Showing posts with label Earnings/Reports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Earnings/Reports. Show all posts

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Improvements to AdSense reporting features

We’ve recently made a few improvements related to AdSense reporting to help you find information more quickly and to address some of the most common asks we’ve heard from you. Good things come in threes -- so here are three recent updates to look for in your account:

1. View all-time reports


When selecting a date range for your reports, you’ll now have an ‘All time’ option to view all earnings, impressions, and clicks accrued since your first impression. If you used the previous AdSense interface, you may remember this feature -- it now has a new home in the current AdSense interface as well.

2. Quickly access reports from the My ads tab

We’ve added quick links to your reports under the My ads tab, eliminating the need to search for ad units or channels in your reports. When viewing your ad units, custom channels, or URL channels on the My ads tab, just click ‘View report’ below a specific line item to view performance data for that particular ad unit or channel. This feature is particularly useful if you’re looking for channel data that isn’t linked to ad units in the interface, and will help you save time.


3. Download CSVs in the correct local formatting

Just as the placement of commas and periods can change the meaning of sentences, the same is true when it comes to numbers and figures. As you may know, an amount written as $1,000.00 in the US or UK would be written as $1.000,00 in most of Europe and South America. Previously, only the $1,000.00 format was available for downloadable reports, which created difficulties for a number of international publishers trying to export CSVs to analyze the data. Now, based on your language preference, you can export CSVs with figures in the relevant format.

Have any feedback or suggestions to share? Feel free to leave a comment or post them on our AdSense +Page.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Understanding your reports on Google-certified ad networks

Since launching a new report to show you how much you’re earning from Google-certified third party ad networks, we’ve received questions from publishers around how to make sense of the numbers they’re seeing. Some have let us know that they’re now blocking lower-performing ad networks based on revenue per thousand impressions (RPMs), a practice which can actually have a negative impact on overall revenue. Today, we’d like to take a moment to address your questions and provide more guidance around understanding your reports and blocking specific ad networks.

Let’s first talk about analyzing RPM figures. If you’ve ever tested color combinations for your ad units using channels, you’re probably used to comparing the RPMs of each channel to determine which one is most effective. Then, once you find the most effective combination, you remove all the other options and only use the optimal one. This works for channels, but it’s important to keep in mind that with Google-certified ad networks, the same approach doesn’t apply.

It’s true that in both situations, RPM represents the estimated earnings you'd accrue for every thousand impressions you receive. However, when you test layout options with channels and remove the ones that don’t perform well, this action doesn’t directly impact the dynamics of the ad auction. Picking a blue background over green won’t automatically remove certain ads from being eligible to appear in that ad space -- it just helps certain ad spaces perform better. With Google-certified ad networks, RPMs are dependent on the available ad inventory. Blocking an ad network will remove eligible ads from the auction, and so we strongly recommend against blocking ad networks solely based on RPM. Let’s look at an example:

Ad networksImpressionsRPM
Network A10,000$1
Network B14$3
Network C1000$0.50

Network B has the highest RPM and appears to be outperforming the other networks. It’s important to note though that this metric is based on only 14 impressions and might not reflect the same revenue for the next 1000 or 10,000 impressions. The value of impressions can vary widely, so the RPM for a small number of impressions can be misleading.

Network C has the lowest RPM. However, blocking Network C because of this might have a negative impact on revenue. This is because our system will always maximize the value of every impression in an auction -- if an ad from Network C appeared on your pages, it was because any other eligible ads that could have appeared would have generated less revenue for you. By Blocking Network C, another network with a lower-paying bid might win the ad auction instead.

In general, blocking reduces the number of ads participating in the ad auction, which can then have a negative impact on your potential revenue. Please keep in mind that blocking “low paying ads” is a myth, as any ad that appears on your page has won the auction for that space and will earn you the most possible.

At the same time, we also understand that you sometimes need to prevent ads from appearing due to the content of the ad or advertiser. You have several options in your account, which are suitable for different scenarios.

With your feedback in mind, we’re constantly working on offering you more control over the ads appearing on your sites, so watch this space for further announcements! However, don’t forget to carefully consider which ads you’re blocking to ensure that you reach your full revenue potential.

