Forum Moderators: martinibuster
In your ideal AdSense world, what would you like for the holidays this year?
We won't be able to implement all of your suggestions, but I'll make sure every idea gets back to the appropriate product teams.
Thanks!
-ASA
It's unrealistic to think that all publisher suggestions are of equal merit, or that all will be implemented.
Metaphorically wrote:(...) Second, a whole bunch more custom channels. If I could use as many channels as I have categories in my blogs or tags in my gallery that'd go a long way towards helping me as a publisher.
With the kind of feedback I could get from those two features it would be a lot easier to keep Adsense on pages that will convert and produce more content that benefits advertisers.
Both of these are really simple for the Adsense team and would be a huge benefit for me as a publisher.
Wyweb wrote:More channels. I meant to say that too.
King_Fisher wrote:Ditto on the channels!...KF
Sonjay wrote:More channels. (...)
Bts111 wrote:More channels, (...)
Elsewhen wrote:(...) more channels
MrSEman wrote:(...) unlimited channels (...)
I agree too. :) In fact, more channels is almost my only wish for AdSense, specially URL channels.
But the number one has to be transparency and more control to publishers.
Google want to get a slice of the more traditional agency insertion order style. They want to allow advertisers to book ahead on specific sites.
To do that you need to open up and let us know who is bidding what and how much we are getting % wise. Also as others have said set a minimum CPC and CPM and a decent default system to handle anything below those. Else Adsense will never get far beyond text ads, imho. Many publishers use Adsense on specific text only spots so these other creative types need to compete with other graphical ads from other sources, not auto serve if better than text.
[edited by: FattyB at 12:31 am (utc) on Dec. 14, 2007]
2 Deny Adsense to your Blogger system, and blogspot. Most of them are either poor one page low content, sites or just straight out MFA's
3 Adsense only allowed to Top level domains. Make people produce quality by making it harder become a publisher.
Its not fair on advertisers to have low quality blog sites in the system. Also the popular myth is that Blogger + adsense = money. It ruins the pool for the rest of us and lowers the quality of the sites that have adsense.
2) Ability to see list of what sites advertised on my site for the last week (?), perferable with number of clicks and CPC - to help decide what site to ban
Many changes that have taken place were suggested by publishers.
It's unrealistic to think that all publisher suggestions are of equal merit, or that all will be implemented.
I'd rather say: "Many changes that have taken place were not suggested by publishers."
What changes were there in 2007? (Off the top of my head)
- Lame crackdown on MFA sites (never announced/confirmed publicly AFAIK)
- New ad format/layout (OK for me)
- Adsense Optimization reports (useless)
- New online ad management system (OK for some)
- Removal of URL display in status bar (very very bad for those who use ad trackers)
- Introduction of video ads (useless so far)
Looking at Google's changes, I see three main categories:
a) features that look good to the public (e.g. Optimization Reports) but are in fact utterly useless, and
b) features that help publishers to more effectively manage their ads
c) features that prevent publishers to gain more control on what's happening with Adsense (or, in fact, keep the control level they have)
Many of the features that were requested in past years (and again this year) fall mostly into two other categories:
a) features that help publishers to gain more control on what's happening with Adsense
b) features that help publishers to more effectively manage their ads
c) features that help publishers to increase/stabilize their revenues
A big discrepancy, I would say. As for the reasons, I don't know. Google have never hidden the fact that they do not like transparency when it comes to their business, so the move towards more intransparent tools and methods does not come as a surprise to me.
In an effort to provide you with more transparency and control over the ads appearing on your pages [...]
That sums it up, Zett.
And quite well, may I add.
a) features that help publishers to gain more control on what's happening with Adsense
b) features that help publishers to more effectively manage their ads
c) features that help publishers to increase/stabilize their revenues
In other words fearures that provide more information and and some control to the publisher, rather than dashboard rearrangement that amount to little else.
[edited by: Scurramunga at 11:52 am (utc) on Dec. 14, 2007]
It's unrealistic to think that all publisher suggestions are of equal merit, or that all will be implemented.
That may be so EFV, however I am responding in the context of the thread title at hand; 'Adsense Holiday 2007 Wishlist'
So today we see two changes made by google in response to publisher behaviour:
1. abolition of sign up feature
2. more "transparancy for CPM ads.
