Inside AdSense

Doing more with the reporting dimensions in your account

2013-05-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

The performance reports in your AdSense account are key to understanding your earnings and to identifying optimization opportunities. We’re continuously reviewing your feedback in order to improve the reporting functionality for you. Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of two new, long-awaited features that provide you with a more detailed segmentation of traffic in your reports.

Combining different reporting dimensions
The Countries report shows your performance broken down by the country of users who engaged with the ads on your pages. In addition to viewing a country breakdown for reports by ad type, bid type, and targeting type, you’ll now also be able to see a Countries report when viewing the reporting dimensions URL channel, custom channel, and ad unit. This will allow you to segment your traffic further and get a better understanding of your account performance in different locations.

Please note that the country breakdown of reports by URL channel, custom channel, and ad unit will only be available for reports with date ranges starting March 9th and later.

Introducing a new reporting dimension
In order to help you get more granular insights into your performance on a site level, we’re introducing a new reporting type for Owned sites. “Owned” sites are all sites specified as owned in the site management feature, and the new reporting dimension for Owned sites will be a subset of the Sites report. In contrast to the Sites report, however, you’ll be able to combine the Owned sites report with the Countries report. This will allow you to segment your traffic in more detail and understand the performance of your sites across different countries

Please note that historical data in Owned sites reports will be available from the date that a site was added or claimed as “owned”. You’ll only be able to view country breakdowns for Owned sites for reports with date ranges starting March 22nd 2011 or later. If a site is removed from the “Owned” sites list, it will no longer show in the report.

We hope that the improvements to our reporting features will help you better segment and understand where your users are coming from and whether there are performance differences across different countries. You can also use this information to isolate potential invalid activity. Unexpected use can be a sign that you are receiving potential invalid activity. Please share your feedback on our AdSense+page and let us know what you found out thanks to these new functionalities.

Posted by Matt Goodridge - AdSense Product Manager
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10 for 10 publisher stories: Expat blog expands horizons and its business

2013-05-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

After finding few sites devoted to expats around the world, in 2005 Julien Faliu decided to launch a community platform for that audience. An expat himself, Julien has since grown his site into a company based in Mauritius that now employs 15 members of staff. Expat blog receives 12 million pageviews per month and is now available in four languages.

Julien initially turned to AdSense as a way to cover the costs of running his website, but as his revenue increased, he decided to focus on advertising. Today, Julien is responsible for all of the advertising space on the site. “At the start, AdSense allowed me to get my website set up by covering my costs,” Julien says. “Now, I can truly say that AdSense has enabled me to grow and recruit staff.”

Beyond AdSense, Julien also uses a number of other Google tools to continue developing his business. For instance, Analytics enables him to view his site’s growth, and DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Small Business helps him manage all of the advertising on the site.

What’s next for Expat blog? Julien and his team are currently developing a strategy to monetize their mobile site, and looking towards bringing private investors on board to fund the next stage of growth.

For more details about Julien’s success with Expat blog, be sure to read the full story. We’ll be back again next Tuesday to introduce you to another AdSense publisher.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team
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AdSense now speaks Vietnamese

2013-05-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

The Google AdSense team is pleased to announce the official launch of Vietnamese language support for AdSense for content.

Why Vietnamese language is important to Google
Vietnam is one of the fastest growing online markets in the world, with huge potential ahead. The online landscape has evolved rapidly in the last few years, becoming as vibrant and colorful as the streets of Hanoi.

We hope that introducing Vietnamese language support will help fuel even more great quality content creation, while helping advertisers reach out to a booming online user base through display ads.

How to get started

Please start by familiarizing yourself with the AdSense program policies. Need a refresher? Update your understanding of the policies by taking this AdSense policy quiz.
Sign up for an Adsense account by enrolling your Vietnamese language website.
Once your AdSense account has been approved, congratulations, simply add the AdSense code to your site to start displaying relevant, contextually targeted ads.

Chào mừng đến với chương trình adsense!

Posted by Emanuele Brandi - Product Sales Lead
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10 for 10 publisher stories: Canal Sur thrives with digital tools

2013-05-07T08:35:00.000-07:00

In each of the 10 weeks leading up to AdSense’s 10th anniversary on June 18th, we’ll be sharing a new publisher success story. Read on to meet this week’s featured publisher, and feel free to submit your own success story to our team.

Seville’s Radio y Televisión de Andalucía (RTVA) broadcasts TV and radio programs online as well as the news via its website, Canal Sur. The site, which employs 18 people and receives about 6.5 million visits a month, joined the AdSense program four years ago. According to Antonio Manfredi, Director of Interactive Media at RTVA, “the economic crisis affected us like the rest of the media throughout Spain, so we decided to look for new ways to improve. We realized that AdSense was the simplest and most profitable option.”