Posted by Arlene Lee -- Inside AdSense Team

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Taking your channels to a new limit

As you know, channels in your AdSense account are powerful reporting tools. Custom channels help you track ad performance and enable advertisers to target their ads for maximum impact, while URL channels allow you to deep-dive into the performance of AdSense for content on your subdomains.

To date, you’ve been limited to a total of 200 custom and URL channels, and many of you have asked for more. That’s why today, we’re very excited to announce that we’ve raised this limit to 500 custom channels per product, and 500 URL channels for AdSense for content. You’ll see your available custom channels count clearly displayed in the custom channels table, and also highlighted in the “create new custom channel” pop-up.

This change will enable you to expand your testing, and you’ll be able to do more granular analysis of how different formats, ad styles, and ad types perform. In addition, you can use your increased allocation of custom channels to create new ad placements for advertisers to target directly. This can help increase the amount you earn from placement targeting, as advertisers will be able to review the information you’ve provided about your ad units to match their campaigns to your site and audience. As the holidays approach and advertisers look to create additional placement targeted campaigns, now is the perfect time to set up more custom channels and ad placements.

Log in to your AdSense account today and visit your My ads tab to get started.

Posted by Alex Benton -- AdSense Engineering

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Understanding eCPM and RPM

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

New insight into how users are accessing your site

Today, we’re excited to offer you a brand new report that shows you the platforms that your visitors are using to access your site. You’ll be able to see a breakdown of your earnings based on where your traffic is coming from, which you can use to then optimize your site and give users a better experience. For instance, if you find that you’re receiving a high percentage of traffic from mobile devices, we’d encourage you to create a mobile version of your website and monetize it with AdSense for mobile content.

With this feature, you’ll be able to see your performance data broken out into these categories:

- Desktop - all traffic coming from desktop users
- High-end mobile devices - includes smartphone devices
- Other mobile devices - includes low end and mid-range phones

Try out this new report by navigating to the new interface and clicking on the Performance reports tab. Choose Platforms in the left navigation.


And as a quick reminder, we’re gradually moving away from the older version as we continue to focus on reporting improvements like these. Do you have feedback about this new report, or are there other reports you’d like to see? Please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments field below. If you haven’t yet tried the new interface, learn more about getting started today.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

New Interface Wednesdays: Analyzing earnings by page views vs. ad requests

If you’ve spent time wandering around the Performance reports tab in the new interface, you've likely stumbled upon the Columns button. This button lets you customize your report to view earnings by page views, ad requests, matched requests and individual ad impressions. Selecting one of these options will change the columns and data shown in the table and graph. All other metrics, like CTR & RPM, will be based on the selection you choose.

We’ve received some questions about understanding these reports, especially when viewing by ‘page views’ and ‘ad requests’. To get an overall sense of your ad performance, view your earnings by ‘page views’. When looking at specific ad units or channels, however, we recommend using the ‘ad requests’ view. This will provide you the most accurate numbers for specific reports like ad units, ad sizes, custom channels, ad types, targeting types, and bid types.

Why is this? When analyzing the performance of individual ad units, the ‘page views’ view may show you inaccurate CTRs and RPMs if you have multiple ad units on one page. Each time a user views a page with multiple ad units, your reports will log only one page view and associate it with the first ad unit on the page. This means that when you’re viewing more granular reports by ‘page views’, the CTR and RPM of the second and third ad units on the page will be calculated based on “zero” page views, resulting in invalid data. By using the ‘ad request’ view when looking at specific ad units, you’ll ensure that you’re reviewing valid CTR and RPM values.

Try it now! Navigate to the new interface and click on the Performance reports tab, then select the ‘Columns’ button from any report to change the metrics you’re viewing.

Today marks the last post of our New Interface Wednesday series. We hope you're now more familiar with features available in the new interface, and how you can use them to better understand your ad performance and manage your account. You can review any of the previous posts in this series by visiting the New AdSense Interface label at any time, and learn more about specific features in our Help Center. As we continue to develop new features in the new interface, we'll be sure to post updates here on our blog, so please check back frequently!

