Fontastic new options for your ad units
You've been asking for more control over the appearance of the ads on your sites, so we're happy to let you know that you can now change the font face of the text in ad units on pages in Latin-character languages. You can choose between Arial, Times, and Verdana font faces. Please note that while font options will appear in every account, they'll currently only be applied to ad units on pages primarily in Latin-based characters.
There are a few ways to customize the font face of your ad units. If you'd like to quickly change the font settings for every ad unit generated from your account, visit the 'Ad Display Preference' section of your Account Settings page to select a new account-wide font face. This will affect all units you've created in the past, regardless of whether you used the Manage Ads feature. By default, your ads are currently set to 'Standard AdSense font family', which we've found has performed well across browsers and displays.
However, you can also select custom font faces for specific ad units that you've created with the Manage Ads feature. When creating new ad units, you'll be prompted to select between the default 'Standard AdSense font family', your new account-wide font face (if you've selected one), or another font face. You can also change the appearance of existing ad units, by visiting the Manage Ads page of your account and updating your font choices for specific ad units. Once you've changed the font face of an ad unit away from the default, those selections will be maintained even if you change your account-wide settings later.
Just as with color and placement optimizations, we encourage you to test these new font options to find the best combination for your sites. For instance, you can try matching the font face of your ads to that of your sites. Enjoy the new font faces, and feel free to leave feedback in our comments field below.
There are a few ways to customize the font face of your ad units. If you'd like to quickly change the font settings for every ad unit generated from your account, visit the 'Ad Display Preference' section of your Account Settings page to select a new account-wide font face. This will affect all units you've created in the past, regardless of whether you used the Manage Ads feature. By default, your ads are currently set to 'Standard AdSense font family', which we've found has performed well across browsers and displays.
However, you can also select custom font faces for specific ad units that you've created with the Manage Ads feature. When creating new ad units, you'll be prompted to select between the default 'Standard AdSense font family', your new account-wide font face (if you've selected one), or another font face. You can also change the appearance of existing ad units, by visiting the Manage Ads page of your account and updating your font choices for specific ad units. Once you've changed the font face of an ad unit away from the default, those selections will be maintained even if you change your account-wide settings later.
Just as with color and placement optimizations, we encourage you to test these new font options to find the best combination for your sites. For instance, you can try matching the font face of your ads to that of your sites. Enjoy the new font faces, and feel free to leave feedback in our comments field below.
Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 4:06:00 PM
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Feed on our new blog
Are you using AdSense for feeds? If so, we'd like to let you know about the recently launched AdSense for feeds blog, where you can find detailed information on the product. Our AdSense for feeds specialists will provide tips on managing your feeds, understanding your reports, and maximizing your feeds revenue. We've been integrating FeedBurner with AdSense, and our new blog can help you stay on top of recent changes and updates. You can subscribe to the AdSense for feeds blog via email, or of course, via your favorite feed reader.
If you're not yet using AdSense for feeds, visit our Help Center for more information on getting started.
If you're not yet using AdSense for feeds, visit our Help Center for more information on getting started.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009 at 10:27:00 AM
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Extending AdSense for domains to all publishers
Many publishers have approached us looking for a way to monetize their domains, and today, we're excited to announce the expansion of AdSense for domains. This product allows publishers to earn revenue through ads placed on undeveloped domains.
With AdSense for domains, users can find relevant information rather than see empty pages or "page not found" errors. Today we present ads, links, and search results on the pages, and may add other useful information in the future. To ensure positive user experience and the quality of our network, these sites are monitored for policy compliance and prohibited from using text and images designed to confuse users.
Advertisers also have additional opportunities to find their customers, and ads on these pages convert well. In addition, we regularly receive requests from advertisers who have found domains to be an effective way to reach their users.
The product will be initially rolled out in phases to English-language AdSense publishers located in North America, and we'll expand to additional regions and languages in the future. To check whether AdSense for domains has been enabled for your account, log in and visit your AdSense Setup tab. For more information, please visit our Help Center.
With AdSense for domains, users can find relevant information rather than see empty pages or "page not found" errors. Today we present ads, links, and search results on the pages, and may add other useful information in the future. To ensure positive user experience and the quality of our network, these sites are monitored for policy compliance and prohibited from using text and images designed to confuse users.
Advertisers also have additional opportunities to find their customers, and ads on these pages convert well. In addition, we regularly receive requests from advertisers who have found domains to be an effective way to reach their users.
