First Timer with Adsense..

Just signed up with adsense and..

[tylercruz]

Hi everyone,

My friend JaxomLOTUS introduced me to AdSense, and today I was approved and put the banner on my site.

I must say that I am unbelievably diappointed. I know I'm not allowed to share information, but I will be vague in the hopes of not violating the TOS. Two odd things.

#1. I'm receiving a very curiously low impression. I haven't put the banner on all my pages yet (takes time to replace the entire site..) but I'd say 90-95% of the site has it now.. and my normal stats is about 8x higher.

#2. I have receied ZERO CLICK THROUGHS. This is odd, to me.. and very disappointing. My old agency, FastClick, had a lot of CPM ads which gave me everyday revenue..

PLEASE share your comments and encouragement. I will leave the Google ad up for a bit longer.. if it still yields no click throughs, I will glady switch back to my old ad agency, for obvious reasons.

I'm disappointed.. I was really hoping to make a lot more through Google..

[hyperkik]

Based upon your username and a Google search, I found what I believe to be your site. However, I cannot get that site to load. Perhaps there is a technical problem which is at the root of your disappointment, as opposed to an issue with AdSense.

[tylercruz]

Hi hyper.. I know! something strange is happening.. it just happened though.. like somebody hacked my server or something.. first off.. two of my most used scripts where chmoded by themselves.. hmm...

secondly.. my site is DOWN, but my host is not..

[tylercruz]

But nevertheless, I still have an unbelivably low CTR so far..

[hyperkik]

If I could see the site I might be able to guess at the problem, but I can't.

I have noticed that Google has been posting an abundance of PSA's on my site, and also that some pages have recently been showing ads which might be consistent with the site as a whole, but aren't page-specific. At the same time, on other pages, I have very specific and appropriate ads.

It has been suggested in this forum that Google has had some recent issues with its algorithm. I am not sure if that is at the root of my site's problem, or if it results from a theoretical "bait-and-switch" mechanism I may have triggered by making small changes to a lot of pages. (I don't know that Google automatically checks for "bait-and-switch", but at the same time I can't imagine that they don't have some automated method of assuring that publishers don't radically change site content once page-specific ads have been placed.)

A long way of saying, perhaps it is taking a bit longer than usual for Google to place site- and page-specific ads on your site, resulting in more "invisible" PSA impressions and fewer click-throughs. (But as long as the site doesn't load, Google can't spider it, and nobody can see the ads to click them.)

[davewray]

Well, if your site is down, of course you'd have low CTR...about 0% I'd imagine ;)

[tylercruz]

Hi hyperkik,

The thing is - I can see the ads throughout my site (well.. I could until my site mysteriously went down 10 minutes ago?!?!) and they are quite well targeted.. I couldn't really ask for much better targetted ads.. but yet.. suck a low CTR.. we're talking like WAY under 1 percent..

[tylercruz]

My site is now up again.

[tylercruz]

Okay - I've received my first click through, but the CTR is laughable..

[davewray]

Ok Tyler...this is my suggestion after checking out your site (nice site btw :) You have your adsense ad at the top, good. However, two critical points here: Do you have a lot of return visitors? Why do I ask that? Well, if you do have a lot of return visitors, they are accumstomed to going straight somewhere on your site to get what they are always looking for. Your ad may be "invisible" to them. In this case, I would move your ad to a more prominent location within your main page content. Another issue is that the color scheme you are using for your ad kind of blends in with the top of your page. In other words, the Adsnese ad is not very easy to see. Try other color schemes if you continue to see low CTR. And lastly, wait a few days before you really study how adsense is doing for you! Seeing just a few hours stats (when it sometimes takes Google a few hours to update) is a dangerous thing to do!

Dave.

p.s. Welcome to Webmasterworld :)

[tylercruz]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the advice (The site is down again lol.. I think my host is having some problems; rare).

That's interesting that you mention the colour schemes, because I purposely tried to make it blend in.. kind of ironic how that worked out for me :)

I will give it 1 more day, and then make my decision then. If I don't see an improvement tomorrow from what I saw today, then I will cancel it..

[davewray]

Tyler,

I would suggest this: Instead of cancelling after 1 day, I would play around with colour schemes and placement first. I've been with Adsense for over 70 days now and it is well worth it if you can get it right. Played around with both colour and placement and you would not believe what kind of difference it can make! We're talking about CTR that dropped on average 5% after the first change (obviously I changed it back quick!). You definately don't want to make your ad colour scheme butt ugly! But...you don't want it to blend in so well that noone sees it. Try another colour that compliments your blue colour (like green)...make it contrast a little. Pull those visitors eyes towards it! :)

[davewray]

Tyler...just checked out your site again. You're not getting a "perfect" match to your content, but not bad. That may sort itself out in a day or so. Plus, I saw a few PSA ads as well. This will definately affect your CTR. Also, I saw on some of your pages Adsense banner ads that only showed one ad...how did you work that? (First time I've seen it).