Posted by Guillaume Ryder - AdSense Engineering

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

New Interface Wednesdays: Multi-dimension reporting

We've been listening to your feedback for more reporting and better insights into your data and are pleased to share a powerful new feature called multi-dimension reporting. You can now add dimensions to your performance reports to sort and view data across multiple dimensions including ad units, ad sizes, and countries.

This new feature allows you to add up to three dimensions to your reports, including viewing a channel by date or an ad unit by targeting type. To add a dimension when you create or edit a report, click ‘Add dimension’ and select a dimension. The dimension selected is added to the table, so you will now see two dimensions. To add another dimension click ‘Add dimension’ and select again. You can also change and remove a dimension by clicking the drop-down for the dimension you want to change or remove.


Try multi-dimension reporting now to interactively explore your data and gain more performance insights. And stay tuned for more dimension combinations coming soon as we continue to improve reporting regularly.

This reporting capability is just one of many improvements we’re making to the new AdSense interface as we gradually move away from the older version. Please feel free to provide your feedback in the comments field below so we can continue to tailor the new interface to your needs! If you haven’t yet tried the new interface, learn more about getting started today.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

New Interface Wednesdays: Chart custom channels

We understand that many of you analyze how ad units or channels perform compared to each other to help you decide whether you should make changes to improve performance. Now, in the new interface, we provide you a new way to analyze individual items against one another.

The chart feature will allow you to see custom channels or ad units as their own line on the graph, so you can easily identify spikes or dips. To see how your channels perform compared to each other, visit the Performance Reports tab, and click Custom channels. Depending on the number of channels you’re using, you might be asked to filter the list and then click Update report. Once your selected channels are listed below the graph, you'll see the Combine and Chart buttons.

Select a few channels and hit ‘Chart.’ Now you can see each specific channel in it’s own color on the graph. You can use the buttons next to the graph to change the metric for which you’re comparing the channels. Using this feature, you might notice that discrepancies between channel performance are more obvious on the graph than they are just viewing the numbers in the table.


Try it now! Navigate to the Performance reports tab, and select any report for which you want to chart items.

Help us figure out what you need and want in your reports by sending your feedback through the ‘Report issue’ link in the upper corner of your account or joining the conversations in our forum.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Got 2 minutes? Watch our Performance reports videos

We know the Performance reports tab of the new AdSense interface can seem a little overwhelming. With all that data at your fingertips, it’s hard to know where to start! To help you learn more about the reports you can run and how to customize the graphs, we’ve created two new videos that walk you through navigating our reporting features:





Check out some of our previous posts on the new AdSense interface to learn more about the different reports you can run to gain even more insight into your performance. If you missed last week’s videos on creating an ad unit and custom channels, be sure to check them out. We’ll see you next week for our last two videos on the Allow & block ads tab!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

New Interface Wednesdays: New report available by country

Have you ever wanted to understand your AdSense performance based on where your users are? Now you can do just that with the countries report.

To report by country, simply navigate to the Performance reports tab. In the navigation sidebar, click on the "Countries" report. This report will show your site's earnings by visitor country.


Please note that the countries report won't contain historical earnings data prior to when this feature is made available in your account. You can view earlier click and impression data by countries, but historical earnings data won't be visible.

Try it now! Navigate to the Performance reports tab, and select the countries report.

Help us figure out what you need and want in your reports by sending your feedback through the ‘Report issue’ link in the upper corner of your account or joining the conversation in our forum.

Friday, March 25, 2011

The do's and dont's to increase cost per click

In previous blog posts we’ve explained what RPM is and how it's influenced by what users do when they come to your site. We want to take this conversation a step further today, and discuss some strategies that can potentially increase the cost per click (CPC) of your ad units.

