What Are Unbillable Bids?

[RedBar]

In the new interface >Advanced Reports > Bid Types, so far this month 26.7% of my impressions are Unbillable.

It also shows " - " under Active View Viewable

What are these?

[netmeg]

Not sure, but the name would suggest that they are ad placements that the advertiser can't or won't be billed for. Do you have a way to see which placements are being labeled as such? If so, are they an uncommon size, or significantly below the fold? The Active View Viewable refers to how many ads are actually seen.

Good question though. Maybe need to ask support.

[Leosghost]

Could it possibly refer to views of ad spaces via "contribute ".. ?

[RedBar]

If so zero earnings from them so far, strange, I'm delving further.

[Leosghost]

Found this ,
[productforums.google.com...]

but it is not confirmed by G..

[netmeg]

I asked my rep. Haven't heard back yet (I mixed it in with a couple complaints so it might be a while, ork ork)

[Broadway]

What was the answer to this question?
In my case, unbillable is not a small percentage of total AdSense impressions.

[netmeg]

Direct quote from AdSense:

Unbillable ads are ads which are not billed the traditional way, and are directly managed by partners and networks. For example: AdMob has house ads and direct deal ads that are unbillable.

If I were getting a bunch of these, I'd probably test turning off the third party networks and seeing if that makes a difference. I don't get many at all (and I've had all the networks turned off for years)

[engine]

Thanks for that, netmeg, I agree, I would not want any unbillable ads. It's a waste of real estate

[LuckyD]

Close to 50% of my impressions are unbillable, $0 income so far from them. Did any of you try disabling third party networks yet?

[IanCP]

@netmeg

If I were getting a bunch of these, I'd probably test turning off the third party networks and seeing if that makes a difference

Is this the correct way?

How do I disable all third-party ad serving on my site?

If you disable image ads, third-party ads will no longer appear on your site. (Disabling image ads will automatically disable gadget ads as well.)

You can also block ads from Google certified ad networks in the Ad Review Center.

[support.google.com ]

[IanCP]

There is a reason I asked this question. I hadn't previously paid close attention to the topic until I followed the tip above.

"In the new interface >Advanced Reports > Bid Types" - which also works in the old classic interface.

Here's my figures for September:

Impressions [by bid type]:
CPC - 64.40% [99.68% of revenue]
CPM - 1.43%
Active View CPM - 0.40%
Unbillable - 33.78%

Now I double checked my Ad settings: Supposedly I have only allowed text ads, somehow I doubt it though.

I have a setting under under Ad Networks > Preferences
Ad Networks: Automatically allow new Google-certified ad networks

Should I block them?

[netmeg]

I do. I have everything blocked except AdWords. There are 2138 ad networks, but they will only let you see TWENTY at a time - and don't think for a moment that's not intentional. I blocked them all; the only ones I left were the Rakuten networks, and I'll probably end up blocking those.

But that's just me. Test it - make some notes of your performance with the networks enabled, and then shut them down and see what happens.

Last month, my Unbillable impressions were 1.5% of all impressions. I have a hunch that Unbillable impressions come from those other networks (which I turned off years ago) but I don't know for sure. The reason I turned them off in the first place was that when I totted up what I made from them, it was about ten bucks for all of them combined, compared to mid four figures over the same time period with AdWords network. I don't think they even give you those numbers anymore.

IanCP - I don't want to disable all image ads because the Google ones perform well for me. So I disabled the networks themselves.

As always - don't do what I do, test it. And test it for at least a couple weeks or at least 10,000 impressions.

[magician]

When I filter the reports on ad network as "google adwords" and Bid Types, I found out that all of the unbillable impressions are actually coming from 'google adwords' ad networks.

So, blocking other ad networks might not be a solution to this.

For me, the unbillable impressions are 27% of the total impressions in last 30 days.

[netmeg]

Then, I dunno. But I'd still probably test it, just to see.

[RedBar]

I've decided to try blocking everything I can to see IF I can get some relevant ads, things are so low here that this will either work, a little, or finally prove that G has hardly any inventory for my widgets.

[Broadway]

I'm having trouble comprehending this issue. Surely I'm missing some fundamental concept here.

The term "unbillable" applies to an ad type where Adsense serves ads on my site for a 3rd party ad network, that they get paid for and I don't (and these aren't just PSA ads)?

Relying on Adsense is a struggle. But I wouldn't expect to be outright cheated by them. What don't I understand here?

[Broadway]

I did the Adsense online/chat support.

I stated that I had a high percentage of Unbillable ads and asked what they were.

The person first asked if I show Adlinks or "Matched content ads."
(Matched content is that ad type that refers visitors to other articles on your site.)

The reporting for these two ad/bid types is different than for the other ads.
Since I just use AdLinks (in my footer), the conversation was geared toward that.

(This is copied from the chat box - )

>>Link units used to show one impression based on the initial link unit showing
but since link units don't pay unless the user expands a category and clicks through, impressions aren't counted unless the user expands a category.
So the initial appearance of the unit is now reported as an "unbillable impressions" --the unit shows up, but that impression isn't billable due to the nature of link units.<<

>>Previously, you only saw activity that generated revenue for link units. Now you see through unbillable impressions how many users see them on their screen but don't click on them.<<

>>When a user visits your site, they see a link unit sitting there. In the past when they saw this your reporting would show nothing, because the user didn't expand a category to see the actual ads in the link unit.<<

---
So evidently its just a change in reporting thing. That's why so many of us haven't noticed it before.
If you don't use AdLinks or Matched Content, you won't see it (so I'm told).

[magician]

Thanks Broadway, it makes total sense.

[LuckyD]

Can confirm Broadway's point. My rep told me the same thing.