Managing AdSense

"Now let's look more closely at each part of the console," I continued. "Remember, everything about AdSense is automated, so you'll spend a lot of time with the console initially."

"Can you ever talk to a human being?" Anita asked.

"Absolutely," I said, "there's a 'Contact Us' link at the top of the console. Or you can send email directly to adsense-support@google.com and someone will get back to you within one or two business days."

"I've already had contact with them," Stef said, "and they answered my question pretty quickly. The reply was very polite, too, even though they probably get a lot of dumb questions like mine!"

"Well, it's worth their effort to keep the AdSense publishers happy," I replied, "because the more ads get shown by more publishers, the more money Google makes. Remember, this is a partnership between you and Google, so it benefits both of you to treat each other well."

"So what part of the console should we start with?" Stef asked. "I haven't explored it all in detail."

"That's OK," I said, "we'll figure it out as we go along. Start with the ad reports and we'll go from there."

Stef then went on to describe (with my help) each page in the console.

Reports

The Reports tab consists of two pages: Ad Performance and Search Performance. The former reports on AdSense for content earnings, the latter on AdSense for search earnings. The pages are otherwise identical.

The controls at the top of the report page define what kind of report is generated. The actual report is shown immediately below the report controls. There are two basic types of report available:

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  an aggregate data report summarizing each day's data

  
  


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  a channel data report displaying channel-specific data

  
  

With the aggregate data report, you see how much you're actually earning. With the channel data report, you see how well pages or groups of pages are performing.

Overlapping Channels Pages that are simultaneously in custom channels and URL channels get their clicks and earnings double-counted in channel data reports. When overlapping channels are used, then, the total earnings shown in the channel data report may exceed those shown in the aggregate data report. The aggregate data report is always correct.

A report shows the data between two dates. A number of predefined date ranges are provided (Figure 7.7). The "today" and "this month" ranges are usually the most interesting ranges to look at (remember that Google pays AdSense earnings on a monthly basis, providing you earn at least $100 each month). Other ranges can be specified manually using the date controls immediately below the list of predefined ranges.

Figure 7.7. Predefined date ranges for easy report generation.

Aggregate reports can show total page impressions or total ad unit impressions. Channel reports are more flexible, allowing you to select precisely which channels you're interested in and how the data for those channels is to be shownper-date totals, per-channel totals, or a detailed list of channel earnings per day.

After changing the report controls, click the Display Report button below the controls to generate the new report. A typical two-day aggregate report for page impressions is shown in Figure 7.8. The data are initially sorted by date, but you can click any column heading to sort by that column. The columns are:

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  Date the reporting date

  
  


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  Channel the channel (channel reports only)

  
  


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  Page impressions the number of times ads have been shown on a page

  
  


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  Clicks the number of valid ad clicks

  
  


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  Page CTR the page clickthrough rate, the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions

  
  


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  Page eCPM the effective cost per 1000 impressions, how much money on average each page is earning based on a standard industry unit

  
  


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  Your earnings the amount earned

  
  

Figure 7.8. A typical aggregate report.

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If you choose to view aggregate data for ad unit impressions instead of pages, you will see equivalent column headings (Ad unit impressions, Ad unit CTR, and Ad unit eCPM), with all calculations done using ad units.

Search Earnings Treated Differently At the bottom of the search report, you'll see this statement: "Revenue from AdSense for search may be offset at the end of the month by costs associated with performing searches." If a site's visitors do a lot of searching but don't click many ads, the publisher may find that Google has adjusted the site's AdSense for search earnings to recover some of the costs of providing the search service. (AdSense for content earnings are not affected.) This only occurs for a few sites, and the chargeback never exceeds the AdSense for search earnings for that month.

You can download any report to your computer by clicking the Download CSV file link in the top right-hand corner of the report. The downloaded report can then be opened with any spreadsheet application (CSV is a universally supported spreadsheet file format) for further analysis.

Ad Settings

The Ad Settings tab consists of four pages: Ad layout code, Ad colors, Channels, and Competitive Ad Filter. The Ad layout code and Ad colors pages are described in detail in the next chapter, so only the Channels and Competitive Ad Filter pages are described here.

