AdSense shows high CTR, CPC and RPM. Should I be concerned?

I have seen a lot of people raising concerns on high CPC and RPM in their AdSense earnings. I know everyone like higher CPC and higher revenue from their blogs but what people are concerned is possible click bombing.

Since Google has been taking strict action against AdSense account owners for fake clicks, many people started using that to get their competitors in to trouble. There are several cases of click bombing reported and many genuine AdSense account owners lost their AdSense account because someone else repeatedly clicked on their Ads (with the intention of getting the AdSense account disabled by Google).

For the same reason, if the genuine AdSense account owners see unusual click rate in their AdSense reports, they start getting concerned about potential click bombing. I have seen numerous posts from people reporting that they see unusual data in their AdSense reports and ask how to deal with it. However, in most cases, such reports are normal and there were no need to be concerned.

Unusual stats on a small sample of data is normal

If you look at the daily earning report on an early morning, you might notice unusual data. There is nothing wrong but the small samples could always be like that. Let us analyze some of the common concerns:

High CPC: Many people report that they are seeing very high CPC today in their AdSense account. CPC is the Cost Per Click and it just depends on how much the advertiser is willing to pay per click for the Ad. In general, it is beyond your control. There is absolutely no need to be concerned about high CPC. If you are worried about low CPC, then read some AdSense tips to improve your AdSense CPC.

High CTR: High CTR is something that need to be concerned and could be a sign of click bombing, but not always. If you see high CTR, he question is, what is the reporting period you are looking at and what is the total number of clicks in the report.

If you have a small blog and if you are talking about just a few clicks per day, the CTR can vary a lot. For example, consider a very small blog which gets 100 visits per day. One day, there could be just one click (1% CTR) and another day there could 5 clicks (5% CTR). In this case, the CTR is significantly different each day.

But if you have a very popular blog with thousands of visitors each day, your average clicks per day wouldn't change significantly. If your CTR is 2% today, it would remain pretty much the same everyday.

But if you look at a single day's report during the beginning of the day, it could vary significantly. For example, you may have certain type of content, which have very high chances of clicks due to relevant ads. And consider such content happen to be visited by people in USA more than any other countries, which matches the timezone of AdSense reporting timezone. If you look at your report in the beginning of the reporting day, you will see higher CTR since the content which has the higher CTR possibility is visited by the people during that time.

You need to start worrying about high CTR only if:

- The high CTR trend continues for some time and not just for the beginning of the day.
- The CTR varies significantly (change from 2% to 2.5% is not a matter of concern, but change from 2% to 4% for a large sample is something that need to be worried)

If you have a small blog with a few hundred visitors per day, the CTR can vary significantly, which could be normal. But if you have a very popular blog with thousands of visitors per day, your CTR should remain pretty much consistent.

High RPM: RPM simply means how much is the average revenue for 1000 impressions. For most people, the RPM is $1 to $5, depending on the region, type of content, nature of the site etc.

However, if you look at a very small sample of data, you could see unusual stats for the RPM.

Just like the CTR, if you look at the stats when the day starts, most of the accounts will show such unusual reports. For example, consider someone click on the ad on the first impression on the day and assume it got 0.50$ CPC. Now, your stats for the day will look like this:

CPC: $0.50
CTR: 100%
RPM: $500

When it reaches 10 impressions (with no additional clicks), your stats will change to:

CPC: $0.50
CTR: 10%
RPM: $50

When it reaches 100 impressions (with no additional clicks), your stats will change to:

CPC: $0.50
CTR: 5%
RPM: $5

This is an example of how weird the stats can be if you look at a very small sample of data. You need to start getting nervous only if similar data is shown for larger samples.

Unusual data in your Google AdSense reports: When to start worried?

As I mentioned above, it is quite normal to see some unusual reports if you look at a very small sample or if you look at the reports for the same day. You need to start worrying about click bombing and invalid activity only if the trend continues for some time and only if you have at least 1 full day report, with this exception: If you see a unusually high number of clicks during a short period of time, it could be a sign of invalid activity. For example, if you are receiving average 100 clicks per day but you already received 50 clicks during the first few hours of the day, then it could be something that you need to be worried.

The most important piece of data to look at is the number of clicks during a short time and not the CTR or RPM along. If you suspect click bombing and see suspicious activity, follow the report very closely and see how fast the number of clicks go up.

The best way to deal with invalid activity is to keep your AdSense account in good standing. If you suspect click bombing, then it is important to protect your account. Learn how to handle invalid clicks and deal with click bombing.