Though we can’t quantify a good or bad CPC, there are several things you can do (and a few that you shouldn’t do) if you’re trying to increase the CPC of the ads on your site. Take a look at some of the best practices outlined below:

DOs:
  • Enable all of your ad units to show both text and image/rich media ads. By increasing the number of advertisers competing for your ad units, the ad auction will make sure that the highest paying ad will be shown. Learn more from one of our publishers who made this change, and edit all your units in bulk with the new AdSense interface.
  • Keep your filter list small so you don’t lower your revenue potential by blocking the highest-paying ads. Watch this video to better understand the ad auction and how to enable the most competition for your ad space.
  • Increase the number of ads competing for your site by setting up your custom channels for placement targeting. Read this post for more details and instructions on how to set these up.
  • The top-paying ads will be shown in the ad unit that appears first in your HTML code. To take advantage of this, you will need to understand which of your ad units has the highest clickthrough rate (CTR) by using custom channels. Then, you can easily change the code of your website to make sure that your top performing unit is the one with the highest-bidding ads.
DON’Ts:
  • Some publishers believe that by writing about high paying keywords they will be able to improve the earnings on their site. This is not a practice that we encourage. In fact, we always recommend to write about subjects that you know well and that you are passionate about so you can continue to create the compelling, original content that attracts visitors to your site.
  • Don't use scraped content. It’s a violation of our policies.
  • Don’t create multiple accounts. Publishers are not permitted to maintain multiple AdSense accounts under the same payee name, and having the ad code of different accounts on the same website will not affect your CPC in any way.
  • Finally, don’t try to manipulate the standard behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads in any way that is not explicitly permitted by Google. In case you have any doubt, read the AdSense program policies.
We hope this helps you optimize your AdSense implementation and maximize your CPC. Leave us a comment with the results!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Understanding your eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions): Part 2 of 2

Two weeks ago, we shared a brief introduction to the basics of eCPM (aka, RPM), including how it’s calculated and what factors impact it. In the Part 1 video, AdSense optimization specialist Matthew Carpenter-Arevalo discusses key variables you can use to better understand eCPM performance, including CTR (clickthrough rate) and CPC (cost per click).

Today, we’ll go a couple steps further and discuss how user behavior impacts eCPM and show you tools that can help you better understand your users’ traffic patterns.

User behavior refers to how users interact with your site. Generally, there are two types of users:
  • Return users who continually come back to your site and spend more time engaging with your content
  • Unique users who are arriving at your site for the first time in search of specific information that your site may or may not have
It’s important to understand the make-up of your audience, because different types of users will interact in different ways with your website.

To track and analyze user behavior to help you make informed decisions about your site, we recommend integrating Google Analytics with your AdSense account, so you can see data at more specific levels and by regions. We also suggest setting up channels to understand how the ads across specific pages on your site are performing.

In Part 2 of this video series, Matthew explains how user behavior affects eCPM and provides helpful tools to further analyze your site’s traffic patterns. Take a look at the video below to learn more:



Thanks for following our two-part 'Understanding your eCPM' series. We hope you found the content useful, and that you now have a better understanding of the factors that influence your eCPM.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

New Interface Wednesdays: Chart and change metric feature

Have you ever changed ad formats and wanted to see which actually performed better? Now you can, with the new chart and change metric features. If you've created and saved an ad unit in your account, you'll now be able to do this easily in your ad sizes report.
  • Start by visiting the Performance Reports tab and choosing the ad sizes report
  • Check the boxes next to each format you want to see and then click the Chart button
This overlays the earnings of both ad formats you've selected so you can compare them on the same graph. You can still toggle the metrics shown on the graph using the radio buttons to the right of it so you can compare CTR, RPM and other metrics that are relevant to you.


Try it now! Navigate to the new interface and click on the Performance Reports tab, and then Ad sizes.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Understanding your eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions): Part 1 of 2

“What is eCPM? What affects my eCPM? What can I do to earn a higher eCPM?”

Effective cost per thousand impressions (eCPM) is the amount of revenue you can expect to earn from AdSense for every 1000 impressions shown on your site. Since eCPM helps you measure how well your ads are performing, we often hear questions from publishers about the factors that impact this metric and how it relates to their earnings. If you're using the new interface, you'll see that your reports show RPM (revenue per thousand impressions); RPM is just another term for eCPM, and it's calculated the same way, so we use these two terms interchangeably.

