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Inside AdSense
Google's official blog for news, tips and information on AdSense.
A Halloween hello
Friday, October 29, 2010
Happy Halloween from the Google AdSense Team!
Posted by Katrina Kurnit -
Inside AdSense
Team
Western Union now in Thailand
Thursday, October 28, 2010
After
launching in four African countries
earlier this month, we're excited to announce the arrival of Western Union Quick Cash® payments for Thailand!
For those of you who are not familiar with this form of payment, Western Union Quick Cash payments are free of charge and will reach you faster than checks. Payments will continue to follow our normal
payment schedule
and will be available for pickup in your local currency at your
local Western Union
agent the day after they're issued.
A couple of things to note: We can send Western Union payments only to publishers that have an individual account at this time. Also, the payee name on your account must exactly match the government-issued ID card that you'll use when picking up your payments. For more information on how to sign up for and pick up Western Union payments, please visit our
Help Center
.
Posted by Deborah Chang - AdSense Payments team
Make the most of your AdSense experience with our new checklist
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Starting a new program can be overwhelming. What steps should you take to get off on the right foot and make the most of your account? To help you make your way with AdSense, we're delighted to introduce the
AdSense Checklist
to publishers viewing our U.S. Help Center.
If your language preference is set to U.S. English and you are logged in your Google Account, you'll find the checklist in the left navigation bar of the Help Center. You can recognize it by the progress bar. The checklist is divided into five parts, offering basic recommendations, required steps, and tips to help you grow your account to its full potential.
When you check an item, you'll see the progress bar update accordingly. This will help you in several ways. If you're new to AdSense, you'll get a clear overview of what steps to follow to make the most of your account. If you’re already an experienced AdSense publisher, you'll also have the chance to revisit the basics, and further develop your use of the program.
The progress bar can help you identify quickly how many of the recommended steps you’ve completed, and the checklist will suggest which step you can take next.
We hope that this Help Center feature will be useful to you and help you grow with the AdSense program! If you have other great ideas for ways to help newbies get started with AdSense or thoughts on how to make the checklist even better, join the conversation in our
forum
.
Posted by Natalia Niznik -
Inside AdSense
team
‘Tis the season for placement targeting: Display advertising
Monday, October 25, 2010
Over the past several weeks, we’ve given you tips about how to take advantage of
placement targeting
as advertiser spend increases during the holiday season. In this final post of our “‘Tis the season for placement targeting” series, we’ll take a step back to talk about a popular topic that's generated buzz around Google and the online advertising industry:
display advertising
. This is especially relevant to this series, as the goal of placement targeting is to offer premium space to advertisers so they can effectively reach their audiences. And these days, when you're talking about premium space, you're usually talking about space that's devoted to display ads.
Advertising on Google started out with four lines of text. In addition to the original text ads, you’re probably familiar with the image, video, and rich media ads we now offer. Did you know that, other than ads shown with search results, more than 40 percent of the ads that we show are now non-text ads? More and more advertisers are creating display ad campaigns as an interactive and engaging means to reach users. To take full advantage of these ads, refer to our last post on
enabling ad units to show text and image ads
.
Display advertising is a big area of focus for Google. We believe that the new technology we’re developing to make display advertising work better will help to grow the display advertising pie for all publishers, by orders of magnitude. We shouldn’t be asking how publishers can make another 5 or 10 percent out of display advertising in the next few years. We should be looking at how the industry can double or triple in size.
To learn more about Google’s position on display advertising and the steps we’re taking to push the thinking to the next level, read our recent blog post on the
Official Google Blog
.
This wraps up our “‘Tis the Season for placement targeting” series. We hope you learned a bit more about the impact of placement targeting and how you can take advantage of this feature to earn more from your online content
Posted by Meredith Blackwell -
Inside AdSense
team
Avoiding accidental clicks Pt. 2: Use the right product
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
We hope you found our
last post on invalid clicks
useful. Today we wanted to give you more advice on this topic and talk about ads on pages containing interactive media, such as videos and games.
We understand that video content pages aren't as easy to monetize as regular text-based pages and that publishers are interested in experimenting with different ad placements, but we’d like to clarify some of our policies addressing AdSense for content ads in interactive media environments:
We don’t allow publishers to overlay AdSense for content ads on video content.
We don’t allow publishers to implement AdSense for content ads as in-stream video placements.
We don’t allow publishers to implement AdSense for content ads on interstitial pages. So if a user has decided to watch a video, you may not implement ads on pages saying “your video will start in 15 seconds." We’ve also seen this placement on Flash gaming sites in the form of an ad being shown to the user while the game is loading in the background. However, even if you allow users to skip these ads or close them, this placement is not allowed.
Now for the good news: If you are interested in monetizing overlay or in-stream placements on your video content, please check out
AdSense for video
. Similarly, if you are interested in placing ads on interstitial pages on your Flash gaming sites, read about
AdSense for games
. The key difference between using these products and AdSense for content is that with AdSense for games and AdSense for video, we only show ads from a pool of advertisers who specifically target these kinds of placements and have optimized their campaigns and creatives towards them.
