Clicks not being reported

The ad Clicks for my site dont appear in the Google report

[leadegroot]

I recently started using Adsense, starting with a very small non-profit site I have and I had a click on first day - I thought I had a cool way to earn a little cash to support the site.
But in the month that followed, despite double-digit page impressions each day, I had no clicks, zero, nada, zilch. Oh, well, thinks me, I guess it doesnt work after all.
But in moaning to a friend I got the response of 'no, no, I clicked on an ad when I was on your site yesterday'
The google report for that day has zero clicks (and the day following and before, naturally, in case you are wondering if its a time zone thing :)
Can anyone explain to me if there is something magic that needs doing to start the clicks being reported? Or am I just missing something simple?

~ hi there, first post, yada yada :)

[DaveN]

Are they Adsense ads or PSA's

[leadegroot]

Errr... adsense. I think.
Whats a PSA?
Oh, Public Service Announcement?
No, they are commercial ads for product related to the topic of each page.

[loanuniverse]

Your friend might have clicked on a PSA..... I would ask him exactly what product or service did he click on.

I would also set up your own default to make sure that you are really serving targeted ads. It could be that you are seeing them, but the majority of your users isn't.

Also, double digit page impressions is not really going to bring you a good return if your CTR is low. When you say recently? How recently do you mean? Do you have more than 1,000 impressions so far?

[zoltan]

Frankly, I don't think you can expect too much with double-digit impressions... Build some content at first then drive visitors to your site before you expect to see some clicks. Just my 2 cents.

[zoltan]

loanuniverse... you beat me with about 2 minutes. :)

[trillianjedi]

I don't think you can expect too much with double-digit impressions

You both beat me to it by 1/2 hour but it's still worth repeating..... ;-)

You need to assume a CTR of around the 1% mark. In double-digit terms, that basically means zero.

TJ

[wonderboy]

lol yer - double digits per day is not exactly advertising material, you will be lucky to get a couple of dollars every month out of that. That is no lie.
I am getting 5 digit impressions per day, and still make a *very* small amount of money :(
You need to be getting 6-7 digit impressions to get into the real money :(

[leadegroot]

Now that I check with my friend, he says that he saw charity-type ads there, which isnt what I see. *sigh*

I would also set up your own default to make sure that you are really serving targeted ads. It could be that you are seeing them, but the majority of your users isn't.

Hmmmm... Can you explain what a 'default' is?
Googling for this hasnt enlightened me :(

The size of the dollars earned isnt the point here - this site is a service for a specific group, it was never intended to make money; the adsense is there more to test out the concept prior to putting it on real sites than to earn money.

[loanuniverse]

You should read the FAQ from top to bottom just to make sure that you are doing things right, but here is the section regarding default "alternate" ads

Alternate Ads allow you to monetize your ad space in the event that Google is unable to serve targeted ads to your page. By specifying an image or ad server of your choice, you can make sure that your advertising space is always being used effectively, either by targeted AdWords ads, or by your own choice of content. Alternate Ads count as page impressions like any other ad. Google does not keep track of clicks on alternate ads and you will not receive revenue for them.

Alternate Ads, if specified, will be shown when there are no targeted ads available for your page. The ad space will not be branded as 'Ads by Google.'

11. How do I Specify an Alternate Ad?
You can specify an Alternate Ad URL from your Ad layout code page. Simply enter a fully qualified path to any image, HTML page, or ad server, and that URL will be loaded in the event that we cannot serve targeted ads to your page.

1. Log in to your AdSense account at [google.com...]
2. Click Settings
3. Click Ad layout code
4. After selecting a color palette and ad format, enter a fully qualified path to your image file, HTML page, or ad server in the 'Alternate Ad' text box
5. Copy and paste the ad code into your site pages

[leadegroot]

oh, 'alternate ads' - yes, I've seen that ('default' didnt trigger it for me, sorry :)) but, there's nothing really to put here for this site.
I might figure out a nice graphic instead...
bah - how silly. What is the point if they display PSAs unpredictably? :(

thanks for your answer :)