Adsense tricks

Monday, November 7, 2011

[Inside AdSense] Grow your audience with Google+

At Google, we help grow your audience by connecting you with new users. We introduced the +1 button so your site would stand out on search and your users could easily share your content on Google+. But, sometimes you want to join the conversation and post content directly to where people are sharing.

Today we're introducing Google+ for Business, a collection of tools and products that help you grow your audience. At the core of this is Google+ Pages, your site's identity on Google+.

Google+ Pages: Have real conversations with the right people
To get your site on Google+, you first need to create a Google+ Page. On your page, you can engage in conversations with your visitors, direct readers back to your site for the latest updates, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1's you have across the web. Google+ Pages will help you build relationships with your users, encouraging them to spend more time engaging with your content.

Google+ Pages are at the heart of Google+ for Business

Hangouts

Sometimes you might want to chat with your users face-to-face. For example, if you run a food blog, you may want to invite a chef to talk about her favorite recipe, or if you manage a fashion review site, beauty specialists might want to hold how-to sessions with makeup tips. Hangouts make this easy, by letting you have high-quality video chats with nine people with a single click. You can use Hangouts to hold live forums, break news or simply get to know people better, all in real time.

Hangouts let you meet your customers, face-to-face

Circles

Circles allow you to group followers of your Page into smaller audiences. You can then share specific messages with specific groups. For example, you could create a Circle containing your most loyal readers and offer them exclusive content.
The Google+ badge: Grow your audience on Google+

To help your users find your page and start sharing, there are two buttons you can add to your site by visiting our Google+ badge configuration tool:

The Google+ icon, a small icon that directly links to your Page.

The Google+ badge, which we're introducing in the coming days. This badge lets people add your page to their circles without leaving your site, and allows them to get updates from your site via Google+.

Extend the power of +1, stand out in Google search
You can also link your site to your Google+ page so that all your +1s -- from your Page, your website, and search results -- will get tallied together and appear as a single total. Potential visitors will be more likely to see the recommendations your site has received, whether they're looking at a search result, your website, or your Page, meaning your +1's will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day. You can link your site to your Page either using the Google+ badge or with a piece of code. To set this up, visit our Google+ badge configuration tool.

Bringing Google+ to the rest of Google

Our ultimate vision for Google+ is to transform the overall Google experience -- weaving identity and sharing into all of our products. Beginning today, we're rolling out a new experimental feature to a small group of eligible publishers, Google+ Direct Connect -- an easy way for your audience to find your Google+ Page on Google search. If you've linked your Page to your site and you qualify, when someone searches for your website's name with the '+' sign before it Direct Connect will send them directly to your Page. For example, try searching for '+YouTube' on Google. Users will also be prompted to automatically add Pages they find through Direct Connect to their circles.

Direct Connect suggestions start populating as you type on Google.com

Just the beginning
We want to help you get your site on Google+ as soon as possible, so we're opening the field trial for Google+ Pages to everyone today. Creating a Google+ Page only takes a few minutes. To get started, you'll need a personal Google+ profile. If you don't have a Google account, it's very quick and easy to join. And if you're looking for inspiration, check out some of the sites that are already starting to set up their Pages:

To learn more about how Google+ works for your site, check out the Google+ Your Business site. We're just getting started, and have many more features planned for the coming weeks and months. To keep up to date on the latest news and tips, add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. If you have ideas on how we can improve Google+ for your site, we'd love to hear them.

Posted by Dennis Troper, Product Management Director, Google+ Pages

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/07/2011 10:20:00 AM

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Thursday, November 3, 2011

[Inside AdSense] Updates on the AdSense mobile interface and low bandwidth version

If you've tried out the mobile-optimized AdSense interface that we launched in March, you know that it gives you quick access to important information from your account including earnings, basic reports and some alerts, without the need for Flash. Starting today, you can access this same interface from most desktop browsers as a low bandwidth version -- this is particularly helpful if you're using a slower internet connection. You can toggle between the the different versions by clicking the links "Classic / Low bandwidth" in the top right corner of the screen. Please note that your preferences are saved for both mobile and desktop versions. For example if you've accessed the low bandwidth version from your desktop, we will show you this interface first the next time you log into your account.