Think about your users and advertisers when implementing AdSense ads on your sites. Make sure that ads are separated enough from the content to prevent accidental clicks, and that ads are always recognizable as such. Remember that AdSense is an ecosystem that will continue to thrive as long as all parties remain happy within it. Users are happy to see relevant and useful ads that are not obtrusive or misleading, advertisers are happy to reach their target audience and get good returns on their investment, and you - the publisher - will be happy to have an AdSense account in good standing.
Posted by Dan Zilic - AdSense Policy team
‘Tis the Season for Placement Targeting: Optimize Your Ad Units
Monday, October 18, 2010
Last week
, we discussed
DoubleClick Ad Planner
, a media planning tool to help you improve your placement targeting. Now that you’ve made your website visible to advertisers with Ad Planner and ad placements, we want to help you ensure that your ad units are also visible to advertisers and ready to be targeted. Here’s how to take advantage of advertiser spend with your ad units:
1. Implement your ad units
above the fold and near your content
, where users are already engaging with your site. “Above the fold” refers to the area on a page that a user can see without scrolling down.
2. Where possible, use
top-performing ad sizes
like the medium rectangle (300x250), large rectangle (336x280), leaderboard (728x90), and wide skyscraper (160x600).
3. Enable your ad units to
show text and image ads
, so that all relevant, available ad inventory is competing to appear on your site. Many advertiser campaigns are made up of image ads, so we highly recommend activating this feature to take full advantage.
Once you've made the changes, not only will your ad placements be ready for this holiday season, but they’ll also be targetable by advertisers in future ad campaigns.
To learn more about these topics, check out our YouTube videos on
image ads
and
high performing ad units
, or read more in our
Help Center
.
Check back next week for more ‘Tis the Season for Placement Targeting tips!
Posted by Charise Wong -
Inside AdSense
team
Site Maintenance on Saturday, October 16
Friday, October 15, 2010
This Saturday, our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance from 10am to 2pm PDT. You'll be unable to log in to your AdSense account during this time, but we'll continue serving ads to your pages and tracking your clicks, impressions, and earnings as usual. In addition, your ad targeting won't be affected.
We've converted the maintenance start time for a few cities around the world:
London - 6pm Saturday
Alexandria - 8pm Saturday
Hyderabad - 10:30pm Saturday
Jakarta - 12am Sunday
Perth - 1am Sunday
To learn more about what goes on during these maintenance periods, check out this
Inside AdSense post
.
Posted by Katrina Kurnit -
Inside AdSense
Team
Avoiding accidental clicks Pt. 1: Keeping the right distance
Thursday, October 14, 2010
In the past, we've talked about ad placements that are prone to generate
invalid clicks
. In a
past post
, for example, Mike noted that publishers should be careful about placing ads too close to navigational controls or other clickable page elements.
It's in the best interest of the user, advertiser, and publisher to avoid implementations that lead to invalid click activity. As you can imagine, users aren't very happy if they accidentally click an ad instead of a link on your page and are directed away from your site. Advertisers also don’t want to be charged for a click that a user made accidentally (though of course we do not charge advertisers for invalid clicks that
we detect
). And why should publishers care? Well, if we see that most of the clicks coming from your pages are invalid, we may need to disable your account to protect our advertisers.
One type of site we wanted to talk about are Flash-based game sites. Playing games on these sites, you'll notice that ads are often placed very close to the Flash player where the game is played. Publishers may reason that they're providing maximum value to advertisers by placing their ads very close to the area where their users are focused. However, many of these Flash games are played with a mouse, and the action in the games can lead users to do a lot of rapid cursor movements and clicking. We've seen many cases where ads were placed too closely to where the action was taking place, generating many accidental clicks.
Since each game and site are unique, we can't advise publishers on an exact distance between ads and games, but we do recommend a minimum distance of 150 pixels between the Flash player and ads.
We've worked with publishers on these issues in the past and noticed that increasing the distance between Flash player and ads has had, on average, a positive long-term effect on CPCs. The reason for this is
smart pricing
. As you may know, the revenue you receive is based on the amount an AdWords advertiser pays for each click on their Google ad. The amount the advertiser pays varies per ad and from website to website, based on the likelihood that a click will result in a conversion for the advertiser. If we determine that clicks on a site are less likely to lead to business results for an advertiser (e.g., an online sale or registration), we reduce the price that an advertiser will pay for those clicks.
So, in short: Moving the ads further away from Flash games decreases the likelihood of accidental clicks and increases the number of clicks leading to business results for advertisers. A good deal for all involved.
Posted by Dan Zilic - AdSense Policy team
‘Tis the season for placement targeting: Market your site with DoubleClick Ad Planner
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Last week
, we introduced you to placement targeting as a great way to capitalize on the increase in advertiser spend during the holiday season. This week, we’re kicking off our three-part optimization series to help you maximize your earnings by taking advantage of
DoubleClick Ad Planner
. Ad Planner can help you market your site, make it easier for advertisers to search for you, and improve the data that these advertisers can see.