(To enable captions in a number of languages, click on the ‘Captions’ link in the bottom right corner of the YouTube player once the video starts playing.)

Since joining AdSense, total global advertising revenue has increased by 40 percent, and AdSense has played a major part in making the website profitable. Looking ahead, the company is planning to work more closely with YouTube and to improve its TV-on-demand services.

Read the full case study to learn more about Canal Sur’s experience with AdSense. We look forward to seeing you next week for the second half of our ‘10 for 10’ series!

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team
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Increasing the accuracy of AdSense reporting

2013-05-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

We know many of our publishers use multiple Google products on a regular basis, and one of our top priorities is to ensure that each interaction across our products provides a seamless experience. To better align the way we report performance across all of our publisher products and ensure accuracy, we’re updating the way certain data is shown in AdSense accounts.

As you may know, your earnings at the end of each month currently reflect the amount you've earned less any deductions for invalid activity. This is a step we’ve always taken to ensure advertisers are not charged for such activity. Until now, however, clicks and impressions associated with this activity still appeared in AdSense performance reports. Starting May 1st, we'll remove those associated clicks and impressions to address this discrepancy and provide you with the most accurate reporting.

So what does this mean for your AdSense account? First and foremost, this change will not impact your earnings in any way. In most cases, removing the invalid activity from your reports means you can expect to see a slight decrease in clicks and impressions, causing a slight increase in CPC (cost-per-click) and RPM (revenue per thousand impressions). The clicks and impressions that we’ll no longer show in reports include activity like accidental clicks, so metrics like your CTR (clickthrough rate) will more accurately reflect your site's performance. You might also see a more noticeable difference in your AdSense reporting when compared with your own account statistics measured through other tools. Please note that this change won’t affect the way we screen for invalid activity.

As a reminder, we encourage you to keep up to date on ways that you can monitor your website for such activity – we have a lot of resources in our Help Center covering this topic. Finally, note that reports for dates prior to May 1st will be unaffected.

Posted by Matt Goodridge - AdSense Product Manager
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10 for 10 publisher stories: Pronounced success for Forvo

2013-04-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

For those learning a new language or just wondering how words are pronounced in different parts of the world, Forvo provides a solution. Launched in 2008, the online pronunciation guide offers recordings of over 1.5 million words in 36 languages, uploaded by native speakers. A team of four based in Guipúzcoa, Spain maintains the site, which has 250,000 registered users and receives around nine million visits a month.

According to CEO Félix Vela, “the income from AdSense has allowed me to take on two new employees over the past couple of years.” Félix has been happy with the quality and relevance of the ads, and regularly uses other Google tools like Analytics to understand the site’s visitors.

Looking ahead, Félix plans to continue improving the site and increasing the number of pronunciation examples available. “There’s absolutely no doubt that AdSense will continue to play a fundamental role in this growth,” he says.

Read Forvo’s full story, and join us here again next week to meet our next publisher.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team
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A tenfold revenue increase in just three months - nanapi.jp's success story

2013-04-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

nanapi.jp is a Japanese site which provides helpful tips for everyday life. From tips on romance to how to use web services, it has all sorts of advice for everyone.

Recently, nanapi started using AdSense and has seen a steady revenue increase. We spoke to Mr. Furukawa, the CEO, and Mr. Saito, the Director of Ads, and asked them about their experiences with AdSense.

■ Inside AdSense (IA): Please tell us the history of nanapi and how you built your site.
We established nanapi in September, 2009. We realized that there was a need for an information site where people could find tips for everyday life, so we decided to provide this content in the form of articles on various topics.

Initially, we only had a desktop site but now we’ve created a mobile site for smartphones too. As of August 2012, we receive 42 million page views and 9 million unique users per month. The number of unique users is bigger on the desktop site, but the smartphone site receives more page views.

■ IA: How and why did you start using AdSense?
When we first established the site, we decided not to implement ads as we wanted to focus on creating quality content first. After our number of monthly visitors reached 10 million, we implemented a medium rectangle (300x250) in the upper right corner of the site. As a result, we earned higher revenue than we’d anticipated.

We were surprised by the quality of the ads and how well they matched the content of our site. We’d been concerned that ads might damage the design or usability of our site, but we didn’t feel that way about the site post-implementation. That’s why we decided to use AdSense more.

■ IA: What results did you see after implementing AdSense?
We started to use AdSense more after the pilot in April 2012. More specifically, we switched from another ad network to AdSense, and increased the number of ads per page. Our revenue increased more than ten times in just three months!

nanapi covers a lot of topics, and it can be difficult to show relevant ads, but with AdSense's contextual targeting, relevant ads are shown automatically. People visit nanapi before they take action, and that's why it's natural for our visitors to click relevant ads and leave the site. We implemented 336x280 ads below our articles to capture this kind of user behavior.