You manage your custom and URL channels from the Channels page. At the top of the page are the URL channel controls (Figure 7.9). The custom channel controls are at the bottom (Figure 7.10). Creating new channels is simple: Just type the URL or the channel name into the appropriate input field and click the "Create new channel" button.

Figure 7.9. Managing URL channels.

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Figure 7.10. Managing custom channels.

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Channels

You can have up to 100 active channels at any timethat's more than adequate for most sites.

Ad Filters

For more details on competitive ad filters, see www.memwg.com/ad-filters.

A channel can be active or inactive. AdSense tracks only active channels for reporting.

Ad filtering is done from the Competitive Ad Filter page (Figure 7.11). Just list the Web addresses you want filtered. Up to 200 addresses can be filtered at any time. This is one area where the AdSense Preview Tool comes in handy: If you see an ad you'd like to filter while using the tool, you can just select the ad and click the Show Selected URLs link on the tool to see the ad's destination address. Copy the address to the clipboard and then paste it right into the ad filter list.

Figure 7.11. Filtering competitive ads.

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Search Settings

The Search Settings tab is very similar to the Ad Settings tab and consists of four pages: Search code, Styles, Channels, and Competitive Ad Filter. The Search code and Styles pages are described in the next chapter. The other two pages are basically identical to their counterparts on the Ad Settings tab. Note that AdSense for search supports only custom channels, not URL channels.

Separate Channel and Filter Lists The AdSense for search channel and filter lists are separate from the AdSense for content channel and filter lists, so changes to one do not affect the other. If you're blocking sites and using both AdSense services, remember to update both lists.

My Account

The My Accounts tab consists of three pages: Account Settings, Payment History, and Tax information.

The Account Settings page manages general account settings:

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  Login Information email address (which can't be changed), password, language choice (the AdSense console is available in different languages), and whether Google has permission to mail you anything other than routine service announcements

  
  


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  Payee Information the name and address to use for payment

  
  


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  Payment Details how the payment is to be made

  
  


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  Payment Holding temporarily suspends payments

  
  


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  Ad Type Preference whether or not image ads are allowed on pages by default (this can be changed on a page-by-page basis)

  
  


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  Product Subscriptions whether you're signed up for both AdSense for content and AdSense for search or just AdSense for content

  
  

A typical Accounts Settings page, with important details blurred out, is shown in Figure 7.12. Note that edit links are available to change most of the information.

Figure 7.12. Viewing account settings.

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The Payment History page summarizes your monthly earnings and the payments you've been sent (Figure 7.13). There is one entry per month for earnings, but payments may occur less frequently if you haven't reached the minimum payment threshold ($100) or you've temporarily suspended payment. Clicking any Earnings or Payment link shows you more details about that month's earnings or payment. Details of earnings for both AdSense for content and AdSense for search are included under Earnings (Figure 7.14).

Figure 7.13. Payment history.

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Figure 7.14. Earnings details.

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Tax Help

Consult a tax professional for clarification if you have any questions about which Google Tax Information form to use or about any other tax issue related to AdSense.

The Tax Information page is where Google collects the tax-related information required by the United States government (Figure 7.15). The form you use depends on your citizenship, your country of residence, and other factors. A wizard is available to help you select the correct form.

Figure 7.15. Supplying Google with tax-related information.

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Tax Information Is Required for Payment You won't receive any payment from Google until you supply them with your tax information. Even foreign publishers not subject to U.S. taxes must supply some basic informationthere are no exceptions.

Source: http://mufeemoneyearningsystem.blogspot.com/2010/02/managing-adsense.html

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What is AdSense Smart Pricing?

Smart Pricing is Google's term for protecting itself and AdSense advertisers.  In short, people who spend money to advertise with Google AdSense want as many people to click their ads as possible.  Measured as a Click Through Ratio (CTR), many AdSense advertisers work hard to change the words and graphics they use in their ads to encourage people to click.  Every time that a website visitor views an ad and that ad isn't clicked, the CTR decreases.

In April of 2004, Google introduced Smart Pricing to help AdSense advertisers combat poor CTR.  Here is Google's news archive announcing Smart Pricing:

https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/adwords/select/news/sa_mar04.html

Google constantly monitors the productivity of AdWords ads.  When your website has a high number of readers, but a low number of ad clickers, Google has two choices: Display fewer ads or decrease amount of money they pay you for displaying those ads.  In my experience, Google first tries to decrease the number of targeted ads.  If that doesn't work, then, they apply Smart Pricing and decrease the amount of money they pay you to display ads.

