[Inside AdSense] Optimisation Essentials (Part III)

Position for performance - be noticed

This is the final video installment in our three-part series on
Optimisation Essentials for AdSense for content. We've covered the
best-performing ad unit sizes and taken a look at how to design your
ad units for good-looking ads. However, even if you have large, well-
designed ad units, they won't perform for you unless your users can
see them!

So what can you do to ensure your ad units get noticed? Place your ads
where users are likely to look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3SGp7-hQo4

We've also made a heatmap at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17954
to show you where the best placements are on a typical page. Great
positions include:

* Above the fold of a page (the section of the page a user can see
without scrolling)
* At the end of an article
* Aligned with content

But don't just take our word for it - every website is different. Make
sure you use your judgment of how visitors interact with your pages to
determine good ad placements. Position your ads so that they're
visible, but be careful of intruding on the experience of your site's
visitors. Most of all, think like a user and you'll be able to balance
your website's content with a successful ad strategy.

Posted by Mel Ann Chan - AdSense Australia Optimisation Team
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 10:35:00 AM

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[Inside AdSense] Now serving overlay ads in embedded YouTube partner videos

Today, to help its video content partners earn more money, YouTube will begin running overlay ads in YouTube partner videos embedded on other websites. To date, YouTube has only run ads against partner videos on YouTube itself, and with people viewing millions of embedded YouTube videos every day, this meant that partners were not generating revenue from their views outside YouTube.com. But now, YouTube partners will be able to capitalize on their popularity across the internet and generate revenue from their content no matter where their video lives.

Although this may sound similar to AdSense video units, this YouTube change is separate from AdSense, and we'd like to discuss the differences between the two offerings.

Let's start with a refresher on AdSense video units, which are available within AdSense accounts in specific languages and regions. Video units help you enrich your website with fresh, dynamic content from our YouTube partners. Each video unit is accompanied by a banner ad and a overlay ad targeted towards the video and the site's content, and is customizable so you can choose categories of video to target to your site. The ad revenue is divided between the AdSense publisher, YouTube, and the YouTube partner providing the video content.

But AdSense video units aren't the only way our YouTube partners can distribute their content -- just as with other YouTube videos, it's possible for anyone with a website to embed partner videos on their sites. Now, following today's announcement, thousands of videos produced by YouTube partners will begin displaying overlay ads when embedded on other websites. (YouTube will gradually roll out these ads to additional YouTube partner videos in the coming weeks.) This feature is external to AdSense, and so no configuration within an AdSense account is needed. Revenue from these ads will be divided between YouTube and the YouTube partner providing the video content.

By helping YouTube partners generate additional revenue no matter where their videos are played, we hope to encourage further content creation among our most popular and prolific video creators. If you create your own video content and are interested in becoming a YouTube partner, submit an application today.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/13/2008 10:00:00 A
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[Inside AdSense] Optimisation Essentials (Part II)

Dress for success - impressing your audience

The video below is the second in our "Optimisation Essentials" series,
demonstrating our top three tips for maximising your AdSense for
Content performance. Last week, we reinforced the importance of bigger
ad units. This week, we're showcasing how a better ad unit design can
result in improved AdSense performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SPctunvWhU

(Please note that no leopards were harmed in the making of this
video!)

Over the years, we've seen some colourful ad unit designs. Some
publishers design ad units that contrast with their site so that they
stand out. Although this can work in some cases, we've found that ad
units that match your site's design tend to perform better in terms of
revenue and click-through-rate. Users are more likely to read ads when
they're well integrated into your site.

When you design your AdSense ads, keep these tips in mind:

* Use colours that either blend with or complement your site's
colours. Make the ads a part of your site.
* Use lighter colours for borders, or no border at all.
* Try rotating colours or occasionally switching the location of
your ads on the page.
* Save sets of frequently-used colours as a palette.

So give your ad design and colours some thought, and you'll notice the
difference!

Posted by Mel Ann Chan - AdSense Australia Optimisation Team
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 9:48:00 AM

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[Inside AdSense] Political ads on AdSense sites

During the recent U.S. election period, our team heard your concerns and feedback regarding political ads appearing on publisher sites. As a Product Manager who helps build the AdSense product, I'd like to take a moment to explain our ad targeting technology and policies, and what we're working on to offer you even more controls.

Ad Targeting

I wanted to help clarify first how advertisers are able to target your sites. As you know, ads that appear on AdSense sites are provided by advertisers participating in the AdWords program. To help publishers earn revenue, advertisers are able to target ads not only based on the content of a site, but also based on the audience of the site. When we first started AdSense in 2003, we only offered contextually-targeted ads; advertisers bid on keywords, and our system matched those keywords to the content of publishers' pages. As we developed the product, we expanded these targeting capabilities. For instance, placement targeting allows advertisers to select specific topics, sites, and pages on which they want their ads to run. In the U.S., our placement targeting tool also allows advertisers to find sites serving a specific audience, such as "Males ages 18-24."