■ IA: Did you have any issues after implementing Google AdSense?
We didn’t have any difficulty in implementing or setting up AdSense. Compared to the ad network we used before, AdSense’s account interface is easy to use. It was also very easy to implement AdSense on our smartphone site. We pasted the ad code from the account interface, just as we’d done for the desktop site. It’s very good that AdSense allows us to check performance by platform too.

As for resources, we only need one person to manage AdSense. The account interface is very easy to use. For example, when we experiment with changing an ad format, we can check its performance immediately.

We were concerned that ads would deteriorate the usability of our website. However, ad quality was very good and we didn’t have to worry. Since the ads match our content, they enhance the information on the site and we haven’t received a single complaint from our users

■ IA: Please tell us about your plans for the future.
We plan to keep adding more and more articles to our site. Our goal is to make users think that “if you visit nanapi, you’ll find answers for all kinds of topics.” From an ads perspective, we’re considering using DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) to manage our ad units more easily.

Posted by Ayaka Sakakibara - Strategic Partner Manager
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Understanding the dynamics of the AdSense auction - Part II

2013-04-25T09:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, we started a two-part series to help you better understand the AdSense ad auction and how it helps you earn the most money possible. We shared how text and image ads compete in the same auction, and that our system selects either ad type based on the predicted value -- sometimes resulting in one image ad winning out over multiple text ads. Following on that discussion, today we’ll turn our attention to just text ads.

If you’re using one of our large ad unit sizes like the 300x250 medium rectangle or the 160x600 wide skyscraper, you may have noticed that you’ll sometimes see multiple text ads in the ad unit, while only one or two ads at other times. As we noted earlier this week, our system predicts the value of each competing ad for every impression, based on historic performance and comparison across a variety of scenarios. There can sometimes be cases where our system determines that one or two specific text ads are significantly higher-performing than the other eligible text ads, and that showing them separately would result in higher performance than if the ads were shown together with lower-performing ones. When this occurs, we’ll show them alone, and this means you’ll see less than the full number of text ads in the ad unit.

We know that it can sometimes be confusing to see fewer text ads appearing in an ad unit, and that it can create extra white space, but please know that this behavior is intended to help you earn the most from all of your impressions. As we continue to make improvements to the rendering of the ads and develop new ad formats, we’ll keep you posted right here on our blog.

Thanks for joining us for this series. We hope you found it useful; please feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Johan Land - AdSense Product Manager

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Richer user engagement with the new 970x90 ad size

2013-04-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

It’s been just a few months since we launched a new, larger 300x600 ad size, giving you the opportunity to attract brand advertisers looking for large spaces to engage with users. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback and are happy to let you know that we’ll be expanding our range of available ad sizes to include the brand-friendly 970x90 ad unit.

970x90 ad units are a newly adopted IAB standard and are also known as ‘super leaderboards’. This larger ad size is another visually impactful placement for advertisers to promote their products and services even on wider screens.

970x90 Text Ad

970x90 Image Ad

Please note that since the 970x90 unit is new to our network, you’ll currently see mainly text ads appearing in this format. The new super leaderboard ad unit can show up to four text ads organized in a column layout but, as with other ad sizes, the number of text ads per unit may vary per impression. When enabling image and rich media ads for this unit, display ads in the size of a 728x90 unit will be displayed initially. Over time, we expect that the inventory of image and rich media ads for the 970x90 will grow and you’ll see more full-size display ads being served.

As always, we strongly recommend considering your content when placing your ad units to ensure both users and advertisers have a great experience with your site. Please note that the limit for AdSense for content ad units still remains at three per page.

We look forward to hearing what you think about the new 970x90 ad size. Feel free to share your thoughts and feedback on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Omer Gimenez Llach - AdSense Software Engineer & Johan Land - AdSense Product Manager
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10 for 10 publisher stories: Lessons from Teaching Ideas

2013-04-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

In our third ‘10 for 10’ publisher success story leading up to AdSense’s 10th anniversary, we’ll hear from U.K. publisher Mark Warner of Teaching Ideas. The site offers thousands of free learning resources for teachers around the world, from ideas for classroom activities to printable posters. Mark launched the site in 1998 as a hobby while training to become a teacher, and it now attracts an average of 25,000 unique visitors a day.

Today, Mark generates 90 percent of the site’s income with AdSense, and also uses DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Small Business to manage additional sources of advertising. “AdSense has had a big impact on my life,” says Mark, “allowing me to work part time, work from home, and spend more time with my family. My long-term goal is to continue building the website, making it bigger so more teachers have access to even more resources.”