To help provide some clarity, we’re kicking off a two-part video series with more insights into how eCPM is calculated in order to help you maximize earnings. With the help of AdSense optimization specialist, Matthew Carpenter Arevalo, we’ll show you the factors that affect eCPM, how to track user behavior and traffic patterns, and what you can do to improve your website performance.

In the video below, Matthew will introduce you to the basics of how eCPM is calculated and explain how to analyze the causes behind any changes in your eCPM.



If you’d like to learn more about eCPMs visit our Help Center.

Stay tuned for Part 2 to learn what you can do to better understand and optimize your website’s eCPM.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

New Interface Wednesdays: Compare and search performance across multiple date ranges

Have you ever run a test on one of your ad units, and wished you could more easily compare performance from before and after the test? If you've created and saved an ad unit in your account, you'll now find an easy way to do this in your ad units report.
  • Start by visiting the Performance Reports tab and choosing the ad units report (you'll find it in the navigation bar under "Entire account by day").
  • Search for the name of an ad unit you've updated and select it.
  • Open the date range box and set a window of dates before your test -- for example, two weeks.
  • Check the box marked "compare to other dates" and include a similar window of dates after you made the change to your ad unit.
In the graph, you'll then see the performance of your ad unit for both date ranges. You can still toggle the metrics shown on the graph using the radio buttons so you can compare CTR, RPM and other metrics that are relevant to you.


Try it now! Navigate to the new interface and click on the Performance Reports tab, and then ad unit report.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

New Interface Wednesdays: Quickly view your total earnings

This week we’d like to highlight a few ways that you can view your total earnings. In the past, AdSense reported separately on AdSense for content, AdSense for search, and other AdSense product earnings. You’ve asked for the ability to quickly check your total earnings, and we’re happy to let you know that this is now possible.

If you’d like to focus on the overall sum of your earnings, you can look at the Entire account by day, week, or month reports under More reports. These reports will show you your combined earnings across all products. In future posts, we’ll show you how you can further customize these reports so they make the most sense for your business.

If you’d prefer to see your total account earnings broken out by product in the new interface, you can still do so. By selecting the Products report, you can view earnings from each product you are using as its own line item, as well as the summed, total earnings.


Try it now! Navigate to the new interface and click on the Performance reports tab, and then Products, or More reports, and then Entire account by month.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

New Interface Wednesdays: Monthly graphs of your account performance

This is the second post in our ‘New Interface Wednesdays’ series. Every Wednesday for the next few months we will highlight something new you can do in the new AdSense interface. From time to time we’ll also share stories directly from publishers who have been using the new interface as well as announce additional features we’ve recently added.

In the next few posts in this series, we’ll focus on different types of reports you can quickly view in the new interface to monitor and gain insight into your ad performance. Today we’re highlighting the ability to quickly view performance by month. We’ve chosen this particular feature because it’s been a top request from publishers, but you can easily do the same by day or week.

Previously, the easiest way to view all account data by month was to export all reports to CSV, then post-process the data in a spreadsheet. Now you can get the same data with just two clicks without leaving your account. On the Performance reports tab, first click on 'More reports,' and then 'Entire account by month.' From here you can see a graph of your earnings. Immediately below the graph, you’ll see data for your account by month. As we mentioned last week, you can easily select the metrics to appear on the graph.



Give it a try today! Navigate to the new interface and click on the Performance reports tab, 'More reports,' and then 'Entire account by month.'

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

New Interface Wednesdays: Graphs right in your account

This is the first post in our ‘New Interface Wednesdays’ series. Every Wednesday for the next few months we'll highlight something new you can do in the new AdSense interface. From time to time, we’ll also share stories directly from publishers who've been using the new interface and announce additional features we’ve recently added.

For our first ‘New Interface Wednesdays’ post, we’d like to highlight the graphical reporting under the Performance Reports tab in the new interface. The new graphs make it easy to see trends in your performance. Rather than scanning rows of numbers, you can view impressions, clicks, and earnings, all in one graph.

