How to tell if you are doing things right.

For the most part, the first visitors I get to my site each day come from Asia and Australia. This is because they get up first. Then later Europeans and Africans start showing up and finally North and South Americans. The sad fact is that most advertisers using Adsense are North Americans and as such they basically only want traffic from North Americans. (Most only have products available in the US or Canada) The best paying ads and highest converting products tend to be by and for Americans and Canadians. This isn't fair, it sucks and in the end comes down to the reality that European and Asian businesses have yet to take advantage of the internet to the same degree as North American businesses. If your traffic comes from mostly US and Canadian visitors then you will get better Adsense Ads. If your traffic is mostly from elsewhere you will get poorer paying ads and also run the risk of getting smart priced.

The first clicks I get each day are from Asia and Australia - my CPC always starts off low. Later in the day my CPC increases, sometimes quite dramatically. This is because the clicks are now coming from the US and Canada - the people my best ads are targeting.

If you see the same trend then you are doing things right. If you start off with higher CPC and see your CPC drop over the course of the day then you are not doing things right. It means you are getting more less desirable traffic than desirable.

This happens when the bulk of your traffic comes from countries other than the US and Canada. This also happens when the bulk of your traffic comes from sources other than the search engines. In both cases you are getting the wrong traffic. If this is the case remove the Adsense ads from your site and start optimizing it for the search engines.

It all comes down to conversions for the advertiser. The only way you will get good converting traffic for the advertiser is by providing them with people looking for what they are selling.