To help new and existing publishers better understand our targeting options, our support teams will be reviewing and expanding the material available on our Help Center and homepage to make sure it better communicates our offerings. In addition, we'll be exploring different methods of explaining this information, such as through webinars and videos, and demonstrating how publishers can optimize their sites to take advantage of these targeting options.

Advertising Policies

We also received questions about why political ads are able to run on Google and AdSense sites. The Google advertising program is managed by a set of editorial policies that we have developed based on various factors, including user and customer experience. While Google or its executives and employees may express opinions about specific political issues and candidates, Google's advertising system does not favor one political position over another. Our network provides advertisers with a way to reach their audience, whether they are companies selling products or political campaigns promoting candidates or issues. Just as Google's advertising system does not favor one car manufacturer's ads over a competitor's in our auction, we also allow ads regardless of the particular political position they represent.

Publisher Ad Control

As we've expanded to new forms of advertiser targeting, we've also added controls for the ads that can appear on your sites. Our automated targeting technology will never understand your users as well as you, so it's important that you have the ability to control their ad experience. For example, we mentioned earlier this week that tools such as the Competitive Ad Filter and Ad Review Center are designed for you to prevent specific ads from appearing on your pages.

We've heard your feedback about how quickly filters take effect and the ability to block specific categories of ads, and we're working hard to improve our current controls and provide more powerful ones in the near future. Over the next couple weeks, we plan to improve the speed of your filters, and we're working towards filters in the future that will take effect in less than an hour. We'll also continue improving the Ad Review Center, giving you ways to block entire categories of ads in addition to individual ads. We are also working on ways for you to establish guidelines for the type of ads that will be acceptable to your users, so you can "set it and forget it," while feeling comfortable that users will have a good ad experience.

One of our goals with AdSense is to help you easily generate revenue for your site without much work, so that you have more time to focus on developing great content. Many of our best ideas, like the Ad Review Center, are inspired by your feedback and suggestions. Please keep letting us know how we can make AdSense a better product.

Posted by Jason Miller - Group Product Manager, AdSense

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/07/2008 04:24:00 P
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[Inside AdSense] Site maintenance on Saturday, November 8

Our engineers will be performing routine site maintenance tomorrow, November 8th at 10 am PST. Although you won't be able to log in to your account for approximately 4 hours, your ad targeting and serving won't be affected, and you'll continue to be credited for valid clicks and impressions.

Here's the start time in a few international cities:

London - 6pm Saturday
Johannesburg - 8pm Saturday
Madurai - 11:30pm Saturday
Manila - 2am Sunday
Sydney - 5am Sunday

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/07/2008 03:19:00 PM
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[Inside AdSense] Block this way

When we notice a spike in readers who are interested in a specific topic, we like to address it as soon as we can. There's been some interest in filtering ads from publisher pages, so here's a quick refresher on the filtering tools we offer:

Competitive Ad Filter

You can restrict contextually-targeted and placement-targeted ads from appearing on your pages by adding the URL of each ad to your Competitive Ad Filter. After logging in to your account, click the AdSense Setup tab and visit the 'Competitive Ad Filter' page. You can also find full instructions and tips for entering in specific URLs in our Help Center. To determine the URL of an ad, try the AdSense Preview Tool or follow these steps. Please keep in mind that it may take several hours for the filter to take effect.

Ad Review Center

The Ad Review Center gives you additional control over the placement-targeted ads that may appear on your pages. Using the Ad Review Center, you can review specific ad groups and advertisers before they appear on your pages, and also block ads by type. You'll need to opt in to the Ad Review Center at the top of your Competitive Ad Filter page, and then you can begin reviewing ads.

Posted by Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/03/2008 06:24:00 P
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[Inside AdSense] Optimisation Essentials (Part I)

Bigger is better - for AdSense ad units

AdSense for content is the bread and butter of many of our publishers,
and we often receive requests to recommend strategies to improve
AdSense performance on publisher sites. While we refer to this as
'optimisation', we understand that this term can make the process
sound more difficult than it really is. In response, we're releasing a
three-part video series that demonstrates, in plain English, our top
tips for increasing your AdSense earnings.

This week, we're recommending you think big - big ad units, that is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrKGucKThNs

Publishers often ask us what the best ad sizes are to include in their
site's design, and we always point them to these three:

* 300x250 medium rectangle
* 728x90 leaderboard
* 160x600 skyscraper

These ad units have proven in the past to deliver better results for
both publishers and advertisers. Advertisers favour these formats, and
if you've receiving all ad types, you'll find that advertisers will
specifically target your sites more often. If you position your ad
units well, users will be more likely to see these ad formats and find
an ad that they're interested in.

When you're considering how to design your site, our testing has shown
that displaying at least one of these ad formats on your page can
increase your AdSense earnings potential. So remember, sometimes
bigger is better!

Posted by Mel Ann Chan - AdSense Australia Optimisation Team
Monday, November 03, 2008 at 11:26:00 AM

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