What's the Story behind all those unrelated Adsense Ads?

[Multiverse]

I have been away from the whole publisher thing for a few years. Have been selling products. Spent a couple of millions on Adwords. So I know both sides of the fence pretty well now.

Lately I started a new content website about "widgets". A topic that you pay around $2 per click on adwords. I did a real investment into this. Having it developed over 6 months. The site took off quite nicely. Has about 100000 visitors a month already. It get's a lot of praise and I believe it has the potential to become a major player.

So I thought to myself: Time to monetize my new baby. Slapped on some Adsense ads and was expecting to make money.

Yeah right. As it turns out, Adsense makes me about $5 a day!

Can you see me scratching my head? How can a site that every day thousands of people use to look for "widgets" make only $150 a month in ad revenue?

Looking at the ads it's quite obvious. The ads are non-related, cheap "Are you single?", "Free file sharing" and alike. At least in the languages I can read. I tried from a couple of computers from around the world.

Ok, so:

a) People go to Google, look for "widgets", see a WALL of $2-per-click ads for "widgets".

b) People go to my "which widgets to buy" site and see "Windows Vista Driver Download" and "Google Business Email" ads which have almost nothing to do with "widgets" and pay only $0.2 per click.

Why?

Looking around the net this seems to be the way it is everywhere now. Whatever I google, the system in place seems to be the same: The search results are filled with relevant ads. But the ads on the content pages are completely irrelevant. What's the story behind this?

[Leosghost]

"personalised ads"..Nowadays ( 90% of the time on all adsense sites ) G reads the cookies on the machine that have been paced by it's properties such as search etc..( or reads the data that it has on G's own servers, such as the IP connecting to it or the device connecting to it ) and serves what they think "you'll be interested in", as opposed to an ad "contextual" related to what the site/ page subject is about..

Welcome to "new improved adsense"..

[netmeg]

Much of it could be attributed to interest based ads, but they may not be a total disaster (they certainly aren't for me) But back when thing were more contextual, it still took Google quite a while to serve me really targeted ads. About a year. Shouldn't take that long now though.

You say your site has been up for six months - how long have the ads been up?

You might also want to do some searching on "smart pricing" and check the sources for your traffic. Google wants ad clickers who are likely to convert for the advertisers, so some of that may be going on too. For example, if one of my sites is targeted to Michigan, as it is, but I get a ton of traffic from China and India, Google will discount that traffic because it's unlikely to convert for the advertisers (and if advertisers are paying for traffic that doesn't convert, you have unhappy advertisers)

And also it's true that the ads that YOU see are not necessarily the ones your users are seeing.

Is your CTR ok? (don't post it here, that's against AdSense TOS) If your users aren't clicking, maybe your topic isn't catching them in a buying cycle.

[Multiverse]

I tested it from a bunch of computers from around the world. With fresh browsers without cookies. So it is not because of interest based ads.

I think the rules here prohibit real examples. So it's a bit hard to talk about it. Otherwise I could show you screenshots from around the world. It's not only on my site. I see it on most sites. For all keywords I checked.

The real adverts for "widget x815 red with 3 knobs" would be the ads google shows in the serps. They all say "buy widget x815 in red with 3 knobs here".

Some sites get ads for "widget accessoires here". Some sites just get "Asian brides here" and "Take a survey about bananas" and stuff like that. Nobody gets the really good ads.

[avalon37]

Here's what you need to do.

1. Make all ads text only
2. Start blocking categories - block as many as you can. It should be assumed to first block the industries you are seeing ads from that have nothing to do with your content.
3. Make all ads 728x90
4. Block domains. Add as main domains that are unrelated to your brand.
5. Don't worry that all these things will lower your CPC when you do get clicks - it won't...AdSense is not an auction anymore. There is no longer proof that first ads on page is worth the most, etc. etc. all ancient history.
6. You want contextual ads - they typically pay the best.

[edited by: martinibuster at 4:48 pm (utc) on Dec 23, 2014]
[edit reason] TOS. [/edit]

[ember]

Here's what you need to do.

1. Make all ads text only

I do better when all my ads are text/image.

2. Start blocking categories - block as many as you can. It should be assumed to first block the industries you are seeing ads from that have nothing to do with your content.

I unblocked everything a few months ago and revenue increased.

3. Make all ads 728x90

That is only my second best performing ad size.

4. Block domains. Add as main domains that are unrelated to your brand.

A few domains maybe, but again, unblocking helped me.

