Tag Archives: Ad formats

Earn more from mobile: 3 rules and 6 best practices

However important mobile is to your business today, it will become even more critical tomorrow.

That's true whether you’re blogging about your favorite sports team, building the site for your community theater, or selling products to potential customers. Your visitors simply must have a great experience when they visit your site on their mobile devices.

Research has found that 61% of users will leave a mobile site if they don’t see what they are looking for right away. 

Sites that are not mobile-friendly expect users to pinch, slide, and zoom in order to consume content. It’s a frustrating experience when users expect to find the information they’re looking for right away, but are presented with obstacles to obtain that information. This is what causes users to abandon sites. 

To create a mobile-friendly site, follow these three rules:

  1. Make it fast. Research shows that 74% of people will abandon a mobile site that takes more than 5 seconds to load.
  2. Make it easy. Research shows that 61% of users will leave a mobile site if they don’t find what they're looking for straight away.
  3. Be consistent across screens. Make it easy for users to find what they need no matter what device they're using.

It's also important to think about your ads when you're designing or fine-tuning your mobile-friendly site. Focus on creating a flow between your content and your ads for the ultimate user experience and maximum viewability. Consult your analytics data and set events to track and understand where your users are most receptive to ads.

Here are some mobile-friendly ad best practice tips:

  1. Swap out the 320x50 ad units for 320x100 for a potential RPM increase.
  2. Place a 320x100 ad unit just above the fold or peek the 300x250 -- that is, place a portion of the ad unit just above the fold (ATF).
  3. Use the 300x250 ad unit below the fold (BTF) mixed in with your content.
  4. Prevent accidental clicks on enhanced features in text ads by moving ad units 150 pixels away from your content.
  5. Consider using responsive ad units, which optimize ad sizes to screen sizes and work seamlessly with your responsive site.  
  6. Test your site. Pick the metrics that matter most to you – then experiment with them.

The ad experience on your site should be designed with your mobile users in mind, just like the site itself. 

There are many ways to improve your users’ mobile experience on your site. Download the AdSense Guide to Mobile Web Success today, and find out more on how to make mobile a major asset to your business.



Posted by: 
Chiara Ferraris 
Publisher Monetization Specialist
@chiara_ferraris

Source: Inside AdSense


Block wisely with Impression charts in the Ad review center

Today we’ve launched impression charts in the Ad review center. Impression charts provide you with insights into the frequency at which individual ad creatives are shown on your site.



Based on feedback from our publishers, we’ve replaced the previous interface with an impression chart that shows the absolute number of impressions and its distribution over time. When you’re considering blocking an ad, the impression chart can help you make a more informed decision by highlighting the potential revenue impact it may have. 

To learn more, please visit our Help Center.

We'd love to hear your feedback in the comments section below and on G+ and Twitter.
 


Posted by Liyuan Lu
Software Engineer

Source: Inside AdSense


Matched content: designed to engage your users and increase visitor duration

Last year we launched Matched content to help publishers promote their own content to readers. Since then, we’ve run some experiments and found that when a publisher used Matched content, readers tended to consume more content and spend more time on sites, resulting in a corresponding revenue increase.

If that’s not enough to convince you, take a look at the results from our experiment:


  • Number of pages viewed increased by 9% on average
  • Time spent on site increased by 10% on average


Matched content is available for sites with multiple pages and high volumes of traffic. Have a look at the site management settings in your AdSense account to see if your site(s) is eligible to run Matched content.

Make the most out of your Matched content units with these best practices:
  • Let Google help you find the right size by using responsive Matched content units. 
  • Place your Matched content unit directly below the article and either above or below your ad unit
  • Consider using Matched content on long scrolling pages


We'd love to hear your thoughts about this new feature in the comments section below this post and be sure to follow us on G+ and Twitter. 


Posted by: Vasyl Pihur, AdSense Data Scientist

* These suggestions are designed to help you optimize your pages and are not meant to guarantee any specific results. And, just as a reminder, you are responsible for the content and layout of your site. 