The product will be initially rolled out in phases to English-language AdSense publishers located in North America, and we'll expand to additional regions and languages in the future. To check whether AdSense for domains has been enabled for your account, log in and visit your AdSense Setup tab. For more information, please visit our Help Center.
Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 9:08:00 AM
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Block this way
When we notice a spike in readers who are interested in a specific topic, we like to address it as soon as we can. There's been some interest in filtering ads from publisher pages, so here's a quick refresher on the filtering tools we offer:
Competitive Ad Filter
You can restrict contextually-targeted and placement-targeted ads from appearing on your pages by adding the URL of each ad to your Competitive Ad Filter. After logging in to your account, click the AdSense Setup tab and visit the 'Competitive Ad Filter' page. You can also find full instructions and tips for entering in specific URLs in our Help Center. To determine the URL of an ad, try the AdSense Preview Tool or follow these steps. Please keep in mind that it may take several hours for the filter to take effect.
Ad Review Center
The Ad Review Center gives you additional control over the placement-targeted ads that may appear on your pages. Using the Ad Review Center, you can review specific ad groups and advertisers before they appear on your pages, and also block ads by type. You'll need to opt in to the Ad Review Center at the top of your Competitive Ad Filter page, and then you can begin reviewing ads.
Competitive Ad Filter
You can restrict contextually-targeted and placement-targeted ads from appearing on your pages by adding the URL of each ad to your Competitive Ad Filter. After logging in to your account, click the AdSense Setup tab and visit the 'Competitive Ad Filter' page. You can also find full instructions and tips for entering in specific URLs in our Help Center. To determine the URL of an ad, try the AdSense Preview Tool or follow these steps. Please keep in mind that it may take several hours for the filter to take effect.
Ad Review Center
The Ad Review Center gives you additional control over the placement-targeted ads that may appear on your pages. Using the Ad Review Center, you can review specific ad groups and advertisers before they appear on your pages, and also block ads by type. You'll need to opt in to the Ad Review Center at the top of your Competitive Ad Filter page, and then you can begin reviewing ads.
Monday, November 03, 2008 at 6:24:00 PM
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Make a date with data in Google Analytics
Here in AdSense, we’re big on data. From spreadsheets and graphs to weekly reports and metrics, we constantly turn to numbers when running our business. In a similar vein, we've heard your requests for more data to help you run your AdSense websites, which is why we’re excited to announce the integration of one of our personal favorite reporting tools, Google Analytics, with AdSense. We're gradually rolling out this functionality to publishers, and you'll see an invitation link at the top of your 'Overview' and 'Advanced Reports' pages when it's been enabled for your account.
By integrating your AdSense account with a new or existing Analytics account, you’ll have access to in-depth reports about user activity on your site. In addition to the wealth of metrics already available in Analytics such as unique visitors and visitor language, you'll now have access to granular reports that break down AdSense performance both by page and by referring site. Armed with this new data about user behavior, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions on how to improve the user experience on your site and optimize your AdSense units to increase your revenue potential.
We've highlighted a few ways to use the integrated metrics below, but we encourage you to be creative! Come up with your own to discover how useful (and fun) new data can be:
By integrating your AdSense account with a new or existing Analytics account, you’ll have access to in-depth reports about user activity on your site. In addition to the wealth of metrics already available in Analytics such as unique visitors and visitor language, you'll now have access to granular reports that break down AdSense performance both by page and by referring site. Armed with this new data about user behavior, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions on how to improve the user experience on your site and optimize your AdSense units to increase your revenue potential.
We've highlighted a few ways to use the integrated metrics below, but we encourage you to be creative! Come up with your own to discover how useful (and fun) new data can be:
- Discover untapped markets. Use the geographies report to determine which regions are under-represented in your site’s user base. Optimize your site’s content to attract more of these under-represented users.
- Drive high-earning traffic to your site. Use the 'Referring sites' report to determine where the users who are making you the most money are coming from. Focus your efforts on getting traffic from these sources.
- Delve deeper into AdSense reports. Use the visualization feature to look at trends in your site's AdSense performance over time, or by time of day.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 11:04:00 AM
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Maximizing revenue by exposing your channels to the right advertisers
As you may know, you can set up your custom channels so that they're targetable by advertisers - these targetable custom channels are known as ad placements. By selecting the 'Allow advertisers to target this channel' checkbox on the channel creation page, you can enable brand advertisers to target their content to your audience directly on a CPM or CPC basis.
