Forum Moderators: martinibuster
can i check what ads are being clicked?!?!
Theres a few scripts available discussed around this forum, heres a thread on the subject youre asking about, search is your friend.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Couldnt resist the first bit, just read your other thread.
Blocking ads as you think they may be low payers is a pure lottery, and you may well find your overall earnings decrease.
Many of us block ads for various sensible reasons, but guessing what is, or isn't a low payer is not a sensible reason. The same ad will pay different rates depending on how smart pricing views it's likelihood of conversion based on all sorts of criteria. If you knew an ad had just paid you 1c and then blocked it, you could be using out big time as it may well pay a lot more at a different time of day, and different location of visitor and so on.
The ads I block are ebay, and all persistent MFA's I see on my site. In part because scummy ads reflect badly on the website publisher, and in part because I don't see how a scummy old scraper can earn me more than a real advertiser with something to sell.
Earnings per click is never going to be a constant, so in many ways that's not useful.
If we are all honest, we want to see the maximum income from our sites. With Adsense / Adwords, the whole thing is extremely complex. Therefore in many cases to maximise income we pretty well have to leave it to Google. Therefore I suppose you could argue that we don't need elaborate statistics!
My personal view is that Adsense reporting could be improved, and the improvements would feed into better returns for Google and us.
EG, I've been using one of the trackers, and it tells me who the major advertisers are and where the visitors that click the ads are from. I can use that information to make the site have slightly more relevance to both visitors and advertisters - now I know who the advertisers who do the most business with me are!
Simple information that should be made available to webmasters for the good of all. Information that is easily available, and not prohibited by the TOS. I emailed Google to ask them.
Why? Think about this: once you know what the top earning ads are, what prevents you from going and signing up for that site's affiliate program? You could then put the affiliate links on those pages, pretty confident that it will generate sales, and earn more by cutting Google out of the middle.
Why confident of sales? Because if the advertiser has remained on your site, and Google's algo is supposed to keep the best performing ads on the pages, then chances are good that those products are selling well through your page.
Personally, I think this is one of the best reasons to own a set of tracking scripts, as long as those scripts give you the ads that were clicked.
This does not always work. I tried it on one site in particular, and it did generate sales, but not as much as the combined revenue from all of the AdSense ads in the block (back before we could have multiple blocks on one page). But in the cases where it doesn't work, just put the AdSense back!
You're better off banishing ads people DON'T click.
What a concept.
If you're talking about this:
Communications Solely With Google. You agree to direct to Google, and not to any advertiser, any communication regarding any Ad(s) or Link(s) displayed in connection with Your Site(s).
It doesn't apply. I'm not contacting the advertiser about his ad on my site, I'm signing up for his affilite program. Chances are I'll never contact them at all, since they probably have an automated form for me to sign up with.
Think about this: once you know what the top earning ads are, what prevents you from going and signing up for that site's affiliate program? You could then put the affiliate links on those pages, pretty confident that it will generate sales, and earn more by cutting Google out of the middle.
There are a couple of problems with that argument:
1) The advertiser may not have an affiliate program. (Many, if not most, advertisers don't.)
2) Even if the advertiser does have an affiliate program, the publisher may not want to trade guaranteed AdSense revenues for revenues from an affiliate program that may or may not materialize or that may be slow in coming.
We also hear arguments that publishers should cut out the middleman and sell ads directly to AdSense advertisers. There are problems with that argument, too:
1) The publisher may not be able to deliver enough impressions to interest the advertiser, especially if the advertiser is looking for highly targeted referral traffic (which is likely to be the case if the advertiser has chosen AdWords/AdSense).
2) Not all advertisers want to buy ads directly from publishers, even if the ads are targeted. They prefer the automation and flexibility that they get when they buy ads from an aggregator like Google. (Plus, they may trust Google more than they trust an unknown publisher.)
3) Not all publishers want to take on the hassle of selling ads, especially it's so seasy to slap AdSense code in their page margins and "make money while they sleep."
Not all publishers want to take on the hassle of selling ads,
It's not a hassle if you deploy an automated solution.
If you can't deploy your own solution, AdBrite works and you get 75% of the loot.
The only thing missing in AdBrite is competitive bidding but you also don't have smart pricing so it's a wash IMO.
FYI, I'm running an ad campaign at the moment on just Google Search, not the content network, and it's not charging me the full price for any clicks so they appear to smart price everything and not just the content network.
FYI, I'm running an ad campaign at the moment on just Google Search, not the content network, and it's not charging me the full price for any clicks so they appear to smart price everything and not just the content network.
i think that is the adwords ad discounter, not smartpricing:
[adwords.google.com...]
The downside is a crappy site has no hope.
It's not a hassle if you deploy an automated solution.
I have yet to hear of an automated solution that identifies, contacts, and pitches potential advertisers.
I can see why some publishers might want to sell text ads directly to advertisers, but for many of us--especially those of us with editorially diverse sites--it makes a lot more sense to use a value-added aggregator like Google. The same goes for display ads: I work with a specialized ad network in New York (it's really as much a rep firm as an ad network) that brings in campaigns for national tourist offices, airlines, cruise lines, and other major advertisers. I'd never be able to make those ad sales myself, because (a) I don't have the contacts; (b) I don't have the time; (c) I'm not in a position, geographically or otherwise, to take New York media buyers to lunch and talk to them in Mediaspeak; and (c) most of the advertisers want to spread their impressions over more than one site.
There's a reason why ad networks and rep firms exist: They're specialists who know more about selling and serving ads than the average publisher does.
I have yet to hear of an automated solution that identifies, contacts, and pitches potential advertisers
Don't need to contact them because if your site is really popular they will find you and I have advertisers from all over the world, not just the US.
That's why I have subtle links under all my sponsored ads "Advertise Here..." as people stumble across those links they swipe their credit card and up the ads go, plus a full page on advertising and an ecommerce page to let them pick the ad package and purchase online.
AdSense does ad to the mix but the sponsored links perform very well and I get all of the money less credit card processing transaction fees and the money is in the bank 3 days later - very civilized ;)
EVO
Don't need to contact them because if your site is really popular they will find you and I have advertisers from all over the world, not just the US.
I get about half a million visitors a month from all over the world, but that doesn't mean:
1) A travel agency selling Elbonian kayak cruises to UK residents is going to find an Elbonian kayak-cruise page on my site and want to buy an ad on that page, or...
2) I'm going to want to spend time discussing ad rates with a UK kayak-cruising agency, collecting payment, and setting up an ad to reach a geotargeted audience on that one page of my 5,000+-page site.
It's far more efficient for the travel agency and for me to let Google be the intermediary and aggregator.
I finish a 20-page guide to Widgetburg, Elbonia and publish it this afternoon. Almost instantly, that content is being monetized by targeted (including geotargeted) AdSense ads for hotels, tours, or whatever ads Google might have in inventory for Widgetburg or Elbonia. That's a lot easier and more profitable for me than trying to line up advertisers who market services for travelers to Widgetburg.
Let's face it: If AdSense didn't offer value to publishers, you wouldn't be seeing publishers using it (including publishers who have their their own very large advertising-sales departments).
1) The advertiser may not have an affiliate program. (Many, if not most, advertisers don't.)2) Even if the advertiser does have an affiliate program, the publisher may not want to trade guaranteed AdSense revenues for revenues from an affiliate program that may or may not materialize or that may be slow in coming.
Those are true statements. That's why it pays to do the research to see if 1) they have an affiliate program, and 2) if they do, to test it out and see if it makes you more money.