For more of Mark’s story, read the full case study. We know there are many more success stories out there in the publisher community, so please feel free to share your own with us as well.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team
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Understanding the dynamics of the AdSense auction - Part I

2013-04-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

We often hear questions from publishers about why the number of ads that appear in an ad unit can vary, and what that means for revenue. If you’ve ever wondered why less than four text ads sometimes appear in larger formats, or why one image ad can show instead of four text ads, keep reading -- today, we’re kicking off a two-part series to shed more light on the topic.

The answer ultimately boils down to the AdSense ad auction, and is a way to maximize your revenue. As a refresher, in the ad auction, advertisers bid to show their ads on your site: The number and price of ads in the auction changes from impression to impression, based on how much advertisers are willing to spend and how they've set up their ad campaigns. This is why we call the ad auction ‘dynamic’. In addition to their bids, advertisers are also ranked based on their Quality Score to ensure a good user experience.

To help you understand how our system selects between different ad types, today we’ll first focus on how text and image ads compete within the same auction for your ad space. Let’s say you have a 728x90 leaderboard and have enabled both text and image ads to appear. For every impression, our system predicts which ad type will be more valuable. When selecting the “winning” ad(s) for your page, our system takes the advertisers’ bids and Quality Scores into consideration and also considers historical data for specific ads, in order to predict overall performance.

So, even though a leaderboard could show up to four text ads, it may sometimes be the case that the one image ad will outperform all of the competing text ads. In other words, if you see one image ad appearing in your leaderboard, it’s because it is more valuable than the eligible text ads combined. By maximizing competition for your ad space, you’re also maximizing your revenue potential -- this is why we always recommend enabling both text and image ads for your ad units, which maximizes competition for your ad space.

Don’t miss the second part of our series later this week to learn more about how the number of text ads per ad unit is determined in AdSense ad auction. In the meantime, feel free to leave your feedback and thoughts on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Johan Land - AdSense Product Manager
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Increase user engagement with link unit ad previews

2013-04-19T10:00:00.000-07:00

To increase performance for our publishers, we recently launched an update to link units in select countries and site verticals. When users click on a link unit keyword, the resulting page now shows thumbnails of the advertisers' landing page. We ran extensive experiments on this change and found that users were more likely to click on the results with thumbnail images, leading to increased publisher revenue and more conversions for advertisers.

This change will happen automatically for publishers using link units in the affected countries and site verticals, so no action is required if you’re an existing user of the format. For publishers not using link units, we’d recommend trying them out!

Link units are an efficient way of monetizing smaller areas of your website.
Link units are a non-intrusive way to monetize, as the simple layout doesn’t distract from your content.

As a reminder, our program policies state you may have three link unit ad formats in addition to the three standard units.

We encourage you to test out the link unit format. For more information visit our Help Center.

Posted By Kwanho Lee - Software Engineer
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Coming soon: Updates to our Terms and Conditions

2013-04-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

In order to keep pace with changes in our products, we regularly review our Terms and Conditions to make sure they're up to date and in line with those of other Google products. As a result of our recent review, we’ll be making some updates to our Terms, starting April 23rd. If you're based in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, or North America, you'll see a notification in your account when you log in after this date. It will present you with the updated Terms and prompt you to accept them. For publishers based in the Asia-Pacific region, the change to our Terms will happen slightly later as we’re rolling the changes out gradually across all regions.

You'll have 30 days to fully review the new terms in detail before action is required. Before the updated Terms appear in your account, we'd like to give you an idea of what's changing:

With this new version of the Terms and Conditions, our goal has been to make them as clear and transparent as possible. As a result of this, we hope that it’ll be even easier to navigate and find what you’re looking for.
With mobile being one of the big trends in 2013 and beyond, we’re expanding our Terms to cover mobile properties more specifically. We’ve also incorporated guidelines for using the AdMob SDK and other publisher products.

The updates outlined above are the main areas that will be affected by the change. However, we’ve made smaller changes throughout, so please be sure to review the Terms as a whole before accepting them.

Posted by Matt Goodridge - AdSense Product Manager

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10 for 10 publisher stories: Complementing Videdressing’s profitability

2013-04-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to our ‘10 for 10’ series, where we’re sharing publisher success stories each week as we count down to AdSense’s 10th anniversary in June.

Today we’re heading to Paris to say bonjour to Videdressing, an e-commerce site founded in 2009 by American expat Meryl Job. After looking for a medium to sell some of her clothes and noticing that a number of fashion bloggers were opening wardrobe sales, Meryl started the site to enable others to buy and sell fashion items they no longer wear. Today, the site employs over 20 people and receives over 25 million visits each month.

Since joining the AdSense program last year, Videdressing has used its AdSense revenue to complement the earnings it generates from sales and transactions. The additional income adds to the profitability of the site and is used to offer better services to its customers. Company chairman Renaud Guillerm sees advertising as “being first and foremost an additional service that we can offer our customers. Our conversion rate is only two per cent, as 98 percent of visitors browse the site without buying anything. By using AdSense we can monetise these many visits.”