5. Don't worry that all these things will lower your CPC when you do get clicks - it won't...AdSense is not an auction anymore. There is no longer proof that first ads on page is worth the most, etc. etc. all ancient history.

Disagree.

6. You want contextual ads - they typically pay the best.

IBA ads are by far my best performing ads.

Bottom line: what works for one site may not work for another. No one size fits all. Testing and re-testing is what works to find what performs best on your particular site.

[avalon37]

Ember this poster does not have to take my advice. I managed 2 AdSense accounts that are both premium publishers and both gross over $1 million a year annually. I speak with my premium publish your account manager AdSense anytime I want and attend 1 to 2 conferences on AdSense in New York and LA once or twice a year. Sure that probably sounds like massive name dropping; I mention it because with as large accounts as I manage everything possible can does come up. Based on his descriptions those are my recommendations. This person or any other person here for that matter is welcome to use any or none of the information that I post here. Merry Christmas

[Multiverse]

Thank you for you input, Avalon37 and Ember. I will definitely a/b test factors like display type and ad formats. I will also do experiments with blocking. Unfortunately there is no good way to a/b test that as far as I can see.

But the main question I have is: Why are the good ads not on adsense? This is not about my site in particular. Let me explain it in detail:

1) Go to www.google.com and search for a specific product. Say the computer in front of you. The exact model. Or the desk you are sitting at. Or the exact type of jeans you are wearing.

You will see a bunch of ads trying to sell you this exact product. These are the good ads. The ads relevant to the product. Ads that advertisers pay a lot for.

2) Now click on one of the content pages from the search results. These are usually reviews of the product monetized via adsense. Now look at the adsense ads. They are either loosely related to the product or not related at all.

Where are all the ads "Buy widget x815 here" now? Why are they on the serps but not on the content pages?

Some theories:

a) Google could show them but does not. That doesn't really make sense. Why would they leave money on the table?

b) The unrelated Ads have a higher CTR then related ads. Unlikely.

c) The advertisers disabled Adsense for product specific ads or lowered their bids on Adsense so low that more general ads rank higher. Maybe. The advertisers on Adsense are often the same as the ones that appear in the Serps. But on Adsense they do not have product specific ads but general ads.
Maybe product specific content pages are the exception and therefore not really targeted by advertisers? But still there would be the mistery of the completely unrelated ads.

If anybody want's to see some examples, send me a PM and I will show you some screenshots so we know what we are talking about.

[RedBar]

Why are the good ads not on adsense?

Simply because many advertisers opt-out of Google's display network. There are some quite extraordinary statistics about this, I'm sure netmeg posted them here awhile back.

[netmeg]

Um. I get plenty of good ads. There are long periods where I average well over a buck a click, and that's over, well, a lot of clicks.

But it's true that a lot of advertisers opt out of the Display Network. I don't run it on any of my B2B clients AdWords accounts, because we don't yet know where their customers hang out on the web, and it would be a waste of money for them.

This is an obvious question and I'm sure it doesn't apply to you but... is your site open to the Google bots that would likely be able to determine your content? You haven't inadvertently blocked anything?

[ember]

I speak with my premium publish your account manager AdSense anytime I want and attend 1 to 2 conferences on AdSense in New York and LA once or twice a year.

Yippy, skippy. I've had dinner at Google. So what? The point is what works for one site might not work for another. Testing is key.

Why are the good ads not on adsense?

I get good ads. They are from the leading companies in my niche.

[edited by: ember at 11:13 pm (utc) on Dec 23, 2014]

[Multiverse]

many advertisers opt-out of Google's display network

That could very well be part of the reason. It is in line with my own experience. Around 2011 I stopped advertising on Adsense because the ROI dropped and the volume was too low to justify analyzing it further.

[Multiverse]

I get plenty of good ads

With "good ads" I mean product specific ads for the product the page is about. That's the kind of ads you see on the Serps. When you google "Widget x813 xtra large" you get ads saying "Buy Widget x813 xtra large here!". That's where most of the adwords money goes. On content pages about "Widget x813 xtra large" you see broad ads like "Widgets", "Widget accessoires", "Widget travel" etc.

is your site open to the Google bots

As I said, it's not about my site in particular. I see broad, untargeted adsense ads everywhere.

[Multiverse]

I made a little experiment yesterday:

Next to the adsense ad (text only) on the page for "Widget x0815 in red" I displayed a little text-link: "Search retailers for widget x0815 in red".

Guess what happened?

It was clicked 8 times more often then the adsense ad.