What will it take for us to see the big one? By that I mean empowering the publisher to identify and effectively remove all MFA and scam ads?
[edited by: Scurramunga at 12:08 pm (utc) on Dec. 14, 2007]
well, this are not suggestions which directly bring google more money. ability to kick out more shady advertisers, setting min cpc, review of banner ads, better performance stats, no more parking pages.. all of it capabilities to differentiate quality ads from crap and to better the network reputation. fair enough. but at the same time lowering network-wide earnings. yes, low end advertisers are are big proportion of the market.
from what i've heard here, many publishers would renounce a part of their earnings in compensation for more quality. but that's not google's aim. they show best performing ads to maximize revenue. good ads with high epc as well as cheapo ads with high ctr. and if it contradicts their aim, they don't change anything..
speaking of change.. i have somehow the feeling, that nothing has really changed at all in recent time (except lower ecpm). not necessarily a good thing in a highly dynamic business.
still waiting for the implementation of a killer product extension to the one and only text ads. one that actually works! maybe google should listen more carefully to its publishers..
why don't they react on the demand for more control?
I agree with moTi here.
Google does not implement the requested changes because it would hurt their bottom line. Why are they admitting MFAs into the program? Parked pages (ahem, "direct navigation" sites)? Otherwise shady advertisers?
Because "pecunia non olet" (money doesn't stink). Simple, really.
By allowing publishers to better control the ads, Google would quickly have no outlet for the cheapo ads that are running on their network. And, as EFV always points out, Google needs to have sites to display these ads, too. So, transparency and tooling directly impacts their bottom line. Much more than our bottom line - hint: high-paying ads will always be displayed, somewhere. It's the garbage ads that are the problem.
Also, by making their business more transparent, analysts will have better insights into Google and its revenue projections. Hence, they do give out the least meaningful information possible. They almost can't go any lower in terms of no-information. They next steps would be to just display a daily amount (no pageviews, no clicks, no channels, no nothing), and then -ultimately- just show a monthly value. I do not expect them to change their communication approach any time soon.
Have a set payment day. Pay every month on the same day, such as the 25th of every month, or something like that. you know...like real businesses do.
Careful what you wish for. If Google wanted to be like the typical Fortune 500 corporation, it would require the publisher to submit an invoice each month and wait 60 days or longer for payment.
The ability to have ads with transparent backgrounds. This would allow ads to blend better on sites that have a textured background.
Amen, and hallelujah to that! I agree...it takes me so long to set and tweak my ads on my forums due to having to match colors, etc., etc. A transparent background would be ideal for me. ALL my templates could use the same colors except the background colors. Also, I would like the sort order of the ads the way they were a few days ago...BACK to where they showed the highest first, etc...now it's all screwed up showing channels. Talk about irritating and confusing, phew. It's bad enough walking down a long, dark hall all alone without someone sticking their foot out to trip you in the middle of the hall.
PLEASE warn us of changes EARLY so we can adapt faster, most of us are not Marines (I was Army), but we try to adapt and overcome to what you all throw in our path as fast as possible ONCE we finally figure out what you all did. Testing stuff is fine, but "guinea-pigging" publishers on-the-sly is not really the best way to go about testing.
I also vote for being able to view WHO is targeting my site and deciding whether they can "rent" my space. That is a good one and I hear you all are going to roll that out soon, AWESOME! Thanks!
ADDED: I forgot to mention, please stop allowing Adsense on parked pages so we don't look like spammers like parked/MFA pages do.
[edited by: WiseWebDude at 10:06 pm (utc) on Dec. 14, 2007]
By allowing publishers to better control the ads, Google would quickly have no outlet for the cheapo ads that are running on their network.
Not necessarily. Beggars can't be choosers. You can bet dollars to doughnuts some Wal-Mart style publishers will turn a tidy profit by high-volume "sales" of discount ads.
Publishers in third-world countries may not all reject penny clicks.
I'd like to let the market decide. There's nothing to stop Google from giving us the freedom to set minimum PPC... and then, if it hurts its bottomline, reversing its policy.
Consider, too, after some publishers block penny clicks, their revenue could take a big hit. Then they'll lower their minimum PPC.
