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Adsense Articles
Google Australia Gives Us Some Adsense Tips
Google has recently started to publish a series of videos for AdSense tips
at their official Inside AdSense blog. This is definitely a wise effort to
help Google Adsense Publishers to better monetize their websites. After
all, the better the Adsense publishers can make out from adsense, the more
money Google makes, right?
Quick Adsense Tip
Surround your Google adverts with relevant
'KEYWORDS' to help guarantee relevant adverts are displayed. I recently
wrote a very clever article about injury compensation (Good Google Adsense
Payout) about motorbike injuries. Then... when I checked what adverts were
displayed, when I wanted personal injury solicitors and lawyers, I had
Google display motorbike accessories.
Adsense - Playing By The Rules
Posted by Gary Smith
AdSense has become a major part of many Internet marketers income
portfolios. It's fast and easy and of course very lucrative if you take
the time to learn how to implement it effectively.
Like most income streams though, there are always people out there who do
their best to take advantage of the system in any way they can to maximize
their earnings. Exploiting systems by taking advantage of the shortcomings
or bugs in the system is generally a short term deal. As soon as the
supplier finds out that they are either not getting or not providing value
for their service, they will very quickly close any 'holes' and fix the
bugs. When you take into account the millions of dollars that are
generated from Adsense ads each month, it goes without saying that Google
will go to great lengths to ensure that their advertisers are getting good
value for their advertising dollar.
With this in mind, if you intend to monetize your site with Adsense and
want this to be a long term income strategy you need to be familiar with
the terms and conditions. Lets strip away some of the 'legalese' and take
a look at some of the policies, requirements and also the type of activity
that may cause your account to be terminated.
* Up to three ad units may be displayed on each Web site page - that's
pretty clear. You can have up to 3 ad units, regardless of size or
placement, on each of your web pages.
* A maximum of two Google AdSense for search boxes may be placed on a page
- again, that's easy enough to understand. The search boxes are the ones
that allow you or your visitors to search the Internet or your web site
using a Google Search box on your web page.
* A single link unit may be placed on each Web site page, in addition to
the ad units and search boxes - the link units are a different format to
standard adsense units. They provide just the link with no URL or
additional text. You can have one of these in addition to your adsense ads
and search boxes.
* A single referral button per product may be placed on a page - Google
will pay you for referrals, but you are allowed only one referral link on
each web page.
Those policies spell out what you are allowed to do. Now lets look at
things you aren't allowed to do. From an advertisers point of view, the
quality of the page their advertisement is displayed on will bear a
relation to the quality of the visitors who actually click on this page.
This is one of the reasons you are not permitted to place ad units on
pages that have no other content. The rule of thumb is that you should
only be placing ad units on pages that contain some sort of valuable or
useful content.
The reality is that it is in your interest to provide useful content. The
better your content is, the more likely it is that it will appear higher
in the search engines. This in turn brings you more traffic and the
traffic you get is mostly people who are interested in the subject matter
of your site. These also happen to be the people who are most likely to
click on your ads simply because they have come to your web site looking
for information and/or products.
Other things that you need to avoid in order to protect your account
include:
* Never place ad units on pornographic, racist or hate related sites.
* Never place ad units on error, registration or 'thank you' pages.
Remember, the advertisers want their ads on useful, relevant pages. Common
sense should tell you that these pages are neither relevant or useful for
advertising. It's a bit like placing an ad inside a cabinet. Nobody goes
there looking for information or products!
* Never click on any of the ads on your website. This is considered fraud
(for obvious reasons). If you do accidentally click on an ad, make sure
you contact Google support immediately and let them know which page and
the date and approximate time.
* Never place ads on pages that you display in Traffic or surfing/hit
exchanges. This is mentioned in the policies and is not permitted.
I hope this information has been useful. Adsense is a great way to earn
some extra income, but you need to make the effort to ensure you are
within the terms and conditions. At the end of the day, common sense
should give you a good indication whether you are doing the right thing
with Adsense ads. If in doubt, check the programme policies at https://www.google.com/adsense/policies.