In the eyes of an advertiser, this is good.  While advertisers spend a lot of time thinking about CTR, they live and die in the amount of money that an ad makes.  As a result, if their CTR goes down but their overall income goes up, advertisers (and Google) are happy.

As a side note, it's important to realize that Click Through Rates do not influence the Return On Investment.  Google uses CTR to measure the quality of traffic and as a foundation to the formulas used to calculate ROI results such as eCPM (Effective Cost Per Thousand).

<b>How Does Smart Pricing Happen</b>

Smart Pricing is a simple function of traffic.  If your website visitors do not click on ads, Google will eventually lock your site into Smart Pricing.

Commonly, these websites find themselves locked into smart pricing when they start to gain traffic:

Forums
Article Websites
General Interest Websites
Blogs with high retention rates
Web based applications

Google starts every site out on a high paying, level playing field.  As traffic (website visitors) grow, Google constantly measures the quality of that traffic.  If people are clicking ads, Google leaves your ad pricing alone as you continue on your happy way.  However, when a community is engaged (as with forums) or when you purchase traffic (as with general interest websites) or even when you simply have regular visitors (as with blogs and web apps), people click on fewer ads.  Google sees this and applies Smart Pricing to decrease the amount of money you make per click and protect the ROI of their advertiser.

<b>How To Solve Google Smart Pricing</b>

Step 0:
Improve the CTR's that Google Advertisers receive.
You'll notice a that this is solution number 0.  That's because this is a very difficult, if not impossible thing to do.  This solution requires that you edit not only your content, but you need to edit the ads of the Google Ads customers and perhaps even the website of Google's customers.  This isn't a real solution, but it highlights the underlying Smart Pricing problem.

Step 1: Identify Your Best Content
Use Adsense Channels to find out what pages are generating clicks.  Here is more information about Google Channels: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=9868

Step 2: Remove All Google Ads From Your Site
Switch to another ad network for at least 30 days.  I suggest using this opportunity to check out a variety of other ad networks or perhaps even try to broker your own private deal with advertisers.  You have enough traffic for Google to care what you do, maybe you have enough for real advertisers to care too.

Step 3: Place Ads Only on Specific Pages
After you purge all of the Google Ads from your site and you wait for at least a full cycle to pass, then place Google Ads only (and this is important) only on the pages that you identified in step 1.  You want people to click on those Google ads and since you know which pages they were clicking on before, you increase your chances of Google recording CTR numbers with ads only on those pages.

Step 4: Work on Your Traffic
The last thing to do is to be consciously aware of your traffic.  If you have a website that targets a wide, general audience, ensure that you have enough outstanding, high quality niche content to offset global click through ratios.  In short, if you have a lot of crappy pages, you're going to have a lot of crappy traffic.  If you regularly buy traffic or use supplemental or purchased traffic for anything other than breaking out of a plateau, you're going to have crappy traffic.  Google will again protect itself from your crappy traffic and your time will be wasted if you do not improve your sources of traffic in this continual step.

Posted via web from Rob Brown

Source: http://robisit.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-adsense-smart-pricing.html

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Basic accounting Ngo Bao Chau is practical

I think a lot of people not understanding the role of basic mathematics, and people look at it with eyes economy merely that it is sterile and not lucrative economically.

This is absolutely wrong because actual mathematics theory is applied in many scientific key. I would give an example:

I need to develop a software system to identify human speech, as well as other key technology systems will need to bring in large amounts of data to process a special algorithm to estimate "error between two samples. And finally, the solution for developing software was pushed to the basic mathematics. Only do they last only.

Almost all of the industry are experiencing barriers to the need to find a formula for a common problem, and theoretical mathematicians are "hired" to solve this problem.

We do not believe that invisible mathematical theory is added and strange nhé. If not will not have: internet, aircraft, camera, mobile ... head.

Source: http://news-camquachvan.blogspot.com/2010/02/basic-accounting-ngo-bao-chau-is.html

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Mobile Ad Networks: What's there for startups?