Videdressing uses AdWords to advertise the site, and also makes use of Analytics to understand the site’s visitors. To date, the company has seen strong growth in France, and is looking to expand to additional markets in the future.

Read more about Videdressing’s success, and feel free to share your own AdSense success story with us. We’ll be back next week to introduce you to another publisher!

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team
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Share your feedback on AdSense and other Google publisher products

2013-04-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

Over the last few years, Google’s offering for online publishers has grown dramatically: in addition to AdSense, our products now range from AdMob, to DoubleClick for Publishers and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

As we continually work on improving our existing offerings, as well as developing new products and service for publishers, we’d like to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Our semi-annual satisfaction survey is a great way for you to share your feedback on AdSense and other publisher products you’re using. Later this month, we’ll be sending our survey to a sample of publishers opted in to receiving “occasional surveys”, so if you’d like to participate, make sure to update your email preferences and contact information.

Your suggestions are valuable, whether they come in via surveys, our product forum, or in-person events, and we regularly use your feedback to make improvements. For example, we recently introduced a new, brand-friendly ad size in AdSense and announced a closer collaboration with you when it comes to fighting invalid activity. Based on your feedback, you can now also benefit from video ad serving in DFP Small Business and AdMob Academy - our comprehensive guide to everything AdMob. It often takes time to develop new ideas and make improvements, but be assured that we read every single one of your comments and take your thoughts on board.

If you want to let us know your thoughts and ideas, don’t miss our survey in the week of April 28th. We look forward to hearing from you, and we appreciate your time.

Posted by Sahar Golestani, on behalf of the AdSense Publisher Satisfaction Team
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We’re simplifying earnings reporting for YouTube partners

2013-04-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

One of the most exciting things about YouTube is all the partners building businesses around doing what they love. We now have thousands of partners who are making video creation a full-time endeavor. And, we’re listening to feedback and working to improve the process of earning money on YouTube.

So, in an effort to ensure we deliver our partners the most accurate and consistent financial performance data for their videos, we are making some changes in how YouTube interacts with AdSense. Starting April 1, 2013, AdSense will no longer calculate and report AdSense for Content Host earnings for YouTube partners. Instead, AdSense earnings from YouTube videos will only be calculated by YouTube and displayed in YouTube Analytics.

What does this mean for you as a YouTube partner?
First, expect no change in how you are paid. The payments tab in AdSense will show your monthly YouTube payments as one total amount as you will continue to be paid via AdSense. Rather, this change means that if you want to view your YouTube financial performance, you should go to YouTube Analytics where you can continue to find a comprehensive view of all your sources of earnings for your YouTube videos. YouTube Analytics has improved the timeliness of earnings reporting to within 24 hours after the end of the day, Pacific Time. You can still view page views and clicks and also manage ad blocking in the AdSense interface for your YouTube videos. If you use other AdSense products, their calculation and reports will be unchanged in the AdSense reporting interface.

Have you ever wondered what the difference between AdSense earnings and YouTube earnings was? As a bit of background, many YouTube partners have ad earnings from two sources: auction-sold ads (AdSense earnings) and reserve-sold ads (YouTube earnings). YouTube serves the optimal ads when a viewer watches the video. Previously, AdSense calculated and reported the auction-sold AdSense earnings. YouTube calculated reserve-sold and miscellaneous earnings and reported both AdSense and YouTube earnings. Now, having only the YouTube system calculate all your earnings will simplify and streamline your video reporting.

We take accurate financial calculation and reporting very seriously, and believe this change will reduce reporting confusion and prepare all our partners for new ways to grow their earnings.

Andy Stack, YouTube Product Manager
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Introducing 10 for 10 publisher stories: Crafting with Cut Out + Keep

2013-04-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

This June 18th is a major milestone: the date marks the 10th anniversary of AdSense’s launch. Over the years, AdSense has evolved from a small contextually-targeted text ad network to a complete publisher solution, serving Display, Mobile, Video, and more for over 2 million publishers -- with powerful new features, reports, and controls to boot. As we’ve grown over the last decade with your support and feedback, we’ve heard inspiring stories about how you and your businesses have done the same.

June 18th falls exactly 10 weeks from today, so we’re kicking off a ‘10 for 10’ success story series here on the blog. Each Tuesday leading up to the anniversary, we’ll introduce you to a publisher who has grown their business with AdSense and other Google tools. Stay tuned for more information on AdSense’s 10th anniversary -- but in the meantime, let’s get started by meeting Cat Morley and Tom Waddington from Cut Out + Keep:

Cat originally launched Cut Out + Keep as a blog where she could share her craft ideas. With the help of her business partner and fiancé, Tom, she transformed the blog into a popular crafting community where over 140,000 registered users now share their own projects. As the site grew, the Edinburgh-based couple turned to AdSense to earn from their site without needing to spend time selling ads. “Both of us are bad at sales,” Tom admits. “We don’t want to sell ads -- we want to focus on building the site, which is our true passion. We regard AdSense as our third employee.”

