Tag Archives: Tips

Why are my earnings down right now?

Four things to explore if your AdSense earnings take a dip

Today we'd like to share some insights about why AdSense earnings sometimes go down -- and look at how to troubleshoot what's going on when that happens. Google has a variety of tools and reports that will help you see what might be causing a decline and how you can respond to optimize your earnings.

One of the first things to consider is: have your overall page views gone down, or are other issues causing the drop? There are many factors that affect revenue, but the key ones to look at include:

Clickthrough rate (CTR)
Cost per click (CPC)
Page revenue per thousand impressions (page RPM)
Page views

You can view all these metrics on the Performance reports tab in your AdSense account. Here are a few tips on how to address issues you may discover.

1. My page views have decreased

When troubleshooting changes in page views, it's a good idea to extend the date range of your reports out to 30 days or more to help identify trends or specific issues. A drop in page views could simply be seasonal; retailers, for instance, tend to see a traffic drop after the holiday season. But a decrease can also be due to a change in your content.

If your traffic has dropped, here are some ways you might increase it:

Promote your site with other major sites that cover the same topics.
Promote your site through social media, and create a group of interested people who regularly visit your site.
Use Google Search Console to make sure your site is being correctly crawled and indexed.
Update your site regularly to encourage repeat visitors. You might also want to send out an email or a newsletter about your updates.

2. My cost per click has decreased

CPC is market-driven and depends on factors like advertiser bids on keywords and the CPC values they're willing to pay. For example, CPC can fall at the beginning of each quarter when marketers are shifting budget. When looking at changes in CPC, it's a good practice to extend the date range of your reports out to a year. Then:

See if you're using the best-performing ad sizes. Generally, our most successful sizes for CPC and CTR are 720x90, 336x280, 160x600, and the 320x100 mobile banner. Learn more about the most successful ad sizes.
Make sure you're not blocking ads you don't need to. Blocks on too many advertisers, ad networks, general or sensitive categories will often decrease CPC because there are fewer advertisers in the auction bidding on your inventory. The more inventory your site has access to, the greater the chance that auction pressure will drive up your CPC.
Look at how seasonality can affect your advertisers' bids. For instance, swimsuit advertisers often increase their bids in the early weeks of summer. But if your site caters only to students, you should expect traffic to fall in the summer. Learn more about how the ad auction works for a clearer understanding of how these kinds of changes can impact your earnings.

3. My search rank has dropped

Deeper investigation may show you that your page is not ranked as highly in search results as it once was. The Webmaster Troubleshooter is designed to help you resolve common issues with your site in Google Search and the Google Search Console.

4. My CTR or page RPM has decreased

A drop in CTR or page RPM can be caused by confusing site design or poor targeting. Visitors who see your ads might not click on them because they find them irrelevant, or perhaps they don't see your ads at all. And that leads to lower earnings.

Here are some best practices to help drive up your CTR and page RPM:

Blend, complement, and contrast: use these techniques to design ad styles that will be successful for your site.
Maximize ad space with multiple ad units: be sure to see if three ad units is right for your site; it's also our policy limit.
Use the best-performing ad sizes: As noted in the CPC section above, our most successful ad sizes are 720x90, 336x280, 160x600, and the 320x100 mobile banner.

We hope these tips will help you understand exactly what's happening on your site ― and send your earnings back in the right direction.

Posted by Rachel Barrett

Google AdSense Team

Source: Inside AdSense

Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 3 speedy ways to improve viewability

Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology.

Recently on the blog, we focused on 2 tips for enabling viewability measurement. In this post you'll learn tips for improving ad viewability by optimizing your apps and sites for speed and responsiveness.

Here is today's recommendation:

We hope these recommendations are improving your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 4 ways to improve ad layouts for better viewability rates.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran,
Product Marketing Manager

Source: Inside AdSense

Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: 2 tips to enable viewability measurement

There's a lot that publishers and app developers can do to increase the likelihood that their ads will be measured as viewable. Our latest infographic puts a spotlight on viewability by sharing a dozen technical best practices for improving viewability across four categories based on insights from Active View, Google's MRC-accredited viewable impression measurement technology. These insights and recommendations come from our services teams that have spent thousands of hours working with publishers and developers to improve advertising outcomes.

In this post, we focus on tips you can use to improve ad viewability by optimizing your apps and sites for speed and responsiveness.

Here is today's recommendation:

We hope these recommendations will improve your site or apps ad viewability. Feel free to share your viewability success story in the comments section below.

In the next part of our Spotlight on Viewability, we'll share 3 speedy ways to improve viewability.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran,
Product Marketing Manager

Source: Inside AdSense

Maps Minutes Hack #5: Make your holiday detours easier with Google Maps

Part of our series on how to save time this holiday season with Google Maps.

