New: AdSense Auto Ads

Google launches AdSense Auto Ads

[MayankParmar]

Today, Google has launched the new Auto Ads for AdSense. It says you need to place just one code on your pages and Google will take care of rest. Something like Auto ad placement using the AI power :D

This comes after 5 hours of AdSense outage.

How to Set Up Auto Ads [support.google.com]

[edited by: martinibuster at 3:38 pm (utc) on Sep 15, 2017]
[edit reason] Reverted. Google's link to auto ads is wrong. [/edit]

[wavou]

Interesting Idea with the Auto Ad placement. Wonder how it will work out.

Also, that outage still seems to be happening. Anyone else seeing it also?

[NickMNS]

This has not be launched. It is only in Beta. I have no access to this in my account and the first two links attached point me to the responsive ad units pages and the "How to set-up" page says "Beta".

[MayankParmar]

Maybe it is gradually rolling out as I found this feature in my ads and I haven't received any emails or it is not in labs.

It is just like that AMP Auto Ads (available in Lab), inspired from that, I believe.

But what about Ezoic and AdPushup? They do that auto ad placement thing to increase earnings and now Google is taking the driver seat? :D

[IanTurner]

Certainly interesting as I have been experimenting with Ezoic and getting some decent results. Although there are drawbacks to the system too, especially if you are doing A/B testing.

I will certainly give it a try once it becomes available to me.

[Maximum44]

We have access to the aauto ads. Wonder how they work with current placements. Anyone tried them yet?

[MayankParmar]

I haven't tried this yet. Things are quite good for me, I'm not willing to take risk of letting Google put ads on the site. Maybe there will be a conflict between the normal ad units and auto ads.

They should have published a video demoing this thing.

[frankleeceo]

I am offered it as well, I do not want to try it as I have customized all of my placements for UX. I do not have good sites for this...but it might actually be decent for first time blog publishers...beginners.

[Maximum44]

We will wait a few weeks or longer to try it. A video demonstrating the new feature would be awesome. Wonder why they did not put one up.

[rspwfaq]

Isn't this basically the same thing as the QuickStart option under Page Level Ads? I'm not really clear on what's different.

[Swanny007]

I use Ezoic to do this. I will try it if it shows up in my AdSense control panel.

[Samsam1978]

Just got selected to try it, anyone tried it yet?

[MayankParmar]

After having it for more than one week, Google today emailed me to notify that I have been selected -_-.
From the email:

And, just as a reminder, you’re responsible for the content and layout of your site.

Nice.

[CommandDork]

Ya - just got the same email and was thinking the same thing. It makes more sense to receive these emails prior to the product launch I think.

[puckparches]

I'm testing Auto Ads on one of my smaller sites. So far ads location are OK. I'll report on revenue results in a few days.

[skynet84]

Any news puck?

[puckparches]

Only 2 days test. First day good, CPC was up about 15%. The second day (Saturday) everything went down about 20%, but Friday and Saturday are not good test days for me. We'll see next week.

[Samsam1978]

Thanks Puck really helpful to know

[MrSavage]

I'm wondering out loud if this is a solution to the parsing out of adsense because of the chrome "show mobile friendly version of this site" issue. I'll try and find this out. It would in fact be a miracle but hey, wasn't there a new directive? BTW with auto meaning car, this could be a bit confusing.

[ember]

So you choose auto ads and the desired format - text/display or native - and assign that format to a group (site) and put the code on that site so Google can show ads where it thinks is best and..nothing happens. How long before these auto ads show up?

[CommandDork]

I would assumed the usual 15 to 30 minutes for the ads to show up. That seems to be the time window for all things Adsense and what I've noticed with Auto Ads when I enabled it. Adsense must need time to "read" a page before injecting its code wherever it likes.

I've been having decent success with Auto Ads this week. CPC and earnings are up by my standards BUT I do have some additional traffic returning to one of my big sites so that could be skewing numbers some. I was also forced to remove some of my fixed ad placements as Auto Ads has no qualms about double-stacking units like Oreos on my behalf - it's quite the rebel in flaunting Adsense's own rules.

Placement had been quite good I think. It tries to fill the bottom half of the page for me in areas I would not have myself. I'm hoping it's relying on years of Adsense data that Google has to know when and where to drop these ad blocks.

On the whole, Auto Ads seems to have given my earnings a shot in the arm ahead of the Christmas season. It's early though so we'll see after a week's worth of data.

[puckparches]

After one week testing, slight lower total income (5%-10% lower), lower impressions (about 25% lower), lower CTR and, of course, higher CPC (About 20% higher). In my case, I'll keep the auto ads for now, since my goal is for the user to have a better experience during the visit to my site than making few more $$.

[CommandDork]

Don't know if this is related to switching Auto Ads on or not but my one test site just showed a popup survey (content related). Thought popups were a no-no. I certainly don't like them (nor want them on my site). Only happened the once today so far.

UPDATE: Ok. Just saw a popup survey ad appear on my second test site.

[CommandDork]

Looks like my popup problem is related to Media.net.

[breeks]

Tried it and its ad overkill. Ads plastered all over the place.

No thanks, I will select my own ad positions.

[CommandDork]

I wonder if Auto Ads would best be served with the publisher being able to set an "aggressiveness" level, like from 1 to 10, ten being super-aggressive ad placements. Or maybe simply prohibit double-stacking of ads or set thresholds based on overall page/content length. I think the program is a sound idea but, as it is now, the execution is poor.

Imagine a perfect Adsense World where Auto Ads works alongside Ad Balancer and Google does a better job of eliminating spammy ads in their network - what a wonderful world it would be for legit publishers and legit advertisers alike.

[ember]

How are sites using auto ads or Ezoic and have ads plastered all over them going to get through the upcoming Chrome filter?

[CommandDork]

Trying out Auto Ads again (on one site). This time, I've removed a bulk of my fixed ad placements and am letting Adsense do its thing. Maybe I'll get better results this way.

[HowYesNo]

I've noticed drop in clicks but I didn't know they switched on auto ads automatically. Auto ads are terrible, ctr dropped, they mostly place their ads in footer where nobody's clicking (at least on my sites). Thanks but no thanks G.

[CommandDork]

So after a second attempt with Auto Ads, I still see there are noticeable failings with the feature:

1) The sheer number of ads plastered on a single page, between five and ten(!) which makes the site look desperate and certainly ruins the user experience.

2) These adblocks have no spacing around them. So an ad dropped between two paragraphs is right up against a sentence, which just looks bad.

3) The system has no qualms about "double-stacking" adblocks which, again, looks bad.

4) The system only ever uses a leaderboard adblocks on desktop pages when rectangle ads have a better return. Rectangles are used more on the mobile setup, which is good.

So I've gone back to my manual placements and have turned off Auto Ads. It isn't a solution for all publishers and there needs to be more per-site control for the publisher, particularly in aggressiveness of ad numbers shown and in their ad formatting.