Identify the issue that caused the earnings drop
The first step in identifying what's caused a drop in earnings is to know the key metrics that influence your earnings. There are multiple factors that affect revenue, but in general the important metrics are: impressions, eCPM, impression CTR, match rate, and show rate.
Review the AdMob insights card to find if we’ve detected any anomalies in your account in the last 7 days. Otherwise, you can view these metrics in your AdMob Network report. Here are a few tips:
- Review how your account has performed historically. Create a new report and extend the date range to at least the last 3 months to help identify trends or specific issues.
- Use change history to check what changes you've made to your account and when you made them. This can help you understand the potential root cause of the revenue drop.
- Use your reports to determine the date when your earnings started to decline. Then, start breaking down the problem. For example, check which app your revenue dropped on. If you can view that the drop occurred only for a certain app, check the metrics of the app to identify the reason for the revenue decline.
- Add the important metrics to your report and try to understand which metric actually caused the drop. A change in any of the metrics listed above can trigger a change in your total revenue. Identifywhich metric has a similar trend to your revenue.
Next Step : Identify the metrics that impact your earnings
Earnings drop because of CPC
Knowing which metric is affecting your earnings can help you determine the best way to troubleshoot the issue.
Impressions
A decline in impressions could be seasonal or the result of changes in your content or your account.
What to do: If you recently changed any type of implementation, such as integrating a new SDK or replacing an ad unit, make sure there are no implementation errors. Check your app for errors and use test ads to check your implementation. You can also use Firebase Crashlytics to understand if the drop in clicks is related to a crash or recent update on your app.
Additionally, review any recent changes to your account that could impact impressions, like setting new blocking controls or changing your eCPM floor settings.
eCPM & impression CTR
A drop in eCPM and/or CTR can be caused by poor ad unit placement or by poor targeting. Users either view your ads but don't click on them as they find them irrelevant, or they don't view your ads at all. In addition, a drop in eCPM can be caused by floor settings that have not been fully optimized yet. A low eCPM or CTR often leads to lower earnings.
What to do: There are a few actions you can take when you’ve experienced a drop in either eCPM or CTR:
- Check your ad unit settings and the targeting settings for your mediation groups to make sure that you aren’t targeting too small of a geolocation (for example, only targeting one country).
- Review your eCPM floor settings. An increase to your floors could help support eCPM.
- Check if your app has been affected by confirmed click.
- Use Firebase A/B testing to understand if the drop is related to an ad placement that’s not optimized.
- Review our implementation guidance to learn more about optimizing your ad placements
Consider whether seasonality may have affected advertisers' bids. For instance, retail advertisers may increase their bids during specific times of the year when their sales tend to increase.
Match rate
Low match rate is often correlated with a drop in earnings. Low match rate can be caused by several factors, including an increase in the number of ad requests. Check that your ad requests aren’t fluctuating to help maintain a steady match rate.
What to do: If your app or ad unit is new, you may experience less demand from Google while we evaluate your traffic quality. This can occur for up to one week after a new app or ad unit is created. If low match rate continues after one week, refer to our guide on common reasons for low match rate.
Show rate
Low show rate indicates an issue with the ad unit implementation or the user experience of the app. In order to fully optimize your placements for increased revenue, we recommend optimizing and ensuring your show rate is high across all ad formats.
What to do: Use Firebase A/B Testing to ensure you’re using the best ad placements for your users. Also, review to the following resources to improve your show rate:
- Banner ads
- Interstitial ads
- Rewarded ads
- Native ads
Next Step : Learn optimization tips and maximize your earnings.
Earnings optimization tips
Below are some tips that can help you optimize your ads and maximize your earnings.
Use the right ad format for the right reasons
Each ad format has its strengths and best uses. Learn more about each ad format:
- Banner ads
- Interstitial ads
- Rewarded ads
- Rewarded interstitial ads
- App open
- Native
Enable more formats and all ad types
By enabling more ad formats in your app, you allow more opportunities for advertisers, which increases the competition for your ad requests and helps maximize your revenue.
Additionally, your earnings could increase if you allow all ad types to display. By enabling all ad types, more advertisers can bid on your app’s inventory and help increase your average cost per thousand impressions (eCPM).
Minimize category blocking
By allowing all ad categories to appear, you could potentially improve your earnings because more advertisers can bid on your app’s inventory, and help improve your eCPM. If you need to, you can disable specific subcategories without over blocking.
To minimize blocking, head to the “Blocking controls” tab in your AdMob account and switch the categories to “Allowed.”
Lower your eCPM floors
Lowering floor prices for your inventory increases the number of bids that can win the auction, which increases coverage and helps you maximize your revenue.
Use AdMob Mediation
AdMob Mediation lets you expand advertiser demand to include third-party networks. This allows you to drive more competition for your ad inventory and earn even more than working with a single ad network. AdMob includes features to simplify mediation such as:
- Open Bidding enables ad sources to compete in a real-time auction to fill your ad requests, which helps ensure you’re getting the highest revenue for your impressions.
- Ad Network Optimization (ANO) dynamically rearranges your waterfall to optimize CPMs for every impression.
- Mediation groups make it easy to scale your setup across a large number of ad units.