About The Author:
Gary Smith has been an Internet user since 1990 and an IT consultant since
1995. His business, soho-internet.com operates several marketing sites
including his Adsense related site - adsensepublisher.net
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Google Adsense Profits Mixed In With
Affiliate Marketing
Posted by Efimov Anatoliy
Are you a webmaster who needs funds to keep your website running? Or is
your website the only way for you to earn income? Whichever you are, for
as long as you are a webmaster or a web publisher and you need cash,
affiliate marketing may work well for you. With affiliate marketing, you
may get a lot of cash pouring into your bank account easily. And if your
website is rich in great contents and you want to earn more profit, why
not get into the Google Adsense program as well?
Why Affiliate Marketing?
Well, simply because affiliate marketing is the easiest and probably the
best way to earn profits online, unless otherwise you are a businessman
and would rather sell your own products online than advertise other
businessman's products on your site. But even online retailers can benefit
from affiliate marketing programs, because affiliate marketing actually
works for merchants as well as it works for the affiliates.
Affiliate marketing, simply said, is a relationship or agreement made
between two websites, with one site being the merchants website and the
other being the affiliates site. In the relationship, the affiliate agrees
to let the merchant advertise his products on the affiliates site. The
merchant, on the other hand, would agree to pay the affiliate in whatever
method they have agreed into. This would generally mean easy income for
the affiliate, as he would do nothing but place the retailers ad on his
site. This would also be very beneficial for the merchant, as getting
affiliates to advertise their products would be a lot more affordable than
hiring an advertising firm to promote their products.
There are a variety of methods on how the merchant would compensate the
affiliate for his services, and for the webmaster, these methods simply
translates to the method by which he would earn easy cash. Among the more
common methods of compensation are the pay-per-click method, the
pay-per-lead method, and the pay-per-sale method. The pay-per-click method
is the method most preferred by affiliates, for their sites visitor would
only have to visit the advertisers site for them to gain money. The other
two methods, on the other hand, are better preferred by merchants, as they
would only have to compensate you if your visitor becomes one of their
registrants or if the visitor would actually buy their products.
Getting much profit on affiliate marketing programs, however, does not
depend so much on the compensation method is it does on the traffic
generated by your site. A website that can attract more visitors would
generally have the greater chance of profiting in affiliate marketing
programs.
What about Google Adsense?
Google Adsense is actually some sort of an affiliate marketing program. In
Google Adsense, Google act as the intermediary between the affiliates and
the merchants. The merchant, or the advertiser, would simply sign up with
Google and provide the latter with text ads pertaining to their products.
These ads, which is actually a link to the advertisers website, would then
appear on Google searches as well as on the websites owned by the
affiliates, or by those webmasters who have signed up with the Google
Adsense program.
While one can find a lot of similarities between Google Adsense and other
affiliate marketing programs, you can also see a lot of differences. In
Google Adsense, all the webmaster has to do is place a code on his website
and Google takes care of the rest. The ads that Google would place on your
site would generally be relevant to the content of your site. This would
be advantageous both for you and for the advertiser, as the visitors of
your site would more or less be actually interested with the products
being advertised.
The Google Adsense program compensates the affiliate in a pay-per-click
basis. The advertisers would pay Google a certain amount each time their
ad on your site is clicked and Google would then forward this amount to
you through checks, although only after Google have deducted their share
of the amount. Google Adsense checks are usually delivered monthly. Also,
the Google Adsense program provides webmasters with a tracking tool that
allows you to monitor the earnings you actually get from a certain ad.
So, where do all of these lead us to?
Where else but to profits, profits and even more profits! Affiliate
marketing programs and the Google Adsense program simply work, whether you
are the merchant or the affiliate. For the merchants side, a lot of money
can be saved if advertising effort is concentrated on affiliate marketing
rather than on dealing with advertising firms. For the webmaster, you can
easily gain a lot of profits just by doing what you do best, and that is
by creating websites. And if you combine all your profits from both the
Google Adsense program and other affiliate marketing programs, it would
surely convert to a large amount of cash.
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How to Increase Your Google Adsense
CTR
Posted by Enzo Chiu
This is the first part of two series of articles about How to Increase
Your Google Adsense CTR. Many people think that they just have to copy and
paste Google Adsense code into their website and start earning a huge
amount of money from it. What a huge mistake! I also thought the same way
two years ago. Later I realized that without optimization, that's
impossible. Here I will share all of the tricks to increase my Google
Adsense CTR that I found within the last two years.