Thanks to the revenue from AdSense, Tom was able to quit his day job to focus completely on the site. More recently, the couple attended a Learn with Google for Publishers workshop in Edinburgh to learn how to improve the performance of their site. Since making changes recommended to them by an optimization specialist at the workshop, including updating their ad formats and getting started with DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) Small Business, Cat and Tom have seen their revenue quadruple.

Hear more about Cat and Tom’s AdSense experience by reading the full story. Do you have a success story to share as well? We’d love to hear from you. Join us here on Inside AdSense next Tuesday to hear another AdSense story and meet another publisher.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team
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Watch our recent Learn with Google for Publishers Hangout On Air

2013-04-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

User experience is an important focus area for every publisher, so we recently provided you tips in this three part blog series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). We wanted to provide you even more information, so we recently hosted a Hangout On Air.

If you missed the Hangout or would like to watch it again, you can view the recording on our AdSense YouTube channel.

Watch the recording to learn:

How to better understand your users

How to delight your users

How to increase your users’ engagement and

How to measure success of changes to your website.

We hope you’ll join us for our future Hangouts - be sure to stay connected with us by adding Google AdSense to your circles on Google+.

Posted by Marta Lysiak - Inside AdSense Team
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A new look for personalized ad unit optimization recommendations in your account

2013-03-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

Just over a year ago, we introduced recommendations for individual AdSense for content ad units, directly in your account. In addition to the personalized tips you might receive via email, these recommendations provide specific suggestions for improving your account performance by changing ad unit type or format settings of individual ad units.

Based on your feedback, we’ve further improved the look and feel of these recommendations. Next to the specific optimization suggestion, you’ll now also see a graph that visualizes your expected revenue gain from the suggested optimization. The new graph allows you to assess instantly what you might gain from the suggested optimization and whether or not it’s worth updating your implementation. However, we can only perform the simulations and generate recommendations for your ad units if you have created your ad units directly via the ‘My ads’ tab in your AdSense account. If you're still using the older AdSense code, please upgrade your ad code following the instructions in our Help Center.

Our recommendations are based on ad auction simulations for a specific ad unit using different ad type and/or ad format settings. We’ll only show a recommendation if our simulation predicts that a change of settings consistently results in higher revenue for that ad unit. Please note that the new design including graph and total projected revenue uplift will only be visible for new recommendations. Recommendations generated before today’s date will remain in the old design.

We hope that the improved design of our recommendations in the account helps you continue to optimize your account performance. Let us know what you think about the new design by sharing your feedback on the AdSense +page.

Posted by Nick Radicevic - AdSense Product Manager
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Learn with Google for Publishers presents: Meet a Product Manager

2013-03-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

We’ve seen from our AdSense +page and in-person events that AdSense publishers love to discuss current product features and interact with our team. With this in mind, we’re kicking off a Hangout series with AdSense Product Managers to connect you with the Googlers who look after the AdSense product roadmap. For the series kick-off, we’ve invited Allan Livingston, who has been the AdSense Group Product Manager for 3+ years, to host a Hangout On Air on our AdSense +page. Join the session to meet Allan, hear answers to your AdSense product questions, and learn some AdSense tips.


	Join the event

The event will take place this Thursday, March 28th, from 9:00am-9:30am PT (4:00pm-4:30pm GMT) on the AdSense +page. Ask your questions by joining the event and posting your questions in the comments section. Also, feel free to +1 questions previously added by other publishers that you’d like addressed. If you’re not able to view the live session, a recording will be available afterwards on our AdSense YouTube channel.

We look forward to hanging out with you online this week!

Posted by Ashli Meske, Inside AdSense Team
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The brand revolution is underway

2013-03-21T09:10:00.000-07:00

(cross posted from the Inside AdWords blog)

As we’ve said before, we’ve entered the next wave of digital marketing, as major brands like L’Oreal, Audi and Kay Jewelers embrace digital media and make it a core part of their marketing strategy. We’ve seen a 65 percent increase in the last quarter alone in the number of brand advertisers using our brand formats and buying tools.

This influx of brand investment is translating into meaningful results for digital publishers.

We looked at the 50 top publishers that enable brand-friendly ad formats on their sites. Over the past three months we found that, on average, they experienced a CPM increase of 2x or more when running these engagement-driven ads, such as our Lightbox ad, which expands to a full page only after a user has deliberately engaged with the ad. “We've seen CPM increases of more than 3X, and our advertisers love the large canvas and pay for engagement model," says Rich Dredge, Answers.com's Chief Revenue Officer.