Forget the eggnog for a holiday party? On the road to grandma's and need to gas up along the way? Or maybe you need to pick up a last-minute gift on the way to your in-laws’ house?

One poorly planned pit stop can add a lot of time to your trip – especially during the holidays when crowds can be bigger and traffic heavier. The good news is that Google Maps can help you make quick pit stops without long detours.

On Google Maps for Android, you can now search for places like a gas station, grocery store or coffee shop, navigate there, and then pick back up on your original route—all without leaving navigation mode (coming soon to iOS).

Here’s how it works: When you’re in navigation mode, simply tap the magnifying glass at the top right corner in the app. Pick a category from the drop down menu and you'll see a few options, along with ratings of businesses, prices at gas stations, and how much time the detour will add to your trip. Once you choose a place, the stop is automatically incorporated into your route. Can’t type and tap while driving? You can use voice commands instead.

Every minute counts. Save more time with Google Maps hacks. Next up: turn-by-turn navigation even when you’re offline.

Posted by Dai Pham, Head of Geo and Google Maps Marketing

Source: Google LatLong

Can’t log in? Here’s how to solve the five most common issues

Not being able to log in to your account can be frustrating, and it happens to most of us now and then. Every week the AdSense support team receives emails from publishers who are logged out and stumped.

With that in mind, let's look over the five most common "can't log in" scenarios and how you can clear them up and get back into action.

1. The email and password you entered don’t match

This is always the #1 login issue. Luckily, a fix is just few clicks away. If you've run out of all your memory tricks for remembering your password, visit Google's account recovery service. Enter your login address to reset your Google account password.

2. You deleted your Google Account

Your AdSense account is linked to other Google services like Gmail, Calendar, and Google+ under one Google Account. Sometimes a user decides to delete one service and deletes their entire Google Account, which cuts off access to their AdSense account as well. The good news: even if you deleted your Google Account and lost access to AdSense, your AdSense account is still active. To continue using AdSense, you'll need to recover your Google Account.

3. Your account was hijacked

Hijacking is more common in some regions than in other. If you think your account has been hijacked, you need to act fast.

First things first, visit this page and follow the instructions to alert a Hijacked Accounts specialist and prove your ownership. Be sure to provide detailed and accurate information for each of the questions. Next, contact the AdSense support team by following the steps in the Login troubleshooter. This will let us restore your access to your AdSense account.

To prevent hijacking from happening, follow these security best practices:

Enable 2-step verification
If you sign into your account from a public computer, make sure to log out when you're done
Don't share your password with others and don't write it down on paper or in documents
Use strong passwords. The strongest contain upper and lower cases, special characters, and numbers, like this: “mYvErY234Strong_pAssWord”
Change your password frequently

4. You signed into a different Google Account

If you have more than one Google Account, your AdSense account will be linked to only one of them. If you're signed in but don't see your AdSense account, you may be signed into a different Google Account. Try logging in with a different email and password.

5. Your Google Apps account is not opted in for AdSense

If your email is linked to Google Apps, the Google Apps administrator might have turned off AdSense service for the whole Google Apps account. To fix this, ask your domain administrator to grant you access for AdSense. You can contact Google Apps support if you have more questions.

Now let's hope you never need any of these. For more information, check the AdSense Help Center.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Kateryna Malinovska

AdSense and AdMob Support Program Manager

Source: Inside AdSense

Demystifying AdSense policies with John Brown: Five tips for a successful policy appeal (Part 5)

I’ve been posting a series to this blog relating to demystifying AdSense policies. Today we’re exploring what happens when ads are disabled from publisher sites, when to submit an appeal, and tips for making those appeals successful.

Our policies are designed to foster a healthy ecosystem which protects users, advertisers, and publishers. In 2014, the vast majority of publishers ( >98 %) did not receive a policy violation notice from us.

In order to ensure a healthy ecosystem we continuously monitor our ad network and periodically review AdSense sites. We use a combination of sophisticated, automated systems and manual reviews to identify violations.

If you’ve received a policy violation or ad serving on your website has been disabled have a look at our Help Center and review our Program Policies. You will find information on how to fix the violation and apply for an appeal.

Here are some useful tips, should you need to submit an appeal:

1. Understand the violation. If you receive a policy violation notification it will include a snippet explaining the violation. If you’d like more information you can visit our Program Policies located in the Help Center. We also encourage you to seek advice from our Forum. Our Top Contributors have a lot of policy knowledge and are often helpful in providing good advice.

2. Check your entire site. Each notification you receive will contain a link with an example of the violation. Please note, that you may have the same violation on multiple pages, so be sure to check your entire site.