Here are some tips to increase your Google Adsense CTR:
1. Make sure the ads that are appearing on your site are closely related
with your content. This is the first thing you have to do because if your
ads are not relevant, there's small possibility that people will click on
them. Then, what should you do to tackle this problem? Here are the tips:
* Create a keyword rich content. I suggest you creating one topic a page.
* Check your keyword rich content and then mark some of your keywords as
bold or italic. But don't do it too much, just do it 1 to 2 times per
page. Otherwise, Google assumes you are doing spamming.
* Use your keyword in your page title.
* Use HTML Tag H1 as your content title, and put your keyword in it. Don't
forget to place this tag at the beginning of your content.
* If all those tips still do not work, there is just one possibility:
there are no ads that matched with your keyword! You can check this out by
using this marvelous tool from the Digital Point Website. It is called the
Google Adsense Sandbox, and located in http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/Adsense-sandbox/
You'll be asked to enter your selected keyword and it will display every
Adsense ads that's connected with that keyword. What if your suspicion is
correct? Change your keyword! Do not worry; sometimes you just have to
change one or two words.
2. Use wide ads (336x280, 300x250 or 250x250). Because these are the best
performing ads.
3. Blend your ads with your website themes. For example, if your
background color is white, change your ads border and background color to
white as well. If your background color is dark (black), use bright color
such as yellow as link color. This will decrease user ad-blindness.
4. Place your Google Adsense in these positions:
* Above the fold
Above the fold is the top position of your page that's visible without
your visitor having to scroll down. This is the best location that works
for me. I place 336x280 ad unit in this location and it works very well.
Why? Okay, back to our example. Your article is about "how to bake
delicious bread". Someone finds it from search engine; when he opens it,
he first sees ads about "baking school", "baking book" or "bread recipes".
Who won't be interested?
* In the middle of an article.
This works well if your article is long (more than 500 words). People tend
to stop for a while and look for something different while they read. I
suggest using rectangular ads (125x125, 180x150, 300x250, 336x280, 250x250
ad unit) for this purpose and make it left justified.
* At the end of an article.
Many people reported that placing Google Adsense ads at the end of their
article tends to work very well. This is because when people finish
reading an interesting article, they usually think "okay, what's next?"
That's your chance! By placing Google Adsense ads at the end of this
article, people will spend a minute to read it and then (maybe) click it.
For example, you write an article about "how to bake delicious bread". And
at the end of it, there are some ads about "bread recipes". Who won't be
interested?
5. Regarding the fourth tip, I don't recommend you placing three ad units
in a single page. From my experience, the number of ad unit you place in a
single page doesn't affect your CTR. In fact, I even found that placing
three text ads in a single page make my ads "unblended". For example, I
put 160x600, 468x60 and 336x280 ads on a single page. You know what? My
468x60 ads only showed 3 ads in it, whereas my 336x280 ads only showed 2
ads in it! My suggestion is: use 1 – 2 ad unit and a single link unit on
your page (Google allows 3 ad unit and 1 link unit to be placed on a
single page).
6. Always use Link Unit! Many people never realize that Link Unit is the
most profitable format if put in the right place. Try to place it near
your navigation menu. People will misidentify it as a navigation menu and
automatically read it. If your ads are closely relevant to your content,
there's big possibility they will click it. I move the top navigation in
one of my websites to the bottom section and replace it with 728x15 Link
Unit Ads. You know what? My Google Adsense CTR increased by 200%!
Enzo Chiu - Freelance Programmer & Web Developer. You can find many
advices about how to make money at home and also many Google Adsense tips
and tricks at his website MakeMoneyAtHome-Idea.com
The content and materials provided in this
web site are for informational and educational purposes only and are not
intended to supplement or comprise any precise facts, although we have
researched sufficiently for the facts and information to be reasonably
accurate. All content and materials including research papers,
case studies and testimonials summarizing facts have been done by
individuals working for this website. We cannot be held responsible for
any inaccuracies, as we have described that information is for educational
purposes and therefore maybe a few weeks old.
Google has various strategies advertisers and individuals can use to make money.
It isn't just the big players who are benefiting from Google AdWords and AdSense.
