Adsense's new Ad Balance slider

[Evan Salamanca]

Anyone notice this yet? You can change the balance of ads that show kind of like FBAN's balancer on steroids. It even shows you the percentage of ads that show versus percentage of potential income. If it weren't for the fact that the ads units show as blank rather than collapsing entirely, this would sound like the best thing ever. Although this creates huge potential when combined with good backup ads.

[keyplyr]

I used it for a few weeks; usually staying between 60% to 80%. Difficult to tell if it increased income since day to day swings are common at my site.

I now have the slider back to 100% (basically not using it) because I saw too many empty ad spots. The big empty space looked awful IMO so I'd rather have low performing ads there than nothing at all.

[NickMNS]

@Peter_S

But, that is based on the previous days / weeks performances of these ads. But what about "new" ads which are constantly being added ? When are they evaluated and how? How Google determines if a new ad will be in the top earners ?

The distribution of ads, by revenue share is historical data. To see the data you can checkout the revenue profile report. With this data and your selection of percentage Adsense estimates a bid price floor say $0.10. If the highest advertisers bid is under the floor, the auction is not concluded and the ad is not shown. So if a set of new buyers enters the auction with deep pockets, those ads will continue to appear and will earn you the full amount, say the ads are getting $1.00 per click. Now as a result of this new demand, the price floor is recalculated, to $0.11. What this means now is that for every new $1.00 bid that you received now $0.10 bid is no longer shown. So yes at some level there is cost to blocking these ads. But Adsense informs you of this, when there is a shift in auction outcomes Google will show you that for your say 60% that was previously providing 100% of revenue it is now providing 98% of revenue. You can then move your slider. In the past three month I have rarely seen a change in the % revenue for a given setting and when it does happen it is in the order of 1%.

The sensitivity is depends on your revenue profile curve, see my post above for details about that.

Now you may say to yourself, I am willing to accept $0.10 per click, why not simply set a price floor, why base this on a percentage coverage. The reason, as I understand is sensitivity. On price floor basis the system could be blocking much higher percentage of ads. You could go for days without ever meeting the price floor. On a % coverage basis this regulated almost in real time, at the cost of what was described above.

Also, does the ad balance works only for contextual ads? Or is it also applying to the personalized ads ?

The ad-balancer works for all ads, all ad types, mobile/desktop on an account wide basis.

[Peter_S]

Thank you for very interesting explanations NickMNS !

[Matrixzer0]

@Evan Salamanca. What is your ad balance at now?

@Forum Members. Should I only use responsive ads when using content.ad as my backup when ad balancer is turned on? As content.ad ads are bigger then any normal adsense ad sizes.

Or does it really matter if the google ad is responsive or not if using content.ad as a backup. As I want to use the backup content.ad as 1x3 for sidebars and 3x3 for after article, etc.

[NickMNS]

@Matrixzer0 Welcome to Webmaster World.

I can't speak specifically for content.ad as I have never used their ad code but in general, the i-frame used by Adsense will be sized in accordance to Adsense ad code. So if you're Adsense ads are responsive but your backup ads are not responsive then the backup ad will not display correctly.

[keyplyr]

Hi Matrixzer0 and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

The ad balance manages your ads, no matter which type you use.

[LuckyD]

no matter which type you use

@keyplyr small correction, the ad balance slider doesn't affect link units. Only display impressions are affected by the slider.

[keyplyr]

True LuckyD. I wasn't considering the links as ads but they are.

[Matrixzer0]

Guys, this may seem like a foolish question but...

But do you still get blank spaces even with backup ads (working).

Thanks.

[keyplyr]

Hi Matrixzer0 and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

[Peter_S]

But do you still get blank spaces even with backup ads (working).

I don't think so. However, it depends when you added the backup ads URLs, it can take some hours before Adsense starts using your backup ads url.

[NickMNS]

@Matrixzer0

But do you still get blank spaces even with backup ads (working).

Whenever there is no coverage Adsense still shows the ad slot (iframe) where an ad would have been displayed. If you have backup ads enabled and functioning correctly then the backup ad will appear in the iframe. If you do not have the backup ads enabled then the iframe will be blank.

Note that you can setup your ads to show different color background box. I am working on one site now and I have it set to show a yellow box in place of the ad. If you are not sure how things are working or showing, you can change the color temporarily to see the location and size of the ads not appearing. Don't forget that if you have an ad-blocker no iframe will be shown, so no ad, no backup and no colored box.

Also remember that backup ads are set at the ad unit level.

[Matrixzer0]

Btw Thanks to @keyplyr + @NickMNS. I am very happy to be here. I am normally a lurker on marketing forums as I am looking for answers to questions. I would only post to help out or mostly to better ask a question that most people seem not to be asking.

I have so far loved the professionalism here. And the wealth of knowledge about ad networks, payouts and implementations.

Shout out to @Evan Salamanca dude I want to pick your brain about the ad networks as you seem to know a lot lol.

@Forum Members. If you have experience in Pulsepoint, Sekindo, Ezoic, Gumgum, Revcontent/Content.ad/Taboola/Outbrain, Amazon cpm ads, Vibrant Media, Monumetric, FBAN, Revenuehits, Sulvo and lastly Media.net. Pm me.

For Both publishing and advertising if possible. I will probably create a thread about it.

Thanks.

[Matrixzer0]

Sent last message via phone could not edit it

I will create a thread about the above ad networks. My goal is to get a reports on how they are behaving now vs January or last year. And if anyone is using them for advertising.

You dont have to PM me. As I realised that maybe asking too much lol. You can reply here if you like.

Thanks.

[nickreynolds]

Just some feedback from me about the ad balancing.
background
I have a number of different sites, aminly fairly small niche sites displaying adsense
I have been an adsense publisher for 10 years+
I have seen a significant decrease in earnings over the last 5 years especially was hit by some P creature in 2012.

what's happened
Shortly after this thread turned up i looked at this ad balance thing.
I adjusted it to 70% of ads showing which was the threshold at not removing paying ads
3 days later i started to see an increase in earnings.
Earnings now almost double same period last year.
RPM and CTR are up, traffic is pretty constant.

It may of course just be a coincidence but there's nothing else i've done that would cause this

[dollarsound]

I think that it'd be better to traffic that Adsense in DFP and then create a house line item where you could traffic any code you want and also benefit from all the other targeting options.

[Lagonda]

Under maintenance on your side?

[engine]

Lagonda, FYI [webmasterworld.com...]

[System]

The following 2 messages were cut out to new thread by engine. New thread at: google_adsense/4851041.htm [webmasterworld.com]
5:02 pm on Jun 2, 2017 (utc +1)