Ad Review Center -> Shown Ads

are you using this?

[ThatsBoBo]

I really like this new feature. I can see exactly what ads are being shown on my sites and can block by clicking an ad I don't like.

I found that the ads being displayed are actually a lot more targeted than I thought. Sure, an out of the blue belly-fat ad here and there, but mostly spot on.

Do any of you use this new feature? I'm suprised I haven't heard more people talk about it on WebmasterWorld.

[netmeg]

Me too, as a matter of fact.

Oh I *quite* like this!

Because of the nature of a few of my sites, I have had a lot of problems with the word "display" and end up with a lot of mistargeted ads for literature racks and trade show booths and whatnot. Took me five minutes to block em all. Woo hoo!

[londrum]

what exactly is this?
first of all i thought they were going to show us every single ad which appeared on our sites, but then i noticed that the old options for checking placement ads have disappeared. you can no longer check which advertisers are targeting your site, it seems. so is this just a new implimentation of that?

it does seem to show a lot more ads than the old placement things did. but i'm wondering whether its the same thing, but new and improved.

the idea that google will let us block/allow every single ad that appears on our site does seem a bit odd. each site could potentially run up thousands and thousands of blocks.

[Lame_Wolf]

3 adverts per page. Sheesh, i'll be here for hours going through them. Why they couldn't display it better is beyond me.

Also, I see a number of adverts that have the word "keyword" as part of the text.

Eg> {Keyword : Search Free widgets} and they all encased in curly brackets too. Anyone else see such adverts ?

[ken_b]

3 adverts per page.

That changes with thw width of your browser window. At 1280 I'm see 4 ads, at 1024 only 3.

I haven't figured out if I can review just the placement/image ads. Having to page thru all the text ads would be a pain. Still need to dig around a bit and see how it all works.

.

[netmeg]

That's called DKI for dynamic keyword insertion. It puts the keyword in the title of the ad (although it doesn't really work on the Display Network, because there are no keywords involved).

It works like this; say I have an ad group with five keywords

blue widgets
red widgets
green widgets
yellow widgets
purple and orange widgets

Ads usually get better CTR when they exactly match the search, but maybe they didn't want to make 5 separate ads. So they make the title like this

{Keyword:Multicolor} Widgets For Sale

That way, if the search is a match for any of the keywords, it'll substitute the keyword in the title.

Blue Widgets For Sale

But if someone searches for the purple and orange widgets keyword, that's too long to fit in the 25 chars alloted to the title, so you will get

Multicolor Widgets for Sale

I use it all the time. But it's not really relevant for Display.

[netmeg]

Actually only took me about 15 or 20 minutes to go through all my ads. And I have a lot of sites in my account. (Course I also have a 24" monitor so I got to see something like six or eight at a time)

[Lame_Wolf]

At 1280 I'm see 4 ads, at 1024 only 3.

I am on 1152 and only see 3. And to make it worse, you've no idea how many you have to go through. Not well thought out TBH.

[Lame_Wolf]

Thank you for clearing that up, netmeg.

[icedowl]

I see two rows of 3 to 5 per row depending on the size of my browser on a 22" display. That's 6, 8 or 10 ads displayed.

[Lame_Wolf]

If I go full screen (F11) then I will see 6. But for me, this is a PITA because I prefer not to use this option. I do not use it whilst I browse, and I won't keep altering it just for this. Google forgot the five "P's"

[levo]

Got 200+ ads by zooming out and extending the Safari window on three monitors. Made it much faster to flush blocked ads list.

[netmeg]

If I go full screen (F11) then I will see 6. But for me, this is a PITA because I prefer not to use this option. I do not use it whilst I browse, and I won't keep altering it just for this. Google forgot the five "P's"

You're an outlier, LW. As I recall, you're on IE6 too. I don't really see how they could design it to make you happy and have it still work for most everyone else.

