Revenue Drop: What Happened?

[ReroOnyx]

This was brought up in in another topic but I feel the need to make a new one and bring up the question.

Ever since the "Revenue Bug" in which revenue and impressions weren't being updated was "fixed" the total revenue being brought in has taken a massive nose dive. Myself as well as a couple of other people have noticed nearly a 50% decrease in ad revenues from what we had before. While this number may slightly fluctuate from time to time, as long as I've been on here, it has never made such a drastic drop. The Ad Impressions and Revenue have always been relatively stable and consistent.

So I have to ask, is something going on again? This seems like an uncharacteristically large drop, and again it happened after the whole "bug" when until then, this problem wasn't occurring. Has it really it really gotten to the point where we have to work twice as hard as before to get to where we were before?

I'm hoping someone has an answer to this because this seems like a pretty sudden thing to happen.

[AnnaLandin]

I have no idea why this would happen, or why it would coincide with the bug. I recommend a.) emailing Tapastic about the bug, and b.) contacting them via twitter @tapas_app (this usually generates the fastest response, in my experience), or c.) batsignalling a member of the staff in this thread.

@isyoon , @michaelson - what's going on with the drop in revenue-per-impression? Is it a coincidence, or is there a particular reason?

[ReroOnyx]

Just sent an E-Mail now.

[comicrevo]

thanks for handling this

[PotooGryphon]

This question was partially answered on this thread:

110$ per 9505 ad impressions?

110$ per 9505 ad impressions?

I'm 100% certain it has to do with the fact that Tapastic is herding their traffic to the app, which doesn't utilize ads (not in the same way the desktop site does), which is causing less ad traffic to the desktop site, thus lowering the CPM, and bringing in less per ad impression.

110$ per 9505 ad impressions?

We've introduced static ads to the app starting yesterday on both iOS and Android so we hope to regulate the overall eCPM.

But yes, up to now, a majority of the discrepancy of for views to ad revenue has been the lack of ads on the app.

We hope that the eCPM increases w/ the introduction of mobile ads as well as introducing a tip function for readers that utilize the ad watching mechanism.

[ReroOnyx]

Even after reading that, I'm still kind of confused. I remember reading some time ago that the Tapastic App had trouble with ad revenue or ads themselves and so sure it made sense to want to work on that. However I'm not sure how it effects the aspect of the on site ad impressions. For me, one should still make the usual earnings from the Tapastic Site+ Whatever ad impressions are made from the app.

Has the earnings just now been split between the App and Tapastic website?

[ReroOnyx]

Also and update:

I just received a message that the overall eCPM has not fluctuated downwards and has remained consistent for the past months. So apparently nothing on Tapastic has happened it seems to note a drop. Yet apparently many of us, myself included, have suddenly lost over 50% of our ad revenue on what we should be making.

Is there anyone here who isn't having this problem and they haven't noticed a huge decrease in ad revenue on their usual Ad Impression Numbers? I mean if everyone is experience this massive decrease at least I know it's to all users and not just specific users. But regardless it still worries me that we've taken such a nose dive and Tapastic hasn't actually take note of it.

[PotooGryphon]

Actually, my charts and number tracking confirms that for the last several months the rate of ad impressions to earn 1 cent has been consistent.

August has been an off month for me, personally, though. I'm not sure what the spike is about, whether it's due to my inconsistent updates lately, low views for the month, or the introduction of ad revenue on the app, idk. But from March to July it's been a consistent 22 ad impressions to earn 1 cent ratio.

If this spike is correct though, it'd be in favor of revenue dropping and for this month it took 34.6 ad impressions to earn 1 cent.

[scythe]

Hi Cyndi, where are you seeing these graphs? That's not on Tapastic is it?

[PotooGryphon]

Nope, I make it myself. I figure out the ratios based on my own views, impressions, and revenue that I do get directly from my tapastic dashboard.

[joannekwan]

I have not noticed a tremendous drop. It's fairly consistent with other slight dips in the past; this past week it's only probably like 10% less than previous weeks. Could just be a seasonal anomaly or whatevs.

@CyndiFoster You're a beast keeping such a close eye on things, making charts and all! We can always rely on your input for these kinds of threads! ^^

[scythe]

Wow, you are one keen bean alright!