A tiny little targeted text link for the exact product outperformes all those huge ads with slogans like "BEST WIDGETS ON PLANET EARTH!" and "WIDGET HOLIDAYS YOU WILL NEVER FORGET!" and "RELATED TO WIDGETS: WUDGETS!".

[micklearn]

Google could show them but does not. That doesn't really make sense. Why would they leave money on the table?

I tried to dig deeper...why aren't interest based ads shown on the SERPs? It's an obvious choice Google made.

As I said, it's not about my site in particular. I see broad, untargeted adsense ads everywhere.

Agree 100%. I'd believe the opt-out theories if it happened over time, but it happened all at once.

[martinibuster]

...why aren't interest based ads shown on the SERPs?

That's a good question. Makes you wonder. I think the answer is because the SERPs are a different context from a web page. SERPs are people searching for things. On publisher sites they are there for different reasons. Aside from actually using a search box, the context is different.

[netmeg]

What MB said.

If, as an advertiser, I am running an ad in the SERPs based on keywords I want to bid on, then I sure don't want Google second guessing me and showing interest based ads. I'm bidding on an ad for that keyword; I have even less control if they also toss interest based ads into the mix.

Display Network bidding doesn't use keywords. I mean, you can add a few general broad concepts to make sure Google gets the gist of where you think your ads should appear, but there's no one-to-one keyword-to-ad relationship going on here. So interest based ads make a lot more sense for the advertiser. Who, as we all know, is a lot more important to Google in this scenario.

Interest based ads aren't going anywhere, because they work well for advertisers. Google didn't invent the idea either; they were common enough before Google took them up. It may be true that they don't work as well for some publishers, but I don't see a solution for that problem coming from Google. Ultimately, I think you have to get to know your audience, and figure out how to attract the audience that will click on ads and convert sales. It's worked out pretty well for me (and in the process I found out that my audience wasn't who I originally thought it was, which was an extra bonus)

[micklearn]

That's a good question. Makes you wonder. I think the answer is because the SERPs are a different context from a web page. SERPs are people searching for things. On publisher sites they are there for different reasons. Aside from actually using a search box, the context is different.

Not sure I fully understand what you meant, but I would like to...I'm seeing ads on my site and other sites that I visit throughout any given day that have nothing to do with the topic of the page visited. (cookies and cache cleared)

The ads on Google SERPs are always spot on for the topic that was searched for...the sites I visit after a click on SERPs are not showing AdSense ads that on are topic. That doesn't make any sense for a company that advertises that they operate a contextual ad system. I'm not sure what you meant by, "the context is different".

[martinibuster]

Definition of Context: "the circumstances that form the setting for an event"

The context of why a visitor is at your site is

1. They want to download X

2. They want to chat on a forum

3. They want to research a widget

4. They want to buy a widget

5. Etc. to infinity.

The context for someone being at Google is they are entering a search query.

Two different contexts for a visit.

[Multiverse]

Today I was thinking about two more theories:

1) Google a/b-tests if unrelated ads perform betterthen related ads. And that takes time.

Say you have a page about "wubblywidgets". The highest bid for that keyword is $1. But there is this unrelated ad, that pays $2 per click. Even though it's unrelated it might perform better, right? Hack, even if it pays 10cent, it might perform better. Depends on what it says and what ctr it gets. So maybe Google just tests it. Shows related and unrelated ads and measures what performs best. That can take a lot of time. And there is ad fluctuation, right? Ads get deprecated, new ads come in. So the the system might keep testing forever.

2) Advertiser target somewhat unrelated keywords.

How do I know that the "widget holidays" ads i see are just targeting "widgets"? Maybe they target "widget x0815" which my page is about. And so they compete with the more related "widget x0815" ads. And Google has no (automatic) way to tell that one is more related then the other. However, that would then also be the case in the Serps. And there i don't see it. The ads on the serps are spot on. Maybe Google is less strict about it in Adsense because they have less inventory. Or just don't care as much.

[martinibuster]

1) Google a/b-tests if unrelated ads perform betterthen related ads.

It is not about related and unrelated ads. Interest based ads are directly related to your assumed interests based on your browsing habits while Page-Context ads (what you call relevant) are indirectly related to your assumed interests, based on that single web page the site visitor is visiting. Do you see how they are both targeting the site visitor's interest?

An interest based ad is not contextually related to the web page but it is directly related to your interests based on multiple web pages visited. Both methods are trying to identify your interests. One is by a single web page and the other (interest based) by recent pages viewed.

