Adsense tricks: November 2013

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Improving the user experience with new mobile anchor ads

Over the past few months, we've regularly talked about the growing number of users accessing publisher content via mobile devices, and the importance of creating a positive user experience across all devices. In this same spirit, we're happy to let you know about mobile anchor ads for smartphones, a new feature we're starting to make available that's focused on giving users a better experience with ads on mobile devices.

Mobile anchor ads work by allowing a 320x50 banner ad unit to be anchored to the bottom of the smartphone screen, staying there when your users scroll up or down the page. At the same time, users remain in control -- they can dismiss an ad when they find it's not relevant or want to free up the screen space, simply by swiping the ad left or right. When this happens, the anchor ad will fade and be dismissed and no other anchor ad will display unless the user reloads or visits another page.

The mobile anchor ads experience reflects our continued focus on providing users with control. As we've seen from our TrueView video ads and Mute this ad feature, users prefer having choice and control when it comes to viewing ads. In addition, the prominence of mobile anchor ads will give advertisers enhanced visibility while helping improve performance for you, and also remove the need to overload your mobile pages with ads.

We've started enabling this feature for a select group of publishers today, and will gradually roll it out to everyone over the coming months.

Thanks for all of the feedback you've provided to date on adapting to the multi-screen environment. Please do continue to share your suggestions so we can keep improving AdSense for you. Watch this space for more news and updates in the near future!

Posted by Pasha Nahass - AdSense Product Manager

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/26/2013 12:16:00 PM

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Friday, November 22, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Got an app? Increase revenue by building a website too

At some point most app developers will be faced with the question: 'What's the best way to monetize my app?'. There are many business models, but many don't think about the additional opportunities to earn revenue from content they've already created. Izumi Artisan is a Japanese developer who's been successful in earning money from his app, then using the content to create a website to earn additional income. We will explore his strategy in this post.

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[Goal]

Maximize revenue from the web
Improve user experience
Expand business overseas

[Approach]

Monetize both website and app
Create an environment where the users can help each other to finish the game

[Results]

40% of the total revenue came from the website
Improved profitability and usability with low overhead

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'Old Offender was the very first app that we made'

At the time of building our first app, my brother and I didn't have engineering skills. So I went to a local book store and bought "Java for the First Time", and taught myself how to make a mobile app. I chose to make escape games because the programming needed to build one was relatively simple. Also, there were not many other similar apps for smartphones in that category. So we worked together and published 'Old Offender: Escape from Prison' as our first gaming app.

'Ads are better than a paid business model'

When considering the monetization method, we chose ads. At that time, paid apps were not that popular in Japan. Now, we're using multiple ad networks using a mediation tool, and for foreign countries we're only using AdMob.

'We saw a 60% revenue increase by using Google AdSense'

After we launched the app we had feedback from users asking for hint-and-tips, so I immediately decided to take action. We chose to make a bulletin board website where users can interact with each other to find the answer to a challenge in the game. My brother designed the website and had it ready within a week. We also signed up for Google Adsense to post ads on the website. Signing up and implementing AdSense did not take more than 2 days and we were able to stat monetize our website with the least resource but high impact. Furthermore, we saw a 60% revenue increase by using Google AdSense and the web business is now 40% of the sales of the company.

Posted by Yuya Sumida - Account Manager
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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/22/2013 10:34:00 AM

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Get the right insights quickly with the new AdSense homepage

As the first thing you see when you log into your AdSense account, your homepage is an important source of information on how your site is performing. We know it's essential that this page gives you access to the most relevant and actionable information possible. With this in mind, we've been gathering and closely analyzing your feedback; today, we're happy to share our newly-designed homepage and invite you to give it a try!

Some publishers have let us know that they want more insights from Google on ways to increase revenue, while others who log in to their accounts throughout the day want to be able to quickly access the right performance data. The new homepage has been designed to give you easier access to our recommendations and insights, not only to increase your monetization but also improve the user experience on your site. At the same time, it emphasizes the key information you need to know and any immediate actions to take.

Here are some of the main enhancements you can expect to see:

The new Insights stream on the right-hand side of the page provides personalized recommendations for your account, such as monetization opportunities and tips to enhance user experience, which can be put into action in just a few clicks.
Your key account stats for today are quick and easy to view and now provide comparison data such as earnings so far this month versus the same period last month.
The new Performance Today section gives you quick access to more detailed information like your countries and platforms reports, without requiring additional clicks.
Your Scorecard will continue to be prominent on your homepage, providing quick benchmarking information on how your site is performing relative to the sites of other AdSense publishers.

Try out the new homepage directly from your account. You'll still be able to revert back to your old homepage layout if needed. We encourage you to share your feedback on these updates with us so we can continue to improve the homepage for you. Head over to our AdSense +page to let us know if you've enabled the new homepage, and stay tuned for additional account improvements we're working to develop.

