explanation I can think is that: I have hit some penalty word, which has ""disabled"" some of the ads. But without knowing the exact problem, it's kind of difficult to "undo".

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Dani AI

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Brief recap: reported an abrupt step drop at the start of February (CTR about -20%, eCPM about -25%) while traffic and advertisers supposedly stayed the same. Replies from , , , and raised penalties, algorithm/auction shifts and site issues. Below is an ordered, practical troubleshooting checklist and a few checks that will quickly tell whether this is a reporting/technical problem or a real change in advertiser demand.

  • Quick, high-priority checks (30–60 minutes)

    • Log into the publisher dashboard and look for account messages, alerts or policy actions and the Ad Review/blocked categories area.
    • Confirm ad code is present and unchanged on a few representative pages (view-source, mobile and desktop). Verify impressions are being recorded.
    • Compare impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC and eCPM for Jan 25–31 vs Feb 1–7 and segment by page, ad unit, country and device so you know where the drop lives.

  • Data drills (1–6 hours)

    • Use analytics to compare landing pages and referrer mix. A spike in social or referral traffic (lower-value visitors) often lowers CTR/CPC even when raw visits look “the same.”
    • Compute the math to see which metric moved most. Use eCPM = (earnings / impressions) * 1000 and CPC = eCPM / (CTR * 1000); e.g., a 20% CTR fall and 25% eCPM fall implies only a small CPC decline (~6.25%) — that tells you CTR is the main driver.
    • Check for regional/device shifts, ad blockers, caching changes, or front-end JS/CSS that might cover ads (affects clickability).

  • Followups if unresolved

    • If the change is account-wide and immediate, gather screenshots, report samples, dates and top pages and contact your ad network rep/support.
    • If isolated to certain pages/units, create a fresh test page/ad unit to A/B compare.
    • Avoid quick workarounds that violate policies (artificial clicks, cloaking). Document everything before major changes.

Triage in that order: messages/ad-serving check first, then segmentation to pinpoint where the loss sits, then targeted fixes or support escalation. This approach will separate technical/implementation problems from actual demand shifts or policy issues and gives you the data to share with your account rep.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for Dani

Are you talking specifically about AdSense/AdWords?

Member Avatar for ayestmam

Maybe is a penalty.

Member Avatar for autotrans10

I did find that google adwords went through some updating to there algorithm. This is what I was told from my manager. We saw conversion rates drop and cost went up for certain keywords. You have to roll with the punches. We are still ironing it out.

Member Avatar for InsightsDigital

Something to consider is also - have your campaign been saturated - that means have you reached a point in your campaign where it has reached all the new acquisition it could?

Member Avatar for jay 11

i assume you are referring to Google AdSense, yes?? FWIW - I have not noticed a dip in any of my KPI's - in fact my company has been fortunate to see an increase in revenues over the past few months. We attribute this to better ad placement and overall site performance (load speed, fixing of broken pages, improved site navigation).

The timing of the drop (Jan to Feb) is most likely a coincidence. Have you changed anything to your site? Do you run SiteMaps on your site? If so - have there been any glaring errors? IE. pages unreachable?

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