Select the metrics you want to see by checking the boxes next to the graph. You can also hover over the graph to get detailed metrics for a specific day, just like in Google Analytics. The graph will appear for just about any type of report you run, making it easy for you to visualize performance. Above the graph, you'll find buttons to save reports that you commonly use and set a report of your choosing to be the default report with a single click. Of course, you can still export the data to a CSV to further process the data in a spreadsheet as well.


If you aren’t yet familiar with the graphs in the new interface, check them out today. Navigate to the new interface and click on the Performance reports tab.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Insight into your earnings (Part II): How smart pricing fits in

Last week, in the first half of our series designed to help you better understand your earnings, we introduced you to the ad auction for AdSense for content. To recap, eligible ads compete to appear on your pages; our ad auction determines which ads show, and how much you can potentially earn from them.

Now, let’s talk about smart pricing, a tool designed to help advertisers bid efficiently and effectively on many publishers’ ad auctions at once. Our Chief Economist, Hal Varian, explains the purpose of smart pricing, how it plays a role in the ad auction, and how it benefits the entire advertising ecosystem of publishers, advertisers, and users.

Although we aren’t able to provide detailed explanations of our algorithms, we’d like to address a common misconception and show that smart pricing isn’t intended to be a ‘punishment’ for publishers. It’s designed to increase advertiser confidence in AdSense sites by helping them set more accurate bids that reflect the business results they’re looking for. This then allows advertisers to increase their maximum bids, which ultimately helps publishers earn more in the long run.

We’ll let Hal explain the concept of smart pricing in more detail:




Finally, we’d like to take a moment to address some of the questions we’ve received about the relationship between smart pricing and the AdSense for content revenue share. Smart pricing can impact which ad wins an auction for a particular content page. However, since the revenue share is fixed for all publishers, smart pricing doesn’t impact the percentage you actually earn for a valid click. Any changes to advertiser bids as a result of smart pricing will proportionately affect the amount both Google and the publisher earn.

Thanks for following our two-part earnings series. We hope you found the content useful, and that you now have a better understanding of the factors that influence your earnings.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Insight into your earnings Part I: Explaining the ad auction

"Why do I earn more money from some ads and less from others? Why do my AdSense for content earnings vary from day to day, or week to week?"

If you’ve asked yourself questions like these before, you’re not alone -- we often hear from publishers that they’re unsure of how earnings are calculated and why their earnings fluctuate. As part of our efforts to be more transparent with publishers, we’re kicking off a two-part series to help explain these topics. With the help of Hal Varian, the Chief Economist here at Google, we’ll show you how ads are targeted to your pages, priced by the ad auction, and translated into the earnings you receive.

Today, Hal will introduce you to the ad auction for AdSense for content ads, and explain both what it’s for and how it works. Like a traditional auction, advertisers bid in our ad auction to show ads on your pages. The number and price of ads in the auction changes from moment to moment, based on how much advertisers are willing to spend and how they've set up their ad campaigns -- this is why we call our auction ‘dynamic,’ as these factors can then affect how much you earn.

If you’re ready to learn more about the ad auction and how specific prices are calculated, watch the video below and visit our Help Center.




So what can you do as a publisher to ensure you’re maximizing your earnings? Here are some tried-and-true tips to increase the amount of competition among advertisers in the ad auction for your pages.
  • Keep creating high-quality sites full of original content to attract more advertisers, and use Google Analytics to see which content is generating revenue.
  • Try adding popular advertiser formats such as the 300x250 medium rectangle to your pages.
  • Turn your channels into targetable ad placements to help advertisers identify and target premium locations on your pages.
  • Experiment to find the optimal locations for your ads, while making sure that your layouts won't generate accidental clicks.
  • Help advertisers find your sites by claiming them in Ad Planner. You can add descriptions and categories that describe your content, which will help increase the visibility of your ad units to interested advertisers.
To understand changes in your earnings, we also recommend reviewing our two-part blog series, 'Diagnosing Revenue Fluctuations.'

That’s it for today. In Part II of our series, we’ll discuss how smart pricing affects advertiser bids in the ad auction, and clear up some myths about how it works.