We’ve seen an overall increase in higher CPMs across our exchange -- in the U.S., CPMs over $5 have increased 24% year-over-year while those over $10 have increased 23% year-over-year. Brand spend is a critical piece of these increases.

Fueling brand adoption
To continue this momentum, we’ve been investing in a suite of brand solutions over the past year to help these advertisers make the most of what digital marketing has to offer:

New Ways to Buy -- Last year, we introduced Active View, offering for the first time the ability to not only measure whether ads are viewable, but actually buy based on it. Brands are able to “reserve” a guaranteed number of impressions on brand-friendly sites across the web -- and they pay only for impressions that are viewed.

Over the past year, the number of advertisers using the reserve option has increased fourfold.
Nearly two-thirds of those are Ad Age top 100 brands.

New Ways to Engage -- Last year, we introduced a new family of brand-friendly, engagement-focused ad formats. Engagement formats are already showing terrific early returns. For example, L’ORÉAL PARiS was one of the first brands to run a campaign using engagement ads. They ran an expandable ad in Germany as part of their “Beauty Minute” campaign and found that 30% of those who expanded the ad watched the entire 30-second embedded video.

New Ways to Measure -- We’re committed to providing meaningful metrics for brands, measurement that goes beyond just clicks and conversions. Earlier this week, we introduced Brand Lift in AdWords, which will enable marketers to run surveys along with their ad campaigns, to determine how their ads helped their marketing objectives (i.e., whether their ads helped build awareness, increased favorability towards their brand, etc.). Brand Lift complements our other investments in brand measurement, like Active View and Active GRP.

Digital media represents an amazing opportunity for both brands and publishers, bringing together sight, sound, motion, interactivity and measurement in ways we’ve never seen before.

Over the coming year, we’ll be continuing to invest in our products and systems that will help brands thrive in the digital space, as well as help publishers capitalize on the shift...so stay tuned for more to come.

-- Posted by Neal Mohan
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Guidelines for monetizing Flash gaming sites

2013-03-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

Playing online games is a common pastime, and many of you implement Flash games on your site to capture your users’ interests. We've received some questions about our policies related to Flash games in the past, so we've posted a couple messages, including Using the right product and Tips for placing ads on game play pages which provide tips on how ads should be implemented. Today we’re talking about content issues on Flash gaming sites as well as common ad implementation violations for Flash gaming sites.

Family safe content
You can monetize Flash games, however our policies do not permit monetizing games with sexual or violent content. It's also important to refrain from including or allowing any explicit or profane language in descriptions or comments.

Distance between ads and game
To reduce the risk of invalid click activity, avoid placing AdSense for content ads too close to the Flash game. We strongly recommend a distance of at least 150 pixels between the ads and the the edge of a game. When users are concentrating on a Flash game and clicking frantically, invalid clicks can occur. Since each game and site is unique, some games may require a greater distance based on the type of game and how it is played. To know whether a game is likely to cause invalid clicks, we recommend that you play your Flash game, placing yourself in the user’s shoes, before placing ads on the page. Clicks on ads should always be motivated by user interest, and not by the placement of the ads on the page.

AFC as pre-roll
AdSense for games (AFG) is a product designed specifically for the monetization of Flash games. Using AdSense for content (AFC) ads as a pre-roll before, or mid-roll during a Flash game, is against our policies, as the product was not created for this kind of an implementation. If you wish to use Google ads as a pre-roll to your game, please apply for AFG. For more information about AFG, please visit our Help Center.

In order for users to enjoy the gaming experience of your site, the Flash game should be the primary focus of the page. Always keep the user in mind when placing ads and your site should remain in good standing from a policy perspective.

Posted by Ben Barkhoff, AdSense Policy Team
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Preview landing pages in the Ad review center

2013-03-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

If you're looking to manage the ads that can appear on your pages, be sure to check out the controls available in the Ad review center. To help save you time, we recently added the ability to find and review ads more efficiently. Today, we’re happy to announce a new feature which enables you to not only view a specific ad, but to also check the landing page where this ad leads -- all directly within your account.

If you're looking for more insight into your users' experience with the ads on your site, the landing page view offers you a quick and easy view of what users see when clicking on an ad. This in turn will help you make a more informed decision about whether or not an ad is suitable for your audience.

To try this new feature, simply log in to your AdSense account and navigate to the “Allow and block ads” tab. As you review individual ads in the Ad review center, hover over an ad and a small magnifying glass will appear in the bottom right corner. Click on the magnifying glass and you'll see the ad and its specific landing page.

Please note that this feature is currently only available in accounts with the language preference set to English. However, we’re planning to roll this feature out in other languages soon. In the meantime, please feel free to share your feedback on this new feature on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Pedro Diaz - AdSense Software Engineer

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With a refreshing makeover, MakeupAlley.com boosts interactions, clicks and revenue

2013-03-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

When users of MakeupAlley.com, one of the web’s largest beauty communities, review any of the 130,000 products that appear on the site, community engagement motivates them to add reviews. Is the product easy to use? Is it visually appealing? Does the product compare well to other products in its category?