A whole network has arisen, including advertisers ranging from SMEs to MNCs,
hosts from large publishing portals to individual bloggers, and, of course, the
50 million Internet users in the country.
A BLOG GOOGLE RUNS ADS on, which makes money for the blogger. - Bijoy Ghosh
Try typing `jobs' on Google search, and you might be in for a surprise — on the
sponsored links column, one of the ads is by competitor Yahoo!
That is probably why Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder and Chief Executive Officer,
Bharatmatrimony.com, comfortably maintains relations with both companies — Yahoo
is an investor in his portal, while the other provides advertising space for the
matchmaker.
However, it isn't just the big players who are benefiting from Google AdWords
and AdSense. A whole network has arisen, which includes advertisers from SMEs to
MNCs, hosts from large publishing portals to individual bloggers, and, of
course, the 50 million Internet users in the country. According to a comScore
Media Matrix 2005 report, about 80 per cent of Internet users access Google.com.
K. Sundararaman, Acting Sales Head, Google India, sheds some light on how this
network works. He says that apart from the ads that appear on www.google.com,
there is Google AdSense, which allows individual Web sites to rent out the space
on the page.
These Web sites, Sundararaman explains, are selected through `site targeting'
that "allows advertisers to choose individual Web sites within the Google
content network where they would like their ads to appear ... allowing
advertisers to handpick the audience they want to reach."
Managing ad campaigns
Apart from this, the advertiser can specify search-targeted keywords for
categories such as broad matches, phrase matches, exact matches or negative
matches. This keyword matching system is completely automated. "We suggest using
a combination of two or more of these techniques to run an effective ad
campaign," he says.
Which in turn means that managing an effective ad campaign with Google AdWords
is not quite such a simple project. For example, Bharatmatrimony.com has a
three-member internal team that continually reviews the conversion rate of the
number of people that click on their ads in other Web sites, the cost of
advertising on Google and the relevance of the keywords that the company has
submitted, says Janakiraman.
As large clients, they work in conjunction with a team from Google that has been
assigned to work with them. The company has bought about 30,000 keywords.
Keywords matter
Similarly, eBay has an internal team that works full-time on the paid search
programme with the Google account team, according to Rathin Lahiri, Head -
Marketing, eBay India. This is possibly because "paid search is one of the
better performing channels and the search customer is an evolved customer," he
says.
The revenue model for the Web site is that advertisers pay for the click or
impression that they receive.
For ads priced at cost-per-thousand-clicks, an advertiser may pay as low as Rs
10 per thousand, and for cost-per-click priced ads, it may be as low as Re 0.44
per click, according to the company.
The rate of keywords varies, says Lahiri. For example, the keyword `Nokia' would
be more valuable than a keyword such as `pencil' — at the end of the day, the
rate that eBay pays is a function of the click-through-rate and the
cost-per-click. The keyword `Nokia phone' is more valuable than `Nokia blue
tooth device' and therefore has a better click-through-rate.
Users big and small
This has opened up a whole market through the AdSense route. And since the tool
caters to publishers of all sizes, the company has both large publishers that
have content on the Internet such as Sify.com, NDTV.com, and Moneycontrol.com,
as well as individual Web site owners.
Deepesh Agarwal, who runs a Web site that provides freeware solutions, receives
on an average 4,000-odd daily ad impressions and earns anywhere from $800 to
$2,100 per month depending on the amount of traffic and its `quality.'
He has been using the service for three years. Though the first two years didn't
yield many results, but the last year has been a good one. In fact, though the
Web site was never intended as a money-spinner, it now constitutes the biggest
portion of Agarwal's revenue.
Success story
"My traffic is primarily from the US and Canada — about 60 per cent — and the
visitors are common computer users looking for free alternatives for paid
shareware applications meant for day-to-day computer maintenance tasks," he
explains.
But it doesn't even have to get that technical to be a success. Jamshed Velayuda
Rajan, a Usability Consultant with Satyam Computers, maintains two Web sites —
one in which he writes about himself and his family, and another blog on
cricket.
The latter, he expects, will have traffic of about 2,500 to 3,500 people when
cricket matches are going on.
Typically, 350 unique people per day, and about 450 to 500 clicks is the count
for his two portals combined.