When you use the mobile interface or low bandwidth version and navigate to the Home tab, you'll be able to see your estimated and finalized earnings, quick links to standard and saved reports, and account alerts. In the Reports tab, you'll find quick reports (aggregated data for 7 days, 30 days, current month, last month) and your saved reports. In addition, you now have more insights on earnings as you can see data on Page Views, Clicks, Page CTR, CPC, Page RPM and Estimated earnings in a table underneath the earnings graph.

Stay tuned for more new features to come in the future. In the meantime, try the enhanced mobile-optimized and low bandwidth AdSense interface. As always, you can find more information in our Help Center.

Posted by William Montgomery -- AdSense Engineering

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/03/2011 08:15:00 AM

Monday, October 31, 2011

[Inside AdSense] Bringing the benefits of TrueView to our video publishers

It's no secret that I watch a lot of video ads. It's one of the perks (or pains!) of working in the video advertising business. And yet, I was surprised to see that my younger cousins were gathered around a laptop showing each other their favorite ads over the weekend. Maybe it runs in the family. More likely, people just love watching great content and engaging ads. Every statistic we've seen shows that sharing and watching online videos has become a part of everyday life, and that the gap between video ad spend and audience attention is slowly narrowing. At Google, we're always trying to improve the experience of watching video ads. With that in mind, we're rolling out a new ad format called TrueView to our network of video publishers.

TrueView ads, pioneered on YouTube, differ from traditional video ads in two main ways. First, they give viewers choice - for example, the ad may be skippable or present a choice of ads to watch. Second, TrueView ads are sold through a Cost Per View (CPV) basis. You may be familiar with Cost Per Click (CPC) where the advertiser pays when someone clicks on their ad; similarly with CPV ads, advertisers are charged when a viewer chooses to watch the ad.

For example, say you're about to watch an interview with the makers of a new movie on The Hollywood Reporter. A TrueView in-stream video ad will start to play and a counter will appear giving you the option, after five seconds, to skip the ad and continue watching the video.

We believe TrueView is a win for users, publishers and advertisers. Users have more control over the ads they see. Advertisers get to combine the engagement of video with the precision of online advertising. And publishers see higher returns, since advertisers value a truly engaged audience.

A small group of our AdSense for video publishers are already using TrueView ads on a portion of their video inventory, and have seen RPMs equal or better than standard pre-roll ads, while dramatically improving the user experience. TrueView video ads also help to decrease audience drop-off rates by 40% on YouTube Partner sites when compared to regular in-stream ads, which means more viewers are continuing to watch videos.

One of our partners The Hollywood Reporter has been experimenting with TrueView ads and has already seen a significant increase in viewer retention. Product Manager Reed Halstrom tells us, "We've seen video views increase by 21% and viewed minutes increase by 17% since we started using TrueView ads."

If you have existing video content on your site and are interested in gaining access to TrueView video ads through AdSense for video, please leave your details by completing our online form. We're committed to improving the overall online video viewing experience and will continue to work with our publishers and advertisers to make that happen - which should come as no surprise.

Posted by Payam Shodjai, Lead Product Manager, Video Monetization

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/31/2011 07:08:00 AM

Friday, October 28, 2011

[Inside AdSense] Highlighting Ad Titles

As we continue to improve and launch new features, we're always interested in hearing your ideas and feedback. Many of you have shared that you want to be able to change the title color of ads when a user moves their mouse over the title link. After a period of testing, we found that this feature resulted in higher earnings for publishers while also increasing user and advertiser value. We are pleased to announce today that we have updated all text ads with this change.

As you can imagine, there are numerous combinations of link and background color across the ad units on all publisher pages. After extensive testing, we have found that the color of the change itself can make a big difference: the wrong shade can even be detrimental to clickthrough rate (CTR). To determine the color that the title link will change to when a user places their mouse cursor over it, we'll take your chosen title color and find a nearly complementary color on the color wheel. For example, a blue title would change to red. These colors outperformed all the others we tested.

We'll continue to keep studying the effects of color on CTR and ad performance to bring you more enhancements in the future. Please also feel free to keep sharing your product feedback and suggestions!

Posted by Stephen Yuan, AdSense Engineering

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/28/2011 08:15:00 AM

Thursday, October 27, 2011

[Inside AdSense] View your earnings from Google-certified ad networks

Back in August 2009, we started to allow multiple Google-certified ad networks to compete against AdWords ads for the display ad space on your sites. We're pleased to announce that you now have access to a new report that allows you to to view earnings by ad network.