An ad that is interest based could quite possibly be vastly more relevant than the smaller pool of advertisers for any given topic. Some people may be more inclined to click on an ad that is contextually related to them than an ad that is related to a web page they are visiting, especially when the context is about anything other than directly related to making a purchase.

[Multiverse]

Martinibuster: I was not talking about interest based ads. I have tested it on a wide variety of computers without cookies. From all around the world. The Adsense ads are way way less targeted then the adwords ads in the serps.

Yes, when browsing with cookies interest based ads appear. But they don't convert either. Nobody clicks them. Compared to a single "Find retailers for this product" link the CTR of the Adsense ads is completely dismal. More about that in the next post.

[Multiverse]

I continued the testing. Since it's about time to monetize all the traffic I get, I put the Adsense ad and the "Find retailers for this product" right in the center of the page.

And I changed the "Find retailers for this product" to "Find this product on Amazon.com".

Now get this: In the new spot, right in the visitors face, the "Find on Amazon" textlink gets 50 times the clicks the Adsense ads get. Yes, 50 times. That's not a typo. And it makes me 30 times the money.

Pretty insane. Because less then half of my visitors are from the USA. So most clicks are simply wasted. And it's not an auction. Where advertisers bid whatever they are willing to pay max. It's just the measly 4% or whatever Amazon pays.

In an efficient market, Adsense would generate several times more money then Amazon. But in reality, it generates 30 times less.

Not all of that is caused by the bad targeting of course. About half of my visitors use ad-blockers. And the ones that don't probably have full-blown banner blindness.

[onlineleben]

Some points to think about:
a) in the past it was possible in Adwords to target a specific site with your ad. Why not contact those companies you see in the SERPs with relevant ads to advertise on your site. Either through Adwords or do a direct deal.
b) Regarding the Amazon link. Do you have a possibility to direct the non US visitors to their nearest Amazon-Site? Should be easy either by using geolocation services or offering links to the most possible sites (based on your user stats).

Have fun and let us know how it works out.

[onlineleben]

An additional question:
is it possible to swith Interest Based Ads off in adsense?
Or is thisonly possible for browsers?
Thanks for enlightening me.

[Leosghost]

is it possible to swith Interest Based Ads off in adsense?

No..When they first introduced interest based ads G worded the interface in the publisher panel so as to make one think that one could "switch them off"..I questioned the adsense advisor here at the time about it, did it really mean that we could switch them off from appearing on our sites, or did it mean that the visitors interactions on our sites would not be used to generate interest based ads on other sites that they visited subsequently..

thread..read 'til the end
[webmasterworld.com...]

and this thread might clear it up some more..
[webmasterworld.com...]

and this one
[webmasterworld.com...]

[Multiverse]

contact those companies you see in the SERPs with relevant ads to advertise on your site. Either through Adwords or do a direct deal.

Yes, I might try that. It brings some issues though:

1) When going through Adsense, most visitors will get lost due to ad-blockers and ad-blindness.

2) When going direct, I would have to build my own system (geo-targeting, ad-booking, payment etc etc) and convince advertisers to use it. Not a small task.

Do you have a possibility to direct the non US visitors to their nearest Amazon-Site

Yes. But I don't think Amazon is a good solution to monetize a website. When doing the math, they net me only cents per click. While the same keyword goes for dollars per click on Adwords.

[netmeg]

When going direct, I would have to build my own system (geo-targeting, ad-booking, payment etc etc) and convince advertisers to use it. Not a small task.

I did it, with Gravity Forms and a payment gateway. Was surprisingly easy, once I decided not to implement geo-targeting right away, just to get started. Now that it's up and working, I can work on that next.

[ken_b]

Was surprisingly easy, once I decided not to implement geo-targeting right away,

Did you get much resistance from advertisers because of that?
.

[onlineleben]

the "Find on Amazon" textlink gets 50 times the clicks the Adsense ads get. Yes, 50 times. That's not a typo. And it makes me 30 times the money

When doing the math, they net me only cents per click. While the same keyword goes for dollars per click on Adwords

So what is wrong with that? It is a different business-model than adsense. You earn (at the moment) more than with your unrelated adsense-ads. I would keep it and maybe even promote it a little better so that people clicking on the AZ link are really pre-sold and only have to buy (and don't go there for addtional information).
Give it a try ...

Btw, you also get credit for anything else your visitors buy on amazon within the 24 hours after they clicked trough from you.