Forum Moderators: martinibuster
This is great news for you because it means the auction for your image-ad-enabled ad blocks will be getting more competitive.
Please check out today's Inside AdSense blog post and the AdSense Help Center [google.com] for the full scoop, but I'm here to answer as many of your questions as I can.
Seriously, this has been a long time in the making and I hope you're as excited as I am.
ASA
We're rolling this out slowly in coming months, so please don't read anything into short-term revenue fluctuations (which I can almost guarantee have nothing to do with today's launch).
your image-ad-enabled ad blocks
Then that leaves me out ASA.
...worst AdSense month I've had since 2004. Can only go up from here.
Sorry netmeg... it can get worse!
I also agree with others who have noted that image ads (and especially animated ads) should be sold on a CPM basis. Let's face it: they are as much about branding as they are about action.
More competition for your display ad inventory
Competition normally drives prices/earning up, however GG is going to be the middle-man.
I have not seen any business move by Google AdSense in the last five years that has improved my earning per labor hour (EPL).
Can only go up from here.
Also, do we need to update our privacy policy for this? Or are external parties not allowed to cookie?
image-ad-enabled ad
I missed that when I first read ASA's post. The emails I got didn't mention that.
So this is just for image ads? I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
It will be hard to compete with adsense through one of these networks. Instead of one (google), you now have two middle-men creaming off their part (google AND the network), only further lowering the CPC for the publisher.
After further reflection on this new GG opportunity I'm having challenges visualizing how I'm going to benefit from this arrangement
Currently, I share click revenue with GG on Adsense, and GG decides on which ads show as well as the revenue split. With this new opportunity the revenue will be split three-ways and I still don’t any say on the revenue split.
ASA, this new opportunity needs to benefit the publisher’s bottom line for any sticky-ness on quality sites.
How is it being presented to those using Adwords - not in the same way I guess.
I have to be a bit concerned that by bringing these networks under the G umbrella, competition will be reduced in the longer term, a factor that is unlikely to worry G if they have more of a monopoly but may reduce our revenues. Of course there is nothing we will be able to do about that so we will be better off going with it.
I have no intention of blocking them at the moment.
Instead of one (google), you now have two middle-men creaming off their part (google AND the network), only further lowering the CPC for the publisher.
Why would that be, unless you already had a direct arrangement with the third-party network and gave it up to display that network's ads through Google?
It seems to me that the concept is pretty simple: AdSense advertisers are now competing not only with each other, but also with third-party networks. In theory, at least, that should drive prices up, resulting in higher earnings for both Google and the publisher.
Obviously, not all publishers will find this scheme attractive: I won't participate, for example, because I already have an exclusive contract with a vertical display-ad network and use AdSense only for text ads. But for publishers who are currently relying solely on AdSense for ad income, the new "certified ad network" option could be valuable. Instead of dismissing it out of hand (and possibly leaving money on the table), why not test it? To paraphrase an old expression, "Experience is the best teacher, but guesswork teaches nothing."
the benefit for google is that there will be loads more ads and presumably loads more clicks, making more money for them.
publishers won't benefit from a price rise, i don't think. but maybe they will benefit from getting more clicks -- at a lower rate.
publishers won't benefit from a price rise, i don't think. but maybe they will benefit from getting more clicks -- at a lower rate.
Forget about clicks. Display ads are about branding and building awareness. In my experience, display ads--at least in the right niches--can fetch far higher CPMs than CPM text ads do. And in some cases, they can even fetch much better CPMs/eCPMs than contextual cost-per-click ads do.
As for the notion that Google will make less money with third-party ads than it would with its own ads, that's not necessarily a correct guess. Google hasn't been terribly successful in selling display ads to major advertisers, and CPM text ads have a limited market. Depending on what the CPMs are, and on what share of the third-party ad network's revenue Google receives for supplying inventory (especially targeted inventory), both Google and AdSense publishers could benefit from the scheme.
Another thing that this new "Certified Ad Networks" scheme could do (and ideally should do) is make CPM display ads available in situations where Google would otherwise be serving CPM text ads.
But why speculate? If you're already allowing Google to serve display ads, it's easy enough to try the "certified ad network" option and see whether the new option works for you.
You're surfacing a lot of great questions here. Keep 'em coming and I'll add them to the list. :)
One quick clarification: this launch only impacts image-ad-enabled ad units. To reap the benefits, you do need to have image ads enabled for your inventory.
ASA
It seems to me that the concept is pretty simple: AdSense advertisers are now competing not only with each other, but also with third-party networks. In theory, at least, that should drive prices up, resulting in higher earnings for both Google and the publisher.
Don’t forget, third party networks are also competing with Adwords. In theory that could encourage the third party networks advertisers to lower their bids, resulting in a better advertiser ROI and lower ad earnings for the ad publishers. Why pay more than one has to with publishers so plentiful (ad spaces)?
Now, if we could use the third-party ads as a back fill and specify the minimum payout we (publishers) receive…..
Great move Google!
I'm a glass half full guy. Competition should help drive up the price of advertisements, which will be good for publishers.
Personally, I think making the AdWords side of things simpler and more certain would encourage more people to become AdWords advertisers, more current AdWords advertisers to increse their budgets, etc, and diminish the need to seek out ad inventory from other networks.
But that's a dead horse issue I guess, so I'll stop beating that horse.
FarmBoy
-
It's a little early to tell if there are other factors, but I've noticed an increase in overall revenue from these changes of about 15%
It looks like I'm seeing these changes in my account and they are very welcomed. People need to learn to just be willing to try new things - be thankful they gave us an option to opt-out :)
You don't even need to opt out if you aren't using AdSense "image ads."
It looks like I'm seeing these changes in my account and they are very welcomed
You mean they've already implemented this?
CPC and CPM are different, right? But most importantly they are different because Google calculates how much you earn via CPC per thousand visitors, then compares that to the CPM bid. Comparing CPC to CPC is a no-brainer. Comparing CPM to CPM is similarly a no-brainer. Comparing CPC to CPM is not straightforward for the reasons outlined above and won't repeat.
Well, sort of. Honest, there is nothing new here. Google has been doing this for some time directly, via cpm targeted ads, and indirectly through the process of determining what ads to show on your site.
In effect, google decides which ads to show by looking at the bid and the predicted ctr, which in effect makes it the same kind of metric as cpm, regardless of what it's called.
It's simple to convert from one to the other if you have ctr and ad price. And that is what they have. And what they have been doing for pretty much the entire adsense program.
Don't know about you, but I always convert the returns on cpc type ads into cpm metrics, so I can decide what I should be showing. Google does that, and shows that metric in your reports.
So, again, they are doing it, can do it, just as we all do. And have done.
which do you -as a publisher- like best:
1000 views, 10 clicks, $0.1 CPC = 1 CPM
1000 views, 100 clicks, $0.01 CPC = 1 CPM
I'm entirely with the first ... I honestly can't care about the latter: losing -selling?- loads of visitors for next to nothing ? And then probably getting "but they don't buy stuff" from the advertisers.
The above is not entirely unbalanced:
1000 views, 0.1 click, $10 CPC = 1 CPM, but if you miss the click you get nothing ..
But there isn't any indication Google adwords has that kind of advertiser ...
The problem ones are mostly in the $0.01 CPC range I'm afraid.
I've yet to see anything able to cut off the too long tail for those niches that do have enough quality advertiser, but who get overrun by the crappier with more click inducing (but far lower paying) ads.
Google taking a share from an outside network is probably not going to produce better revenue for publishers. JMO.
You mean they've already implemented this?