Dave.

[tylercruz]

Haha I didn't do anything.. I just added the code to my site :P

[hyperkik]

I'd be a bit patient for now, and see how the ads perform once you have resolved your present server and 404 problems.

[tylercruz]

my host just emailed me saying that list.pl (a script i modified today to use the google code) is hogging GIGABYTES of memory.. and he deleted it.. oh man..

[tylercruz]

I'm sorry that this got way off topic.. I'd just like to say that I fixed it, and man - it's such a long story, but wow - be sure to fix holes in your scripts people! Man.. that was horrible! But a lesson learned.

[tylercruz]

So now starts the new 24-hour test of Google's AdSense.. now it should work much better :)

[universetoday]

24 hours? I'd try at least a month to really be sure. That said, I'm amazed if you have a negative experience with it - the rest of us can't believe our good fortune that this thing exists at all. It's singlehandedly doubled the revenue I've gotten from my site.

When you first install it on your site you'll get all kinds of PSA ads while it starts to target ads to the content. Give it some time before you start to see true average revenue numbers.

Then make a decision.

[whizkiddo]

tyler, in my experience it will take 72 hours for the ads to get really targetted to your pages. then u will have to play arnd with the colors and things. also some days are really bad others are so swell that a Porsche comes within reach and I am not joking. Just may happen that your first few days may be bad. But overall its worth it, i suggest you stick it out; certainly wont regret it.

[tylercruz]

Haha thanks guys.. you gave me enough optomism to try it for a while longer. I'll give me 72-hours to improve, and I'll keep you guys posted. Thanks again.

[robho]

I'd also recommend giving it time to work. For the first few days I got quite low clickthroughs and revenue.

Now, 49 days later, after experimenting with ad placement and colours, plus the improved targetting of the ads, I get an effective CPM (revenue per 1000 ads shown) that is on average 5 times that of the first few days.

As the site has grown as well, total revenue per day is now 10 times what it was in the first few days - worth waiting for.

[seaboy]

Hi Tylercruz - that's a great site, I'll be visiting again! But I agree with davewray, the ads are kind of hard to see and that's definitely part of your problem. I mean I was looking for them and almost missed them. You might want to try a skyscraper style one, and maybe alter the colours a little.

[div01]

I just went through 5-10 pages (at random) on your site and they all showed PSAs...you're gonna have to wait a few days to really get a better idea as to the viability of Adsense on your site.

[davewray]

Tyler...Your host deleted some code? Good grief! Again, I concur with all the above posts. At least 72 hours to start ditching those PSA's and get more targetted ads to your site...and seriously, the colour and placement of your ads will do wonders :)

Dave.

[tylercruz]

Hmm... What do you guys think of me removing the banner from my forum? Would that do more help, or more damage?

Pro: Probably get more targeted ads.
Cons: I get a fair bit of my traffic from the forum, and thus would be missing out on a lot of possible click through's...

I'm going to add the banner to more of my site today. (Some are still using FastClick's.)

*A side note, my CTR is a tiny bit better than yesterday's, so far, but they CPC is horrendous! Hehe.. I'll keep you posted.

[hyperkik]

It can take a while for the most targeted ads to be placed, but if the content of a given page is consistent AdSense will target the ads based upon the specific page content. That is, at least from what I have seen, you don't have to eliminate the ads from your forum pages to get well-targeted ads on other pages after your site has been spidered.

[tylercruz]

Ugh.. okay.. people.. give me enthusiasm again.. my CTR is really pathetic..

[Chndru]

ugh tylercruz...This aint a moaner's forum. Read Adsense posts in this forum...there is more than enough information you would ever want to know.

[peterdaly]

tylercruz,
Forget about things for a few days, and don't look at stats.

Remember AdSense works VERY well for many others, and is well worth a few days investment. Also, the stats are not really real-time, and clicks don't always show up the same time as impressions. The two numbers can move independantly of one another.

Also, in my opinion, targeting has some problems right now (since sept 16th maybe) if you have a site that has much more targeting needed than just the index page.

From experience I can tell you tweaking how the ads look, the format, and where on the page they appear can much more than double your CTR and CPM. A lot of experimenting is required to get the right mix.

-Pete