I think the free market would sort all this out easily and naturally. It's very basic economics.
p/g
I think the free market would sort all this out easily and naturally. It's very basic economics.
Highest earning channels at the top, descending order.
And I also want EFV to find something else to do with his life.
Now I found out that the custom reports "by AdSense unit" are all wrong anyway.
If I was making heaps of money I would not mind, but how does Google justify us spending huge amounts of admin time for no reward?
Not happy...
K
I've been a very good girl this year and I have a few requests.)
Firstly, could you make the reporting page customisable?
Maybe some nice ajaxy drag and drop?
I am so sick of clicking for an Advanced report... and scrolling down to see the report.
Change the param, click... and scroll down.
Why on earth are the controls at the top of the screen? You think I want to run a new report before I look at what I asked for?
Secondly, you stopped updating the 'Recent Messages' in June. Any chance you can take them off the home page? Old news is borrrrinnng!
Thirdly, I don't really understand why you think I shouldn't know who is advertising with me, seeing I can look at my site to see them, and you are fine with me blocking by domain, if I can figure out what it is - but lets ignore that.
I need more data on what is happening with the traffic I send our advertisers.
I'm firmly of the opinion that a given market only has $K being spend on it, so there comes a point where there is no point my spending time on a niche. Its a waste of my time when I could be working on a different site to make me and you more money.
So, give me more detailled info on my clicks
I think reporting the following by advertisier domain makes more sense, but you seem to have some problems with that, so how about something like this:
* For each hour of the day, EPC (average, high, low and number of each) This will help me work out that the niche is tapping out, if the end of the day is low. This should help publishers who say 'my trafic is growing, why is my ecpm falling?'
* For the day, the number of clicks in ranges (like 0 - $0.05, $0.05 - $0.10, etc)
* *tell us* the smart pricing rate. As someone else said, people will rapidly improve if they know there is a problem!
* the number of alternate ads run. My analytics numbers are bigger than my adsense numbers. I assume the gap is alternate ads. If its growing overtime then I either have a content problem or I am tapping out the niche. Make it easy for me to figure out this is happening, rather than having to compare data across products.
* and graphs, graphs, graphs :)
I know, just let Jeff Veen loose on the adsense reporting interface! That'll do it! :)
and merry christmas to all! (no, that should go in Foo, shouldn't it? ;))
The ability to have ads with transparent backgrounds
Impossible in my view:
Do you have any idea how this feature can be abused?
If I were to choose between a bigger filter and blocking by advertiser account I'll choose the latter, but hey, why not both?
Two possible ways this could be made implementable:
Instead of an transparent background, who's purpose is to allow an ad to better blend with a site that uses a textured or graphical background, they could either:
A) allow you to upload a background graphic which an ad could use. They could require these graphics be OK'ed individually first before being shown with ads.
or B) supply a set of stock textured and graphical backgrounds they approve and let us conform to them by also using the same background on our site. In additon these could also be publisher submittable, after being OK'ed they'd be available to the entire publisher community.
It depends on the point of view so I disagree. If Google looked at it (more like a Publisher does) that there is a limited amount of page impressions out there available, "let's make the very most of them by charging as much as possible for each and every one", then the bad ads would have to pay up to compete or go away and stop wasting everyone's time.
Rather than looking at it as (the money grubbing middle-man) there's always a glut of so many places to advertise if there's advertising money to be had from ANY source (ideal or cr@ppy) let's take it _ALL_, spread both kinds of ads around (a lot more to some publishers than others) and d@mn the publishers who don't like it.
The former leads to better quality, higher paying ads, the latter to bottom feeding scum.
My wish list should include the removal of the so called "smart-pricing" concept. A click is a click. If G screws up and puts the wrong ad on my site or the advertiser doesn't know what to do with it to convert it, it's their own fault, not mine. I am not convinced there is any way they can scientifically differentiate "likelihood to convert".
in terms of smart pricing, i think you are right. honestly, i also never really understood smart pricing. as you say, a click is a click. in my opinion, as long as it's not faked or provoked by unfair means, it's worth the same regardless the context.
websites which attract less interested users with their content produce fewer prospects and suffer from low ctr anyway. that's called preselection.
[edited by: moTi at 10:13 am (utc) on Dec. 22, 2007]