Though the well accepted industry definition of "Mobile Ads Networks" as found in Wikipedia and MMA includes SMS/MMS advertising (which also happens to be more than 90% contributor for MobileAd revenue) but let us not confuse this topic with SMS advertising/spam and rather focus on companies that use the mobile web to deliver targeted/untargeted ads as ad impressions on mobile websites or inside mobile software applications (eg. iPhone apps).

It's interesting how iPhone apps and the significant increase of the use of mobile internet in general has given rise to a booming industry in Mobile Ad Networks. Two such prominent names which come to mind when we talk of Mobile Ad Networks are Admob and Inmobi (A Bangalore start up that has received 2 rounds of funding). Admob serves 7 billion ad impressions on iPhone applications and the mobile internet PER MONTH.

The entry of big players such as Google and Apple clearly indicate a massive trend and that there is something lucrative about this rapidly growing industry. Google acquired Admob for $750m and Apple soon followed with acquisition of Quattro Wireless for around $275m. Not that this has been the only acquisition in this space. The rise of in-app ads has led to a rapid expansion of the space since 2007, when AOL acquired Third Screen Media, Yahoo picked up Actionality, Microsoft bought ScreenTonic and Nokia acquired Enpocket.

In spite of this industry being ridden with plenty of investor money through M&A activity there are very few start ups that are trying to capitalize on this trend? There are currently only about dozen significant companies GLOBALLY doing what Admob and Inmobi do. Why? We would expect "me too" companies to crop up by the dozen every week, but that seemingly isn't the case. 

The reason is because this is a tough market. Running Mobile Ad Network over-the-top is a rather difficult game, and Operators have several tricks up their sleeves which make Mobile Ads lot more attractive, effective and acceptable, if you work with them. This is what makes lives of Startups bit difficult, than what it would be with just over-the-top MobAdNets.

Admob

Admob, was the pioneering company that gave shape to this industry. It was founded in 2006 by MBA student Omar Hamoui at Wharton, part time while he was studying. It is amazing to see that something that he started from his dorm room eventually sold to Google for $750m. 

Great article again by mobithinking and an interesting interview with founder Omar Hamoui by Fast Company, puts this deal in perspective.

InMobi

Inmobi, a Bangalore start-up (2007) was formerly known as mKhoj. The mKhoj business model wasn’t working, so the founder Naveen Tewari quickly noticed in 2007 how Admob was making waves in the west. mKhoj cleverly copied Admob’s model and rebranded as Inmobi. While Admob was busy monopolizing the western world, Inmobi used the ‘reverse market strategy’ where they tested developing nations like India, Bangladesh, Far east (Indonesia, Thailand etc) and slowly took over as the leading player in Asia. They have recently (October/November 2009) entered USA and England to cash in on the huge constant increase in Smartphone use, especially iPhone and Android. 

What is there for startups?

These success stories do lead us to think that there is no scope for start-ups now, big players have already entered the industry and that we are too late. But that’s not the only point. As Founder and CEO of Inmobi, Naveen Tewari, said, “The numbers of people that need to get into mobile advertising are far more than the number of players that exist”. 

However, this isn't a nascent industry either and unless one has a tremendous differentiator, or an absolutely novel business-model, the first mover advantage isn't there, and you can only compete in offering bigger commissions or lower CPI. Some of the key factors which a start up needs to watch out for, include

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  Inspite of massive increase in inventory for advertising made possible by launch of Appstrores, there aren’t enough advertisers yet.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  



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  over-the-top Ad Networks are soon expected to be surpassed in terms of effectiveness and click-thru's for Operator support AdNetworks, thanks to things like DeepPacketInspection, which is becoming omnipresent quite fast especially for high growth mobile-internet markets

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  



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  the biggest challenge in building a formidable network is in "seeding" it. That takes deep pockets, strong execution capabilities, existing traditional networks/channels and fighting off biggies isn't easy. 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

The bigger players have an aggregation of thousands of publishers which may not be available with a startup but still there are 1.1million mobile sites out of which Admob’s total publisher list is around 15000 (including iPhone apps). Inmobi has around 2000. Though not all of these 1.1 million websites are high traffic ones, but then there is a big difference between 1.1m and 2000.