As for the remuneration, he explains, "High value keywords would earn more — if
I had a finance blog, for example, I could make as much as $4 for one click.
Since cricket is not a money-spinner in that sense, perhaps between 10 and 30
cents per click." All in all, he has made about Rs 30,000 in the last two years.
Not bad for a man who was looking to have a bit of fun by writing about his life
and his family.
thehindubusinessline
.com/cgi-bin/bl.pl?subclass=610
Success Story
PurelyGadgets use AdWords to grow their
brand in the highly competitive electronic goods market
PurelyGadgets is one of the UK’s leading online retailers of
electronic goods. Established in 2004 to capitalise on a rapidly
expanding internet market, PurelyGadgets found their niche through
using an in-house team of expert buyers to source the best value
products from around the world. A combination of competitive pricing,
fast delivery, and reliable pre and after sales facilities have proven
popular with customers. The final strand however was growing their
online presence – and it was to Google they turned to achieve this.
The challenge, and how Google AdWords fits in
Acquiring business and recognition in a highly competitive market was
the key initial challenge that PurelyGadgets faced. Initially
PurelyGadgets toyed with the idea of taking a hands-off approach to
their advertising, by hiring a company who would take care of it for
them. This approach wasn’t successful however, as Lim explains. “We
believed that we could do this better [than an outside company]
because we know our products and services.” Instead, PurelyGadgets
turned to Google AdWords to assist them in creating an online
presence. “I actually learned about online advertising from Google,”
admits Lim. “We find Google very easy to use. The main reason is that
we can control the budget so easily. We were a very new start-up
company then and we were very concerned with costs and Google let us
see…results within twenty-four hours.”
Advancing with AdWords
Having begun trading from home in 2004, as a company of four to five
employees, PurelyGadgets now employs over 40 people in their London
based offices. “We grew about 700% over the past two years,” declares
Lim. “Without using Google we would not grow this fast.”
Expanding further on this point, Lim says “Google initially put us on
a par with other big brands…I think Google is a trusted brand…the
demographic feels more confident buying from us…because they see us
from Google…If you’re looking at increasing market share, branding…and
also customer acquisition… Google is a much better choice because it
has a much bigger audience.”
Google tools
Given the competitiveness of the market in which PurelyGadgets
operates it is necessary for them to be both extremely dynamic and
make full use of all AdWords features available to them. This is
something which they do to excellent effect, as Lim explains. “We
eliminate a lot of unqualified leads with negative keywords…Although
it’s a very simple functionality, I find negative keywords extremely
useful.”
“We use Google Analytics which is fabulous,” he further comments.
“AdWords Editor is very good as well…we change our prices every
day…only Google allow us to have that sort of flexibility.”
Future Plans
Not content with entering into new territories from a retail
perspective, PurelyGadgets intend to do so geographically as well. At
present due to a lack of viable payment platforms, PurelyGadgets
restrict their activities to the UK market. However, Lim is
enthusiastic and optimistic about the imminent launch of the Google
payment platform, Google Checkout. “I think that once the Google
Checkout has been launched [we will] have a payment platform all
across the world. I think that will open up our market totally’.
Speaking of future plans to continue growing with Google AdWords, Lim
states “It feels like you do have somebody working for you in Google…I
can’t find anything better.”
**********
Success Story
Lighting Direct cuts costs and triples
Clickthrough Rate (CTR) with Google Analytics
Founded in 1991, Lighting Direct is regarded as the number one online
lighting company in the UK. With over 6000 products on the company's
website, Lighting Direct has established itself as a one-stop-shop for
everything from the grandest chandeliers to novelty Christmas lights.
The company also prides itself on providing value-for-money and
helpful information that caters to both indoor and outdoor lighting.
The challenges facing Lighting Direct have been in constant flux as
the company transformed from an Internet new-comer to an online leader
in its field. As late as 2002, the company had just three staff, of
which only one was full-time. The man at the helm was Gary Berg, "I
put together a little website with about 200 products on it. Then we
started getting a bit of interest and I started looking for ways of
how I could let people know I was there...we really just wanted to
drive traffic to our site. I found AdWords was the best way of doing
that."
