Why did my Google AdSense earnings drop by 60%?
I run a tech blog with about 50,000 monthly visitors. My AdSense earnings were around $400/month consistently. This month I only made $150 and I have no idea why. My traffic is actually up about 15% but revenue tanked. No policy violations. What's going on?
1 Answer(s)
This exact situation happened to me and it's usually one of two things: seasonal CPM drops or ad placement issues. First, check if your RPM (revenue per thousand impressions) dropped. Go to AdSense > Reports > Performance and compare month-over-month. If RPM dropped significantly, advertisers might be paying less for your niche right now. Tech niches often have CPM drops in Q1 and Q2.
Second, check your ad placements. Did Google automatically change your ad density? Sometimes they'll serve fewer ads on mobile devices or change ad formats without telling you. Run a PageSpeed Insights test — if Google reduced your ad load because of Core Web Vitals issues, that could explain the drop.
Third, check your traffic quality. If your traffic increase came from lower-tier countries (India, Philippines, etc.) with lower ad rates, that would tank your revenue even with higher traffic. Check Analytics to see where your new traffic is coming from.
The good news: most of these are fixable. Try increasing ad density, adding a sidebar sticky ad, or using AdSense's auto ads feature to optimize placement.