3. Tell us what changes you’ll make for the future. What systems have you put in place to ensure this won't happen again? For example, tell us how you've updated your filters, hired human reviewers, or how you're now familiar with this particular policy.

4. Send URL with ad code examples. If you had a content violation, send us links to pages where you have made changes. You can simply remove AdSense ad code from pages, or as a last resort remove pages that have been flagged with violations. If you had an ad implementation violation, be sure to send us a link to the fixed page.

5. Understand the big picture. Although you might not always agree with our policy actions, they are there to protect the entire ecosystem of users, advertisers, and publishers.

Your success is important to us, and we want to see you succeed while keeping your users happy and engaged. Everyone in the digital ecosystem benefits when publishers provide engaging content and useful resources, which in turn incentivizes advertisers to bid for space on your site. We hope that these resources can provide some guidance.

Posted by John Brown
Head of Publisher Policy Communications

Source: Inside AdSense

Getting to know Active View and the world of viewability

We've had a lot of questions recently from AdSense publishers about viewability and the new Active View metrics in AdSense accounts. Active View can really help you improve your AdSense earnings, so let's take a closer look.

What are Active View and viewability?

Active View is Google’s ad viewability measurement solution. It tracks the viewability of ads served by AdSense: that is, the percentage of ads that are considered viewable out of the total number of ads measured. We use the online ad industry standard: a display ad is counted as viewable when at least 50% of the ad is within the viewable space on the user’s screen for one second or more.

So an ad that is (for instance) placed below the first screen on a given page won't be counted as viewable if the viewer never scrolls down. This is why viewability a good way of determining whether your AdSense ads are actually being seen by your website visitors or simply loading without a chance of catching the viewer's eye.

Why is viewability important?

The industry shift towards viewability is good for both publishers and advertisers for many reasons.

Benefits for advertisers and the advertising industry

Without viewability metrics, advertisers could be paying for ads that loaded on a page but were never seen. If you're an advertiser paying per click you might not care, but if you're paying by the impression it could be a much bigger deal.

Active View metrics help because they show advertisers what percentage of their ads are actually being seen by users and which publishers provide the highest level of viewability. This helps advertisers make smarter decisions about where they should buy ad impressions. That makes display ads both more measurable and more effective.

Benefits for publishers

Viewability metrics also help publishers understand the true performance of the AdSense ads they display. Whether the ad is being paid for by click or by impression, ads that aren't seen by the user can’t have an impact. In the long run, they won’t generate reliable ad revenue.

If publishers notice that the Active View percentage for certain ad units is lower than others, that ad position is probably underperforming and ought to be optimized. Active View can help publishers increase their AdSense earnings as they take corrective action and improve the performance of these ads.

How to improve your ad viewability

Once you become familiar with viewability statistics, there are two changes you can make to improve your results.

Change ad sizes

Vertical ad units such as 160x600 and 120x600 tend to have higher Active View percentages. This makes sense: vertical ad units are in view for longer as the user scrolls up or down the page. Other ad sizes with high viewability rates include the 120x240 and 240x400 ad units.

Change ad positions

Rethinking the position of your AdSense ad units can also help improve your viewability rates. It's not always just a matter of putting more ads at the top of the page: for example, ads positioned just above the fold tend to have higher viewability rates since they remain within view for longer as the user scrolls down. Experiment with what works best on your site.

Paying close attention to your Active View numbers will help you bring your visitors the targeted ads you want them to see and remove the uncertainty around unviewable ads. In the end, that should mean fewer underperforming ad units and a potentially a new way to achieve better revenues overall.

We think that in the long term viewability will change the way that advertisers allocate their budgets to online display. And if you're a publisher, it's a good idea to start paying attention to these new numbers and make adjustments to your ad sizes, ad units, and ad positions to improve viewability and potentially achieve better results.

To learn more about viewability and Active View, see the AdSense Help Center.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Paul Healy

Publisher Monetization Specialist

Source: Inside AdSense

Five useful ways to check your AdSense performance

Sometimes it's a good thing to step back and look at the basics.

With that in mind (and with the new AdSense interface now in place), we'd like to recap the big five AdSense reports you should start with to analyze your overall account performance.

Let's take a look at these reports.

1. The reporting dashboard: Get an overall summary of your performance

As the name suggests, the reporting dashboard gives you a quick summary of three main reporting metrics: estimated earnings, page views, and revenue per thousand impressions (RPM).

This report is a great way to get a quick check of your recent AdSense performance. You can switch to a wider date range, too, like the past month or year. If you see a sudden change in your results for any area, you can see a more detailed report with a click on the View report button.

