Without a baseline EPC you can't tell luck from skill

Without a baseline EPC you can't tell luck from skill
Median niche-site EPC sits near $0.30 (earnings per 100 clicks). Top quartile clears $0.55; bottom quartile under $0.15. The baseline-setup playbook:
— Pull a 90-day report (less is too noisy under ~500 clicks)
— Compute EPC = (total earnings ÷ total clicks) × 100
— Segment by category, then by traffic source
— Flag any segment >30% below your site median for review
— Re-baseline quarterly; one viral post can skew a single month
A single high-AOV order can inflate a month's EPC by 40% — always cite your sample size (n) before drawing conclusions.
So what: compute your number this week. Every later optimization is measured against it, not a guess.