Why am I showing Adsense CPM Ads Instead of CPC?

Wondering why your website or blog is only showing CPM Adsense ads instead of CPC?  First, CPM stands for cost per thousand impressions (the M is the roman numeral 1000).  That means an advertiser is paying every time the ad is displayed on your site, whereas CPC only pays when clicked.  CPM ads compete with CPC ads for every Adsense Auction on your site, meaning you may or may not get CPM advertisements.

Often, in my experience, CPM ads tend to display more often when you are running image ads, especially more than one image ad, on your site or blog.  There are text CPM ads as well, but like I said, image ads tend to be more CPM driven on the sites I run.

So why the recent surge in CPM ads with Adsense? Ever since Adsense has allowed Google approved, competing ad networks to compete for auction space on your site, the CPM ads have drastically increased.  Google Adsense is heavily known for being the leading CPC ad program, but with these new programs giving them competition, CPM ads are on the rise.

If you notice CPM ads, and do not want them on your site, it is best to do a couple things.  First, you can disable the other ad networks in your Adsense account under the Ad Review Center. You can opt to block all existing ad networks, in addition to all new networks.  Try experimenting with this to see if that helps lower CPM ads.

You can also try limiting your Adsense ads displaying on each page of your site.  The most effective is one text, one image, and one label ad per page.

Finally, before you go making any changes to experiment with CPM advertisements, ask yourself if they are good or bad for your site.  For large traffic sites with poor Click thru Rates (CTR), CPM ads are great, because it is guaranteed revenue.  However, if you have a lower traffic site that can generate decent CTR and CPC revenue, you may see a dip in online earnings if CPM ads start displaying consistently.

Because Adsense does not give you direct control over what ads display, it is best to experiment and see what set-ups and ad types work best for your website or blog.