[ReroOnyx]

Forgive me poor editing with the image.

As one can see, I've gone from making around 20 cents per 600+ Ad impressions, to barley scraping half of that. Losing 10% of revenue while bad is understandable. Is losing 50% though?

[joannekwan]

Well it's only been a week, I would just keep an eye on things for the next month and see if it doesn't normalize itself.

[PotooGryphon]

First off, I gotta get this off my chest: To me, I tend to not get so wrapped up in Tapastic's ad revenue. Sure I track it and monitor it, but what I don't get wrapped up in is how it's not constant and consistent. That's really just the nature of ad revenue. It's not reliable and it fluctuates daily. I see ad revenue as more of extra money and not sustainable moneys that Tapastic was awesome enough to offer to us. As comic artists it's important to constantly seek more revenue streams than focusing on one. [ie. book sales, conventions, commissions, freelance, day jobs]

Phew, Ok, I feel better now that I've said that.

Now to answer your reply, 20 cents per 600 ad impression is actually the same as what I said above with my graphs. 600 divided by 34 equals about 18 cents (close enough to 20 cents). 34 ad impressions to earn 1 cent is this month's ratio. We'll have to wait and see what next month's ratio will be since it does changes as my chart shows.

Last year's rate was different from this years rates as well.

Last year's rate was about 13-15 impressions to earn 1 cent.

And there's new features relating to ads and ad revenue launching this month that can have an impact on this. Once it balances back out it might be for the good, but till it balances we might have to deal with some lower earning days/weeks/months.

[ReroOnyx]

I think the reason I keep a watch on it is because right now, my views and impressions are relatively low compared to other comics who are doing quite well. Getting 20-30 cents a day was a miracle for me, and that probably barely constitutes as chump change for all of you getting ad impressions in the 10,000 range.

I think it bothers me because for some of you, while this is a massive downgrade, you're still making enough that you can still earn a usable profit. I'm not, at my rate getting 25$ as a little bit of cash would've taken me several months. Now, it will take nearly a year at this rate.

This might not be a problem for those making tens of dollars every day, hopefully one day I can reach such a number. But for now, I can't really turn a blind eye to such a massive decease.

[PotooGryphon]

lol no no, I added my earnings on my chart. I'm lucky if I get $4 a month. But that's the thing about ad revenue, it's not a lot of money until you reach a certain level with your readership AND EVEN THEN they'll need to read your series with ad blocker turned off because that too will hurt your earnings.

Also think about how silly this concept is. You need 34 of your awesome loyal reader base to turn ad blocker off and look at 1 ad on your series in order to earn 1 penny. Now times that by 100 to earn a dollar, and so on and so on.

At the end of the day, it's just not worth fully stressing over and it's more practical to focus on other revenue streams while ad revenue quietly does it's thing in the background.

[joannekwan]

LOL I wish I made $10 a day. I'd be living easy!
But alas, we all just gotta keep on truckin', making our comics, taking on commissions, promoting ourselves, hustlin'.

[Shanny8]

@joannekwan Even at $4 a day that would be something better than what I'm making now, but I dont worry(too much) about the ad rev, coz I just started my comic about 3 months ago. Readership is building and I know it's not gonna explode overnight. I just hope readership can pick up little more over the rest of the year than how it has been doing( I think readership on Tapastic in general has been down a bit).

[ReroOnyx]

This is where we're having the problem. You were effected by the whole revenue bug but it seems for you, your revenue didn't make a sudden decline in comparison to its usual ad impression. For example let's just say you average about 800 Ad Impressions and make 30 cents. It would appear that your revenue is still consistent.

You're making 800 ad impressions or whatever number and the revenue has remained consistent for that, give or take that 10%.

That's the exact opposite for me and others. We're getting similar ad impressions from before but the revenue that would usually be generated from that amount has decreased over 50%. We're literally making half of what we made before. Now if this is effecting everyone and everyone is only making around half of what their typical revenue might be, I must just put up on Tapastic having a momentary fart or something.

But if what you say is true about your consistent impressions and revenue, this is effecting some of us very negatively while others like you do not seem to be hit by this drastic decrease.