As a refresher, the Google-certified ad networks feature is powered by DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and allows additional networks to compete in the auction to help you earn the most revenue possible. We're confident that our vast AdWords inventory can provide the highest paying ad, but on the few occasions when it can't, this feature simply allows more ads to be eligible to appear on your pages. This increased competition can potentially lead to higher earnings for you in the long run. Note that the auction process doesn't change with these ad networks – our system will still always show the highest-paying ads, whether they're from these Google-certified ad networks or the AdWords program.

With today's new report, you'll be able to see a breakdown of impressions, clicks, and earnings by Google-certified ad network. To view this report, log in to your account and visit the Performance reports tab. Click 'Ad networks' in the side navigation to see which networks served ads on your pages and how they performed. When comparing the performance of different ad networks, bear in mind that some metrics like RPM can be affected by networks targeting certain value impressions. Please note that there is no historical data prior to September 27, 2011.

Google-certified ad networks bring you all the benefits of working with multiple networks but also with the safety, convenience and controls offered by AdSense. All third party networks are required to adhere to our standards for ad quality, speed and user privacy. In addition, you have the ability to block entire networks and control ad blocking via the Ad review center. Please do keep in mind that blocking specific networks can reduce the number of eligible ads to appear on your pages and may affect your overall earnings. Just like with AdWords ads, the more ads competing to appear on your pages, the more you can potentially earn.

For more information about Google-certified ad networks, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Vincent Zanotti - AdSense Engineering

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/27/2011 09:30:00 AM

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

[Inside AdSense] Policy webinars recap

Based on your feedback from our previous blog posts, we've heard you'd like to learn more about our policies. Over the past few months, the AdSense Policy team has hosted webinars with publishers from across North America, Russia, Turkey, Poland, Italy, and France. In keeping with our monthly policy tips, we'd like to take this time to recap on our recent publisher events and to summarize our findings for you.

Policies are in place for the success of publishers and advertisers. One of the common pieces of feedback we hear from AdSense publishers who are just starting out is that there's a lot of information to read about the program. We understand that it can be challenging navigating our policies, and frustrating not being able to talk to a policy specialist directly. As a result, our policy team was available to answer your top questions during these recent webinars. In addition, the Policy team delivered a condensed overview of common policy violations to avoid and general best practices and tips to help maintain your account in good standing.

We went through a run-through of live demos and examples, which attendees told us were helpful. Many found that overall the sessions were helpful and that they gained a good understanding of our policies. Many publishers were unaware of the resources available to help you with policy notifications in our Help Center. We've posted your top policy questions and our answers on our Google Moderator page, which we encourage you to take a look at. If you'd like to listen to a recording of our presentation, please watch our YouTube video.

We'd like to thank all of you for your great feedback and questions. If you found the policy webinars valuable or have suggestions on which topics you'd like to hear about next, let us know by leaving a comment below. If you're interested in attending future events like these, make sure that you're opted in to 'Special Offers' in your email preferences within your AdSense account. We look forward to hosting more policy webinars in the future, and look for more policy updates from us by subscribing to the AdSense blog.

Posted by Cecelia Choi, AdSense Policy Specialist

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/19/2011 09:00:00 AM

Thursday, October 13, 2011

[Inside AdSense] Introducing ad styles: an enhanced feature replacing color palettes

If you've been following our announcements in the last few weeks, you know we've been committed to bringing you features that you've been missing from the old AdSense interface. We're now launching another long-requested feature: ad styles. Ad styles extend and enhance all of the functionality of our old color palettes. With ad styles, you can create customized combinations of colors, fonts, and corner styles and then easily apply these to the ad units and search engines across your site.

The best part about ad styles is that when you edit an ad style in the new interface, any ad units or search engines that are using this style will automatically be updated with your changes. So if you want to test a new color for the ad units on your site to see how it performs, you can create a new ad style and apply it to some of your ad units. If it performs well you can then apply it to all of the ad units in your account or revert back to your old colors just as easily. We think this feature will save you time by eliminating the need to re-assign the colors to each ad unit individually.

To create a new ad style, visit the 'My ads' tab. Click 'Ad styles' in the navigation bar and then the '+New' button. You can then assign existing ad styles to your ad units during the ad unit creation process.

Posted by Jessica Hummel - AdSense Engineering

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Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 10/13/2011 08:35:00 AM