After mastering the art of product reviews, MakeupAlley.com conducted a review of its own site and implemented changes. In doing so, MakeupAlley.com achieved a 171% increase in on-site interactions, 21% more clicks to affiliate links, and a 50% uplift in AdSense revenue. A host of Google tools contributed to the overhaul, and to these compelling results.

Small changes, big impact
In all, the site hosts well over 2 million reviews. Aiming to improve user experience and increase engagement, MakeupAlley.com first made some simple changes to its product pages, home to the site’s latest reviews. Using Google’s tips and resources for publishers, MakeupAlley.com organized and streamlined content and design to make relevant information easier to find.

Product names and rating statistics were made more prominent to make it easier for users to gather product information at a glance. MakeupAlley.com also restructured the layout by separating review content from member profiles. To encourage deeper engagement, MakeupAlley.com grouped and clearly labeled related content. A final tweak saw an existing AdSense unit move to a more visible placement below the navigation, creating space on the page for an additional ad unit.

Tallying up through testing
To measure the effectiveness of the changes, the team set up Google Analytics Custom Variables to track and compare visitor activity, as well as Event Tracking to evaluate in-page interactions. MakeupAlley.com also created custom channels in AdSense to track the performance of ad units.

MakeupAlley.com ran a month-long A/B test, splitting traffic between the original and new landing pages. The new, user-friendly landing page demonstrated promising results. Featuring related content in a clear way helped grow on-site interactions, while organizing affiliate links in an easy-to-find “Where to buy” section encouraged clicks. And the new ad unit placements resulted in a notable upward surge in AdSense revenue.

A beautiful future
Considering that MakeupAlley.com’s revenue comes primarily from advertising and affiliates, the lessons learned are valuable to the brand. “We’re excited to continue improving the usability of our site using this methodology,” says one team member. Based on these successes, plans are already in the works to apply the same tactics to improving user experience and engagement throughout the site.

Want to replicate this kind of success for your own brand?

●      Read the full case study on MakeupAlley.com.
●      Get tips and best practices for content and design from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
●      Learn about measuring visitor activity, Custom Variables and Event Tracking with Google Analytics.
●      Find out how to use Google AdSense custom channels to group and track ad units.

Posted by Ian Cohan-Shapiro - Inside AdSense Team

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Diversifying revenue sources in an e-commerce site - dinos’ success story

2013-03-11T08:50:00.000-07:00

dinos is a Japanese mail order company that relies on catalogs, TV and the Internet for its business. In their online shopping site, visitors can purchase items they've seen on TV or in catalogs. Their site was established in September 2000 and, as of July 2012, dinos now receives 2.5 million user visits and 58 million page views per month. Revenue from their site accounts for about half of dinos' total revenue.

We recently interviewed Hiroyuki Kikuchi from the dinos marketing team, to find out more about the company’s experiences with AdSense.

■ Inside AdSense (IA): Could you tell us why and how you started to use AdSense?
We started to use AdSense to diversify the sources of revenue from the site and also to monetize the traffic from users leaving the site. The major reason why we decided to use AdSense is because of its flexibility: we can shut off or turn on a campaign at any time. We started out with a pilot in April 2012. Then in May, we began using AdSense more, dramatically increasing the number of pages with ads. As a result, our revenue increased significantly.

■ IA: Did you use any other service before you implemented AdSense?
We used an affiliate service before using AdSense. We piloted this service because it provided control over which ads we served. We also analyzed the results from our pilot to be able to optimize our ad network implementation later on. Our main concern with trying AdSense was that we would not be able to choose the ads we served, but after implementation, we found that we could easily control the ads at the URL and ad category levels. The revenue coming from AdSense is much higher than the revenue we earned from the affiliate network.

■ IA: When implementing AdSense, was there any opposition from within the company?
There was internal concern that using AdSense would decrease product sales on dinos.com. We explained that sales revenue had not changed since AdSense was implemented. In addition, we offered to stop using AdSense if we received any complaints from our users. In the end, sales levels remain constant and we did not receive any complaints. This shows that we're providing useful information to our users and showing high quality ads

■ IA: Was it easier to implement AdSense than you’d expected?
It was very easy to introduce AdSense. It was very helpful that we could set up the ad categories that we wanted to block in the account interface. It was also good that we could block ads on a URL basis.

■ IA: What resources do you use to manage your account?
Since we don’t need many resources to manage AdSense, only one person is managing it.

We hope you enjoyed learning about another publisher's AdSense journey. Stay tuned for more stories.

Posted by Kensuke Ishida, Strategic Partner Manager