As you may recall from last week’s post, the first step to enabling placement-targeted ads to appear on your pages is to set up your
custom channels
as
ad placements
. Ad placements are specific groups of ad units where an advertiser can choose to place their ads using placement targeting. This enables advertisers to better identify websites that reach their target audiences based on the descriptions publishers provide about their sites, describing the content of their pages or the type of users who visit them. Turning custom channels into ad placements is simple. To learn more, check out our
YouTube video
and visit our
Help Center
.
Once you’ve set up your ad placements, we encourage you to try out
DoubleClick Ad Planner
, a free media planning tool that helps advertisers find the sites their audiences are likely to visit and helps publishers make their sites easier to target.
In Ad Planner, you can claim the sites you own and customize their descriptions. For each site, you can also add up to five categories that describe your site's content, and the types, sizes, and formats of ads that your site supports. Doing this allows advertisers to easily find ad placement descriptions that match the interests of their target audiences. More targeted ads leads to a better user experience on your site and a greater opportunity to increase your earnings. For more information on how to get started, watch this
brief introduction
to DoubleClick Ad Planner and
sign up
today.
Check back next week for more ‘tis the season for placement targeting tips!
Posted by Meredith Blackwell -
Inside AdSense
team
Western Union now launched in four African countries
Friday, October 08, 2010
We're excited to announce the launch of Western Union Quick Cash® payments in four countries in Africa! You can now select Western Union Quick Cash payments in:
Algeria
Ghana
Kenya
Uganda
Western Union Quick Cash payments will reach you faster than checks, and they're free of charge. Payments will continue to follow our normal
payment schedule
and will be available for pickup in your local currency at your
local Western Union
agent the day after they're issued.
A couple of things to note: We can send Western Union payments only to publishers that have an individual account at this time. Also, the payee name on your account must exactly match the government-issued ID card that you'll use when picking up your payments. For more information on how to sign up for and pick up Western Union payments, please visit our
Help Center
.
Posted by Deborah Chang - AdSense Payments team
‘Tis the season for placement targeting
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
With the holiday season fast approaching, everyone is spending more online. As consumers start shopping for gifts, searching for holiday activities, and booking vacations, advertisers are putting more of their marketing dollars online to reach these potential customers. This means there is an increased demand for the ad space on your site and an opportunity for you to earn more. To help you capitalize on this trend, we recommend you take advantage of
placement targeting
.
Many advertisers create targeted brand campaigns at this time of year that are shown on AdSense sites in the Google Display Network. In fact, 99% of Google’s 1000 largest advertisers run campaigns on the Display Network. To ensure their brand is noticed by the right shoppers, advertisers will often use placement targeting to show their ads on websites in the Display Network that cater to their target audiences.
You can take advantage of this holiday increase in advertiser spend, and help advertisers placement target specific sections of your site using a feature called
ad placements
. By creating an ad placement, you’ll make sections of your site available to be targeted directly by AdWords advertisers.
Imagine a sport shoe manufacturer. To ensure his shoes get to the right consumers for the holidays, he may want to select sites within the Display Network that appeal to 25- to 34-year-old athletic males looking to purchase athletic shoes. As a publisher with a sports site, you can create ad placements for specific segments of your site so that the sport shoe manufacturer can find you based on these criteria. You can provide descriptions of your site, general demographic segment / audience information, and where the ads appear on your site. Placement targeting connects you directly to the advertisers who want to reach your readers, and are ready to spend their holiday budgets to do just that.
In the coming weeks, we’ll post more tips on how to make the most of placement targeting. In the meantime, check out the
Help Center
and
this video
to learn more about placement targeting and how you can get started. The sooner you do so, the sooner advertisers can see your ad placements and potentially include you in their holiday campaigns!
Posted by Katrina Kurnit -
Inside AdSense
Team
Announcing beta test of expanded category blocking
Monday, October 04, 2010
Last year we
launched sensitive category blocking
in order to give you more control over the ads that appear on your sites by letting you opt out of receiving ads that fall into potentially sensitive specific categories such as dating, religion, and politics.
Today we’re excited to announce that we’re beginning to test a related new feature called general category blocking with a small group of publishers. General category blocking will allow you to block even more categories of ads from appearing on your site. We’re testing this feature with 170 more specific categories, including finance, travel, job, and automotive. This feature will allow publishers to block up to 50 ad categories from among a broad range of 170 fine grained categories. To help you understand potential changes to your earnings, we’ll provide you with the percentage of your total revenue and total impressions that fall under each category.
General category blocking will initially apply only to ads in English, regardless of the language of the site. We are working on expanding it to other languages in the future.
This feature is available in the new AdSense interface, which is currently in beta and being tested by a limited number of publishers.
Although we're not able to expand this test to additional publishers at this time, we wanted to give you a glimpse into one of the ways we're working to give you even more control over the ads that appear on your site. Over the coming months we’ll be working hard to refine this feature so that we can roll it out more broadly in the future. Please stay tuned to the blog for any updates, and feel free to leave us a comment in the meantime.
Posted by Atul Bhandari - AdSense Product Manager
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