[matrix_jan]

Yeah going full screen brings two rows having 4 ads each (1280x800 screen). But still pain in the butt for big websites, for now at least, because I have to review for the whole past month :-/

The good thing is that I'll finally spot the new "download button" and "emoticons" ads.

The bad thing is that rich media and flash template ads are not being displayed.

[tonyolm]

But they'll never do that, for the same reason they won't let publishers set a minimum bid for ad space - because then they're left with a bunch of cheap ad inventory that they can't place. And that would piss off the advertisers.

But if the ads are not converting to clicks that doesn't help the advertiser or the publisher.

So if an ad is displayed 40% of the time but produces 1% of your entire revenue that really isn't a good return on the ad space. Compare that to an ad that might be displayed 15% of the time but generating 40% of your revenue. What ad would you rather have displayed? There would be no loss to an advertiser if their ads weren't producing a click anyways. Know what I mean?

[Lame_Wolf]

You're an outlier, LW. As I recall, you're on IE6 too. I don't really see how they could design it to make you happy and have it still work for most everyone else.

I use firefox for adsense. IE6 for browsing.

[netmeg]

The entire system is geared to the advertiser, and not the publisher.

[Lame_Wolf]

The entire system is geared to the advertiser, and not the publisher.

Yes, but this part of the system/program is geared towards the publisher... That's why it's the adsense interface. ;)

[JCKline]

I just checked and it's there for me as well. I'm surprised at the poor quality of some of the ads. If they don't know English, they shouldn't try to write it!

[netmeg]

(I'm sorry LW, my comment was meant for tonyolm)

Yea, I found a couple ads in Portuguese and one for events in Germany. Bear in mind that a lot of advertisers get a free voucher and fire up a campaign without having a clue what they're doing.

[ThatsBoBo]

Used wireless HD and linked to my 55" flat screen on full rez. Got a good 100 ads up there at once...

[JCKline]

@nutmeg, I had to block a ton of ads selling AdWords coupons in several languages, but mostly broken English (not google). I also blocked every ad from Russia and China that I could find.

[jaztar]

Blocking a single ad can still be achieved via Blocking Options > Advertiser URL's.

This Ad Review Center does make it easier in that you can see all ads at-a-glance (or a number of glances).

Personally, I'd be careful when using the new Block AdWords Account option as my understanding is that you could potentially be blocking a large agent account (host of many AdWords Clients and a large collective of ads).

Any further thoughts?

[zaktoo]

A new policy of mine is to block any ad with a telephone number in it. That is not playing fairly in my opinion.

[mslina2002]

Used wireless HD and linked to my 55" flat screen on full rez. Got a good 100 ads up there at once...

Sounds like a kewl set up. Wouldn't mind something linked to a larger screen myself but dunno about 55"!

Got Googley-eyed yet?

[piatkow]

I only see a subset of the ads that I see on the site.

[Play_Bach]

Welcome to the Ad Review Centre. Here you can see ads that are eligible to run on your site and choose whether to allow or block specific ads or advertisers. Learn more.
To enable the ad review center for your account, please submit a request.

Ad Review Centre?

[zaktoo]

Also, blocked 1000s of ads, and no noticeable increase in anything at all. I can't believe that removing a whole bunch of horrendous ads hasn't made an improvement.

[zaktoo]

Checked my shown ads today, and hundreds that I had blocked were suddenly in there, and some new ones that hadn't bothered to go through "Upcoming Ads". Why give us these tools if they're as #*$!ed up as AdSense itself seems to be these days? Yes, I am really, really cross right now.

[londrum]

i like it, but it does seem to have a few teething problems. i'm seeing the same ad appear multiple times in the list, and even after blocking them all i still sometimes see it appear on the site. but it will be nice when it works

[fredw]

I'm confused about something.

I know it's a big no-no to click on ads on your own sites. But is it OK to click on the url of an ad displayed in Shown Ads in the Ad Review Center to see where the ad goes?