Posted by Matt Goodridge - AdSense Product Manager

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/20/2013 09:17:00 AM

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Tune in to our Hangouts On Air on going multi-screen

We've recently been sharing a lot of information about how user behavior is changing in our multi-screen world, and the importance of having a multi-device strategy. To continue the conversation and help you find the right multi-screen strategy for your site, our team based in Asia-Pacific will be hosting three online Learn with Google Hangouts On Air.

During these sessions, we'll also take a look at some of the most common questions around implementing a multi-device strategy, share some examples, and provide tips on how to get started.

See below for more information about these sessions and how to RSVP.

Introductory: Go Multi-Screen - Principles & Recommendations

Date: 26th November Time: 14:00 - 15:00 SGT (GMT +8)**

Gain insights into the most common mobile consumer behaviour and learn about the most common approaches to building a mobile solution.
Hear insights on user experience, content optimization, and page speed.
Recommended for all publishers.

Advanced I. Responsive Design: What, Why & How

Date: 28th November Time: 14:00 - 15:00 SGT (GMT +8)**

Hands-on session to learn more about going responsive.
Followed by a Q&A session and best-practice sharing with the AdSense Team.
Recommended for those who are considering designing a responsive website.

Advanced II. Building a Great App

Date: 5th December Time: 14:00 - 15:00 SGT (GMT +8)**

Building an app can be an alternative to building a mobile solution or can be created as part of your multi-device strategy. Learn why and how to build a great app for your content.
Find out how to promote and monetize your apps.
Recommended for those who have built or are considering building a mobile app.

Interested in live streaming the Hangouts On Air?

Click here to RSVP

** Can't watch the sessions live? Don't worry, a recording of each Hangout On Air will be added to the event pages shortly after the live broadcast so you can watch the material when it's most convenient for you.

Posted by Fouad Howayek - Inside AdSense Team

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/19/2013 09:45:00 AM

Monday, November 18, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Make the most of the holiday season - tune in to our e-commerce Hangout On Air

As one of the busiest times for e-commerce publishers approaches, make sure you're ready to optimize for a holiday bump in traffic. There's a couple of critical key factors to consider. First, is your site as user-friendly as it could be? Your site should provide a great experience for your users across their devices — this will help you maintain relationships with your returning visitors and engage new ones.

Another important area to look at is whether you have a complete monetization strategy in place. On average only 1-5% of traffic on an e-commerce site will convert to a sale, so it's important to know what options are available to monetize the visits that don't convert.

Tune in to our e-commerce Hangout On Air on Tuesday, November 26th, where we'll talk through some of the steps you can take to ensure your site is well set up to capture the seasonal opportunity. We'll also answer a few of your questions, which you can submit when you RSVP to watch the live stream. During this session, we'll cover the following topics:

Principles of user experience for e-commerce publishers
The importance of a user-friendly mobile site
How to maximize your non-conversion revenue with advertising solutions

Click here to RSVP

Posted by Anntao Diaz - Inside AdSense Team
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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/18/2013 04:17:00 PM

Monday, November 11, 2013

How to monetize your mobile site?

As a part of the multi-device series, we previously looked at the importance of going multi-device as well as three different structures for building multi-screen websites. Regardless of which approach you choose there's a monetization solution to help you optimize revenues through your digital content.

Google AdSense is the main Google product for monetizing mobile sites, while AdMob is the Google product for monetizing mobile apps. Today we will focus on using AdSense for content, (AFC) and Custom Search Ads, (CSA) to fit your mobile solution. Both AFC mobile and CSA mobile can be implemented inside your existing AdSense account. Mobile websites that supports older, feature phones still using WAP will need to use the older solution, AdSense for mobile. However, it's more likely that your site has been designed for iPhone, Android, or another high-end device, in which case you simply use standard AFC ad units that fit your mobile site.

The AFC ad code you use with your desktop site is the same code used for your mobile site, the only difference is that you'll want to choose ad sizes optimized for mobile. As you can see here, the ad-size we've selected is '320 x 50' Mobile banner:

What's even easier is that most of the same optimization tips used for desktop, also apply with mobile. We've found that the 320x50 and 300x250 tend to monetize best on mobile. Here we've listed some initial optimization tips to get you started:

Try different ad sizes (320x50, 300x250, 200x200, 250x250) and note that you can now also create ad units to fit your responsive site.
Try different ad positioning
Change the look and feel of the ad (color, font, borders)
Implement up to three ad units

If your site contains a proprietary search functionality, you'll be able to monetize with CSA mobile. However, if you use the Google search bar then this won't be the solution for you. Some verticals that tend to be good candidates for CSA are job search, classifieds, travel, real estate, and e-commerce sites. Along with the monetization benefits, CSA ads are highly customizable so it's very easy to modify the look and feel of these ads, to align them to your mobile site.