Source: Inside AdSense


Meet AdSense’s next generation ads: Page-level ads

Today, we’re excited to introduce AdSense’s next generation ads. Page-level ads is a family of ad formats that offer a new and innovative way to help you earn money from your mobile content.

With Page-level ads, you place the same ad code once on each page that you want to show ads. They’re designed to show automatically at the right time and in the right format -  potentially increasing your earnings without interfering with your users’ mobile experience.

The benefits of Page-level ads include:


  • Optimized ads that show when they’re likely to perform well and provide a good user experience.

  • One-time set-up that only requires you to place the Page-level ad code once on each page you’d like the ads shown. 

  • Ability to adjust the settings in your account and to enable new ad formats without having to change the code on your site.

  • Additional ads on your site that don’t count towards your AdSense per page ad limit.


Watch the video below for a quick view of Page-level ads:


Currently, the Page-level ads family includes the anchor/overlay and vignette ad formats. More ad formats will be available soon.

Learn more about the Page-level ads in the AdSense Help Center. Get started with Page-level ads today and let us know what you think in the comments below.


Posted by Matthew Conroy, AdSense Product Manager

Source: Inside AdSense


Now you can also earn money with Matched content


Last year we launched Matched content to help increase user engagement on your site by promoting relevant content from your site to your visitors, which may help grow your ad business as well. Starting today, you can use Matched content units to directly generate revenue by allowing ads to appear alongside your recommended content.

Matched content with content recommendations and ads

With the new “Allow ads” feature, relevant ads will appear within your Matched content units, and will be styled to complement the look and feel of your content recommendations. We'll gradually roll this feature out to all Matched content eligible publishers across the globe over the coming weeks. To enable ads, visit your My ads tab and choose “Allow ads” for your Matched content units.


Matched content is available for sites with multiple pages with unique images and high volumes of traffic. Have a look at the site management settings in your account to see if your sites are eligible and to get started with Matched content. Matched content units don’t count towards your Google content ad limit per page - to get the most out of this new tool, check the best practices in the AdSense Help Center.

As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts about this new feature in the comments section below.



 Posted by Tobias Maurer, Product Manager

Source: Inside AdSense


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:


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


Viewability Spotlight for Sellers: Best practices for improving ad viewability

Increasing the total number of viewable ad impressions has been shown to improve the performance of ads on sites and apps and increase advertiser satisfaction. To help publishers and app developers increase the likelihood that their ads will be measured as viewable, we're excited to share the viewability spotlight infographic. It contains 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.

The infographic covers how to:
  • Enable viewability measurement
  • Optimize for speed and responsiveness
  • Lay out ads for optimal viewability
  • Load ads and content for optimal viewability
Publishers and app developers across the globe have been able to seamlessly measure viewability, at no additional charge, with the launch of Google’s Active View technology in DoubleClick for Publishers, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, AdSense and AdMob. The tips in the viewability spotlight infographic can help you go beyond simply understanding viewability rates to optimizing viewability on your site or app so that all of your impressions are viewable.

These insights and recommendations come from our services teams that have spent thousands of hours working with publishers and developers to improve advertising outcomes.

Download your copy of the viewability spotlight infographic now.

Posted by Anish Kattukaran, Product Marketing Manager


Source: Inside AdSense


A new look for your text ads on mobile

Have you noticed the new look of text ads on your mobile site? We’ve given them a makeover.

This new format allows for higher performance with a more beautiful and user-friendly appearance. The text ads feature elements such as a shaded background and a centered button which bring together the parts of the ad into a cohesive whole. The look and feel is inspired by material design, like the richer text ads that we launched earlier this year.

To see these new mobile text ads, choose to show both text and display ads on your site, if you haven’t already done so.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this new mobile ad design. Share your comments below and let us know!



Posted by Clyde Li
AdSense Software Engineer

Source: Inside AdSense