As an Internet newcomer, Lighting Direct had shown that they could use
Google AdWords to drive traffic to their website and build their
company. However, with business growing rapidly, Berg soon decided
that to scale Lighting Direct efficiently and to make sure that all
keywords were profitable, emphasis needed to shift from simply driving
traffic and brand awareness to also creating conversions and
increasing return-on-investment. To make the advertising better pay
for itself and to better track user behaviour, Berg turned to the free
tool Google Analytics to help him adapt his advertising. The results
were dramatic. The highly targeted ad texts and keywords resulted in
many campaign clickthrough rates sky-rocketing to 20%–30%. It was not
unusual for campaigns to see their clickthrough rate triple in the
period after the review.
On the changes made, Berg says, "I was able to take out quite a few
keywords and make the campaigns leaner. There has definitely been an
increase in business since using Analytics." This latest advertising
drive is just one such initiative taken in a highly successful
relationship between Lighting Direct and Google AdWords. As the
company has grown they have found different tools and techniques
available through AdWords. "When we first started with this exercise
we had two part-time people and now we employ ten people. We are now
doing about seven or eight times the turnover compared to four years
ago thanks to AdWords and Analytics."
**********
AdWords Advantages
Google AdWords aims to provide the most effective advertising
available for businesses of any size. We pledge to help you meet your
customer acquisition needs by enabling you to:
* Reach people looking for your product or service
* Fully control your ad budget
* Easily create and edit your ads
* See your ads on Google within minutes of creating them
AdWords gives you 24/7 access to detailed performance reports that
help you track the effectiveness of your ad campaigns. We also strive
to give you the friendliest, most knowledgeable customer service
possible. You can expect a prompt response to your email questions,
typically within one business day. Read on to learn about what AdWords
has to offer you.
1. Control
With all these great features, a Google AdWords account is fully
customisable for any advertiser:
* Cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, so you pay only for the clicks you
have received at a price you have set (choose a maximum CPC from £0.01
to £100).
* Cost-per-impression (CPM) pricing for those who prefer to target
individual content sites and pay by the impression.
* Daily budget you set, starting from £0.01.
* Targeted ads you create and manage.
* Ad scheduling: run your ads on the days and hours you want.
* Online performance reports 24/7 in your account.
* Additional network of sites and products for increasing advertising
exposure.
* One or multiple ads targeted with one or more keywords.
And with no monthly minimum spending limit or time commitment and only
a minimal fee to set up your account, Google AdWords is the ideal
marketing tool for small to medium businesses.
Learn more about payment and currency options.
2. Success
The success of our advertising programme is built upon the success of
our advertisers. So, we want to do everything we can to help you get
more out of your ads and attract qualified prospects in the most
cost-effective manner possible. We provide you with cost estimations
and tools to help you control pricing. In addition, we're committed to
sharing with you what makes AdWords advertising work by keeping you
up-to-date with the latest Google AdWords features.
3. Support
We've created a Help Centre to make sure that you benefit from the
tools we provide and the flexibility of controlling your own account.
You'll find the Help Centre filled with useful programme information,
performance tips and step-by-step instructions for creating and
maintaining your account.
If you can't find what you need on our site, our dedicated Customer
Support team would be happy to provide you with answers to your
questions and offer assistance. We work hard to ensure that you
promptly receive quality responses to your questions via email. We are
also always eager to get your feedback on our programme and how we can
improve it, so please feel free to send us an email.
Written on August 16th, 2008 at 12:08 am
by Darren Rowse
problogger.net/archives/
2005/01/06/about-darren/
Split Testing: How To Increase Your Adsense Earnings 94% Overnight
In this post Brian Armstrong from StartBreakingFree.com shares some
tips on using Split Testing to increase his AdSense earnings.
Long time readers of ProBlogger know that Darren is a big fan of split
testing ads to improve your earnings. I took this advice to heart, and
wanted to show you some real world results that I got on my own blog.
Feel free to take these results and apply them to your own site. Or
better yet, do some of our own testing and improve on them even more!
I split tested 3 separate regions of my site and looked mostly at eCPM
to compare them. If you aren’t sure what eCPM is click here. I think
it’s better to use eCPM than click through rate (CTR) because it
incorporates not just how often it’s clicked, but also how much you
make per click.
This ad region makes the most money for me, and was smack dab at the
top of each individual post page (but not on the homepage).
