Financial Crisis Taking A Heavy Toll On Bloggers
Bloggers everywhere are beginning to notice a disturbing trend: the financial crisis is taking a heavy toll on the blogosphere. Adsense earnings are down for many webmasters at a time when they can afford it least. Overall affiliate sells also seem to be down across the board: long gone are the days where you can simply throw up an affiliate banner and expect to make a few sales due to sheer volume.
The personal finance niche, due to its intimate connection with the banking and investment industry (its primary advertisers), hasn’t escaped the carnage. In Pinyo’s monthly site update, he reveals alternative income streams are down 23% in November in part due to the financial crisis even as overall traffic grew modestly. I would consider a mere 23% drop a victory in this advertising environment.
Revenue Up, Profitability Down
Speaking for myself, the month of November was my highest-earning month ever; however, that was due to unusually large traffic spikes and not profitable monetization. In fact, the adsense ECPM on this blog in November was barely 1/4 of the average. Had I not had a record traffic month, November’s numbers would have been scary indeed. As somebody without a job, I can only hope the economy recovers sooner rather than later. Affiliate revenue through programs such as Amazon’s
What about you? Is the financial crisis taking a toll on your blog? Leave a comment and share with the group.
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I also noticed the decline in revenue per click from AdSense. Otherwise, I had a couple of advertiser cancellation that affected my revenue. I am not sure if I’d call it a “heavy toll” at this point. Knock on wood.
My traffic was about the same, but my revenue was down about 30% last month.
I doubled my traffic and yet Adsense revenues were unchanged. I would strongly suggest that you diversify your revenue sources well. Kontera did pretty well, as did Adsdaq. For affiliate programs, try INO.
Yea my revenue was way down this month. Just Kidding! This was my first month of blogging and I came halfway to the initial payout point. I have nothing to compare it to but I could definitely imagine pf blogs taking a hit during tough times. On the other hand, the one plus that I see is that more people will be online looking for help and someone to guide them through such a difficult time. Hopefully that will mean more readers/traffic, which in a upswing could generate more money.
November started out pretty bleak for me but quickly turned out to be one of my best months ever. I don’t know if I will ever have a month like that again.
I’ve also saw a decline in revenue but just for a few days. Is just like a roller coaster …a few days the earnings are good, and a few days are a little bit lower.
I also noticed this awhile ago when I was writing a post on a similar topic. Adsense rev is definetly down for me (about $6 to $10 eCPM now!) . That is why I am focusing on affiliate programs now. There payoff is about 10 to 30 times an adsense click. So while it may be harded to generate affilate sales, longer term that is where the money is.
@Andy – That’s eCPM is awesome, but I agree about affiliate sales is where the money is.
@Online Dividends – I looked at INO and dont’ know if I am comfortable promoting it since it seems to be “Trading” oriented and that’s not what I preach. My loss, I guess.
I’d love to see $10 ecpm this month but it’s not looking good. On the plus side, amazon sells are always through the roof in december and this year is no exception so far. People also tend to buy 5 or 6 items at a time rather than just 1 or 2. I’ve been experimenting with a few affliliate programs with moderate success but they still haven’t overtaken adsense yet.
November wasn’t great for me with Adsense, but overall income was highest ever with no traffic spikes,
November was my best month ever, and December is shaping up pretty well as well. Can’t say I’ve seen much of a hit at all. Since the crisis hit my ad revenues have actually gone up. Go figure, I just hope it lasts.
My blog is not that old and doesn’t even have any advertising on it yet…perhaps I should rethink my “I know, I’ll blog and earn some extra money” strategy!