2. The entire account by day report: Monitor your daily performance

To see this report, visit the Performance reports tab, click Common reports on the left-hand panel and then select Entire account by day.

Use the Entire account by day report to analyze your daily performance. Try selecting estimated earnings, impressions, CTR, and impression RPM to view them all at the same time and get a better idea of why your earnings change over time.

For example, if the drop in estimated revenue is mainly due to a drop in CTR, take a closer look at ad units and ad placement to understand what caused that CTR drop.

3. Ad units + Platforms: Check ad performance by device

To use this report, visit the Performance reports tab, click Common reports on the left-hand panel, select Ad units and then add Platforms from the top as a secondary dimension.

This combination offers a good look at how your ad units are doing on different device types. Maybe every ad is doing great across the board, or maybe some ad units are doing well on desktop but not on mobile (or vice versa).

CTR and Active View Viewable are two key metrics to check first. Active View Viewable shows how many of your total measurable impressions were truly viewable. Google considers an ad viewable if 50% of the ad is visible for at least one second*. With some impressions, for instance, the visitor may not scroll down your page to see an ad.

If an ad unit has an active view percentage below 50%, check the ad's placement and try to improve this.

Hungry to learn even more? Take it one step further by filtering the report for any individual ad unit that you would like to analyze.

4. The Platforms report: Compare platforms

The Platforms report enables you to see which devices your ad units were viewed on, for example, on desktop or mobile. You can see and compare the traffic and estimated revenue coming from any platform. If there’s a big discrepancy between these two, you might want to check the desktop ad placement and find ways to optimize it to close the revenue gap as much as you can.

5. The Sites report: Compare different domains

Manage multiple domains in your AdSense account? The Sites report can compare the overall performance of those domains.

If you have different versions of one site (like one for desktop and one for mobile), you'll see them separately. If you have a responsive site you can add Platforms as a secondary report dimension to analyze your mobile and desktop performance separately.

Start with these big five and you'll be getting a good basic view of how your site is running. Most of these reports can be found in the Common reports section under your Performance reports tab. You can also create your own reports and save them to run later.

Have a favorite report? Share it with us in the comments!

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Cansu Özaras

Publisher Monetization Specialist

Source: Inside AdSense

How to improve your AdSense performance with Google Analytics

Want to freshen up the AdSense performance on your site? Google Analytics can help. Here are some simple and effective places to start.

1. Find out where to focus

Content Groups let you bundle your offerings to analyze them more clearly. Instead of analyzing all shoes at once, for instance, a shoe company might divide content into shoes for adults and kids, for men and women, or by tennis shoes and high heels. You can view and compare aggregated metrics by group, or drill down to any individual URL or page title.

Suppose you want to know: What topics have the best AdSense CTRs?

Group content by topic (such as food, politics and sport)
Use the AdSense Pages report to view metrics

Once you learn which topics have the best clickthrough rates, you could then focus on creating more content for those topics.

Suppose you want to know: Which product groups have slow-loading pages?

Group products by type (such as shirts and shoes)
Use Page Speed reports to look at page load performance

Are some pages very slow? You might focus on fixing uncompressed images to improve the user experience (and your AdSense revenue).

Content Groups are easy to set up. Learn how to create them and then follow these best practices from Google Analytics evangelist Justin Cutroni.

2. Understand where your users arrive and leave

A Landing Pages report can show you how engaged visitors are with your content. You can analyze individual pages or the Content Groups we just talked about.

Suppose you want to know: What pages cause visitors to leave?

Look for pages with high bounce rates, this usually indicates content that isn't appealing to visitors or is irrelevant to their needs
Try changing the headline of your article or finding better images
You may also want to analyze the page speed for pages with high bounce rates; visitors may be giving up on a very slow-loading page

Both Content Groups and Landing Page reports can help you find underperforming pages on your site and take action to fix them.

3. Get to know your users

Demographics and Interests data helps you understand the age and gender of your users, as well as their interests based on their online browsing and buying.

Suppose you want to know: How old are my visitors?

Try Demographics Report > Age
Check the bounce rate: if it’s high, consider changing the headline or the visuals to make your pages more relevant and engaging for your target audience

Suppose you want to know: What are my users interested in?

Try an Interests report
Then shape your content based on the user interests you see; if viewers of you tech blog are interested in photography, try publishing more articles on that theme

To get started with the Demographics and Interests reports, enable them in your Analytics account.

The key to making your site better is to jump into the data, have fun, and experiment. Find out what works and do more of it. Have any ideas to share about using these reports? Add them in the comments below!

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Stephen Dunleavy

AdSense Analytics Expert

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Tag Archives: Tips

Maps Minutes Hack #5: Make your holiday detours easier with Google Maps

Source: Google LatLong