* The right aligned ad got a 0.78% CTR and $1.41 eCPM
* The left aligned ad got a 1.30% CTR and $5.31 eCPM
Clear winner: left aligned (276% improvement)
It’s hard to say why this is exactly. Maybe the left aligned ad looks
more like it’s actual content instead of an ad. Whatever the reason,
the difference was substantial.
This ad resides at the very top right of every page. I had been
running it with image ads for a while and decided to test it against
text ads (with some appropriate color choices).
* The image ads got a 0.35% CTR and $1.74 eCPM
* The text ads got a 0.33% CTR and $2.15 eCPM
Interesting to note here that although the CTR went down slightly, the
eCPM went up. This seems to indicate that the text ads were paying
more per click. So even though it was clicked slightly less often it
still made more money overall.
This ad was placed at the bottom of each post page and also on the
homepage under the excerpts. I again decided to test some text ads
against the incumbent image ads.
* The image ads got a 0.58% CTR and $1.86 eCPM
* The text ads got a 0.43% CTR and $2.27 eCPM
Again here the CTR went down and the eCPM went up. Also worth noting
is that the color scheme I used on the text ad block is consistent
with my site. “Blockquote” tags on my site use a similar color scheme.
Winner: text ads
Conclusions & Next Steps
For those who are curious, here is the actual data from an excel
spreadsheet. You can pull this out of Adsense under the “reports” tab
if you use different channels to compare different ads.
Overall these results were impressive. The site-wide eCPM from these
three ads went up overall from $5.01 to $9.73 which is a 94%
improvement.
I could just convert all ads to the better performing version and call
it a day, but what I’ll do instead is continue testing….forever.
There are plenty of other things to test, such as…
* Trying text ads in the post body (since they performed better
elsewhere)
* Left aligning ads under the posts
* Trying different color schemes
* Trying other types of ads (Amazon, Performancing Ads, Text-Link-Ads,
etc)
Most people focus on growing their blog’s readership to boost
earnings. This is a critical component, but don’t forget about the
other major tool in your arsenal: split testing.
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ANSWERED
Question 1) Does Google allow other ads
to run on the same page as AdSense Ads?
Answer 1) The official word is a qualified "yes".
You may not run ads that are designed to resemble AdSense ads. For
example, Yahoo! Publisher Network ads look very similar to AdSense
ads. While you can run YPN on your site, they may not appear on the
same PAGES as AdSense ads.
However, contextual ads like those provided by Kontera, Intellitxt,
Amazon and Chitika ARE allowed on the same pages as your AdSense ads!
While not the exact answer we were hoping for, this does clarify for
us and opens many new options for publishers wishing to use others
advertisements on their pages.
I have made a good deal of income with Kontera and Chitika, and am
very glad to see that we may all apply for their programs and
implement them on our pages without fear of losing our AdSense
accounts.
Incidentally, I have written the ONLY book on making money with
Kontera and am pleased to offer it to you today as a discount to
celebrate this clarification from Google!
Kontera Secrets
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question 2) Google's recent "images next to ads" policy is confusing.
Could you please clarify so all publishers know what is and what is
not allowed?
Answer 2) Google prefers that publishers avoid images that are lined
up directly next to the ads so that it appears each ad is associated
with an image. If the dimensions of the image are completely different
than the dimensions of the ads, that's okay.
But if it appears to the user that the image is at all associated with
the ads, that would be in violation of AdSense terms of service.
The general idea is Google does not want visitors clicking on ads
because they have been deceived in believing the image is associated
with the ad.
That leaves a lot of room for creative design, and it also means that
AdSense graphic backgrounds and visual frames are within terms of
service.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question 3) I occasionally see ads are actually placed by Google. Do
publishers receive payment when those ads are clicked?
Answer 3) Yes! Whenever you see an ad for a Google service, Google is
paying the publisher for that ad just as they would for any other ad.
They are bidding in the auction and the publisher will be paid
according to those bids.
This is also good news for those who wondered if Google was attempting
to score a "free ride" by placing their own ads on the network.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am very encouraged by these clarifications in AdSense policy. I
don't like being in the dark as to the terms of service and neither
should you.
I hope you will take advantage of the opportunities to apply for
Kontera and Chitika