Here are links to some of the interesting articles I found on this topic

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  Article by VC Circle 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  



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  A Video - only the first half seems relevant 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  



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  How the iPhone built the mobile ad market, even as the rest of the economy tanked 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  



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  Mobile Ad network directory 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  



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  Rob Jonas Interview (ex-googler who joined Inmobi in late 2009) 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  



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  Great article on how Apple swallowed up Quattro just before releasing the iPad. This article shows that Apple know the industry is going to be huge. 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

How can a start up compete? 

Let us start with looking at companies like Smaato who work as “Ad enablers”.

Ad enablers allow Ad Networks like Admob Inmobi etc to use their (the enablers’) inventory. Smaato for example has relationships with thousands of publishers. With a simple API, Admob, Inmobi or any start-up can have access to Smaato’s thousands of publishers. This works on a revenue share model with smaato out of the total CPC/eCPM. 

So since we have established how easy it is for an ad network start-up to get access to inventory, the only missing part of the equation is ‘advertisers’. With some of the most popular brands on your inventory list (ebuddy, bollywood mobi sites, zedge, fring etc), advertisers/brands will be so much keener to sign up and advertise with your start-up. Doesn’t all this seem too simple?! Or am I missing something? 

Of course the question is if a start-up use Smaato and have their inventory, Inmobi will have the same plus more. So why would the advertiser/brand not chooseInMobi? 

Simply because the advertiser/brand doesn’t know better. This is a very new sector. Brands will probably just try out a start-up if it seems professional and have a decent publisher list. They don’t know that Inmobi has way more. Maybe I am wrong? 

The point to note is that if people like Smaato are really filling the niches that are hitherto ignored by the existing players, then that's a perfect startup situation.

The sinker

Before I close this article I would like to share the latest news which has come from Apple and which I am sure will put lot of startups further in the back bench is the strange move by Apple. Apple have warned app developer to avoid Location based targeted Advert. It’s little strange because 

1) Many believe that Location sensitive advert is next big thing 

2) Apple them self own an Add company now 

3) Loopt do exactly same thing (via cell ID triangulation) but they were allowed to present at WWDC'08  

I wonder what caused the change of heart?  Is it because they want to have exclusivity on LBS Adverts on iPhone??

Source: http://yourmobileblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/mobile-ad-networks-whats-there-for.html

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General Terms in Adsense Report

There are quite a lot of people who do not know what eCPM is. Below is the Adsense Report for illustration purpose:

Page impressions Clicks Page CTR Page eCPM Earnings

50 2 4.00% $6.60 $0.33

These numbers are calculated as follows:

Page Impressions (50)

This is simply a count of the number of times adverts have been displayed on your page. It includes occasions when your page has been displayed in search engine caches, so the count may not match your log files exactly. It counts pages not ads - if you had more ad units, link units or referral units on the page, then the page impressions would still be 50.

Clicks (2)

This is simply a count of the number of times that any advert has been clicked on the page - ie: 2 clicks.

Page CTR (4.00%)

This is a derived number: "Click Through Rate". There are often many different ways of calculating derived numbers, but in this example it is most easily and accurately produced using the calculation:
CTR = 100 x Clicks / Page ImpressionsIn this case the calculation is:
CTR = 100 x 2 / 50 = 4.00%This the rate of clicks per hundred, a figure often used for comparing performance of different ad placements on a page.

eCPM ($6.60)

This is another derived number: "effective Cost Per Thousand" (M is the latin symbol for a thousand). It is often used for comparing ad placements and overall performance of ads or pages. It is calculated using the formula:
eCPM = 1000 x Earnings / ImpressionsIn this case, the calculation is:
eCPM = 1000 x $0.33 / 50 = $6.60

Earnings ($0.33)

This is the amount of money that you will be paid by Google, at some point in the future, for the clicks. The calculation is:
(The sum of all the click values) x (Your percentage rate)Your percentage rate is only known to Google, but as we have assumed a 70% payment to you, the calculation is:
Earnings = ($0.34 + $0.13) x ( 70 / 100 ) = $0.329 ($0.329 is rounded to two decimal places in the report, to $0.33)

Source: http://lekieuanhblogfree.blogspot.com/2010/02/general-terms-in-adsense-report.html

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