Next week we'll look more at AdMob, our mobile solution for apps. In the meantime, don't forget to keep an eye on our Google+ page to find out what's going on as well as staying up to date with product enhancements in our Help Center. If you missed the first posts in the multi-device series, you can find them here: 1. Get your multi-device strategy off the ground, 2. What's the best mobile solution for you?.

Posted by Federico Gomez Kodela - Mobile Specialist

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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

[Inside AdSense] A/B experiments for ad unit settings - the easy way

If you're a regular blog reader, you know that we regularly emphasize the importance of testing changes to your ads to ensure they're performing as well as they could be. The most effective way to do so is by running an A/B experiment to compare how one setting performs against a slight variation of that setting. To make it even easier for you to run A/B experiments, today we're releasing a new AdSense experiments feature for your ad unit settings.

This new feature is available directly from your AdSense account and lets you quickly create, run and analyze A/B experiments for specific ad units -- all without needing to make any changes to your ad or page code. It works by comparing your original ad unit settings to a variation you choose, and ultimately tells you which one performs better. Here are just a few examples of the types of tests you can run:

Compare the performance of text-only ads to ads that have both text and display enabled
Determine how ads with a visible border perform compared to those that are 'borderless' (where the color of the border matches the background of the page)
Analyze the effect of changing the color of ad text on ad performance

Approximately 24 hours after you set up an experiment in your account, you'll see a confidence score for the two ad units settings. This score indicates how likely the original or the variation is to be the better performing setting in the long term. Confidence scores may change as the experiment progresses, and we recommend waiting until one of the scores reaches at least 95% before choosing that setting as the winner. Once you chose the winning setting, the experiment ends and the setting is automatically applied to the specific ad unit. Please note that while an experiment is running, our system will automatically optimize the traffic split between the two ad unit settings. The better one setting performs, the more traffic it will receive, helping you maximize your revenue potential even during the experiment.

Give A/B experiments a try using this new feature to ensure you're getting the most out of your ad units. To learn more about AdSense experiments, visit our Help Center. We look forward to hearing what you think - feel free to share your thoughts and feedback on our AdSense +page.

Posted by Nick Radicevic - AdSense Product Manager

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/06/2013 08:34:00 AM

Friday, November 1, 2013

[Inside AdSense] What’s the best mobile solution for you?

Last week we looked at how to analyze your traffic to get an understanding of which platforms your audience is using to reach you. By comparing the content that your users are accessing via desktop, mobile, and tablet, you'll gain insights into which implementation will best suit your business. In today's post, we'll look at the three most common ways of doing this. We'll explore building a responsively designed site, dynamic serving solutions, and lastly, a separate mobile site.

Responsive Web Design (RWD):

A responsively built site automatically rearranges and resizes content to fit the screen of any device used to access the site. This allows you to optimize the user experience across different devices - without needing to create redirects or make unique pages that cater to each platform. For the user, this means a smooth user journey, and for a content manager, it means content only needs to be updated once. From a developer viewpoint, RWD may require rebuilding your site framework with flexible templates, grids, style sheets and JavaScript but with very rewarding results. Take a look at this case study to see how TowerGate Insurance adapted RWD to increase mobile and tablet users by over 200%.

Dynamic Serving of Content:

Another solution is to dynamically serve content. Similar to RWD, with this approach the web server detects the type of device the visitor is using and presents a custom page on the same URL. This allows for a fully customised device experience, but also means that your content will need to be maintained separately for each platform. To ensure your users have a smooth navigational experience, prioritize building dynamic content for the most popular pages that users are accessing through mobile, and similarly apply the same for tablet.

Separate Mobile Site:

The final implementation you might want to consider is creating a separate mobile site, where smartphone users will be directed to a mobile-optimized version of your site. This implementation allows you fully customise your content for a mobile audience, since it's often an independently hosted solution. Similar to creating dynamic serving content, this means you need to make separate updates for content or styling pieces to ensure a smooth user experience. Take a look at how Adidas reached a winning formula with their dedicated mobile solution.

To read more about what we've discussed today or to find a list of recommended vendors that can help you to develop your mobile solution, check out this article by the Google Think Insights team. Also, join us next week when we're going to take a look at how you can best use AdSense to monetize your mobile sites.

Posted by Federico Gomez Kodela - Mobile Specialist
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Adsense tricks

Blog Archive

About Me

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Improving the user experience with new mobile anchor ads

Friday, November 22, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Got an app? Increase revenue by building a website too

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Get the right insights quickly with the new AdSense homepage

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Tune in to our Hangouts On Air on going multi-screen

Monday, November 18, 2013

[Inside AdSense] Make the most of the holiday season - tune in to our e-commerce Hangout On Air

Monday, November 11, 2013

How to monetize your mobile site?

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

[Inside AdSense] A/B experiments for ad unit settings - the easy way

Friday, November 1, 2013

[Inside AdSense] What’s the best mobile solution for you?