Creating ad placements allows them to show up in AdWords, so that advertisers who create placement-targeted campaigns can include your content directly. What many publishers don't know is that this also makes your content available to Google's internal sales teams, who work closely with many advertisers looking to target a certain audience or type of content. With this in mind, we thought it would be important to mention a few best practices which will help advertisers and our internal sales teams target your content to help you maximize revenue:
First, take time to make sure your channel names and descriptions accurately describe your content and audience. By including descriptions that closely reflect your content, you'll also attract advertisers from those areas. Naming and descriptions are important.
On that note, our second tip: be very careful about changing the name of an ad placement. If an advertiser has already targeted one of your specific channels, the channel will become unavailable to the advertiser once you change its name. If you wish to rename a channel, we recommend creating a second channel with the new name, and then attaching both channels to your ad unit. Remember, you can attach up to five custom channels to an ad unit.
Third, use the 300x250 medium rectangle, opted in to both text and image ads. This is one type of targetable ad unit that's in high demand by Google's CPM advertisers. We recommend placing these units in line with your content, and describing them as they relate to the content. This combination of format and placement enables advertisers to use image, text, or rich media (including gadget ads) effectively. In feeds, we recommend opting in to both image and text in all ad units, as many of these advertisers only target with image ads into feeds.
Finally, as always, the most important tip for maximizing revenue from your ad placements is to create quality content that is visually appealing and attracts a quality audience. Many brand advertisers look at all placements before placing an advertising order to make sure the destination sites are in line with their brand and attract the type of audience they wish to target for a particular campaign.
Creating ad placements allows them to show up in AdWords, so that advertisers who create placement-targeted campaigns can include your content directly. What many publishers don't know is that this also makes your content available to Google's internal sales teams, who work closely with many advertisers looking to target a certain audience or type of content. With this in mind, we thought it would be important to mention a few best practices which will help advertisers and our internal sales teams target your content to help you maximize revenue:
First, take time to make sure your channel names and descriptions accurately describe your content and audience. By including descriptions that closely reflect your content, you'll also attract advertisers from those areas. Naming and descriptions are important.
On that note, our second tip: be very careful about changing the name of an ad placement. If an advertiser has already targeted one of your specific channels, the channel will become unavailable to the advertiser once you change its name. If you wish to rename a channel, we recommend creating a second channel with the new name, and then attaching both channels to your ad unit. Remember, you can attach up to five custom channels to an ad unit.
Third, use the 300x250 medium rectangle, opted in to both text and image ads. This is one type of targetable ad unit that's in high demand by Google's CPM advertisers. We recommend placing these units in line with your content, and describing them as they relate to the content. This combination of format and placement enables advertisers to use image, text, or rich media (including gadget ads) effectively. In feeds, we recommend opting in to both image and text in all ad units, as many of these advertisers only target with image ads into feeds.
Finally, as always, the most important tip for maximizing revenue from your ad placements is to create quality content that is visually appealing and attracts a quality audience. Many brand advertisers look at all placements before placing an advertising order to make sure the destination sites are in line with their brand and attract the type of audience they wish to target for a particular campaign.
Thursday, October 02, 2008 at 1:47:00 PM
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I feel the need... the need for feeds
When you visit the AdSense Setup tab in your account, you'll notice a new "AdSense for feeds" option. This means you can now use AdSense to place ads in your RSS feeds, allowing you to increase the reach of your content while earning revenue. Our salesforce will sell cost-per-impression (CPM) ads directly to the largest advertisers, while the rest of your inventory will be filled with contextually targeted cost-per-click (CPC) and CPM ads. This means that more of your feed items will be sold and with higher overall revenue, than with any other feed network.
At this point, you may either be thinking, "great!" or "umm...what's a feed?" For those of you in the second category, feeds allow your content to be delivered and subscribed to on the Web, often as headlines, summaries or articles. FeedBurner also has a nifty tutorial that you might find useful.
And here are a few more reasons to try AdSense for feeds:
Want to learn more about what feeds are and how to get started with AdSense for feeds? Visit our Help Center and watch our introductory video from Product Manager Steve Olechowski:
To set up AdSense for feeds now, sign in and visit the AdSense Setup page of your account, or apply for an AdSense account.
At this point, you may either be thinking, "great!" or "umm...what's a feed?" For those of you in the second category, feeds allow your content to be delivered and subscribed to on the Web, often as headlines, summaries or articles. FeedBurner also has a nifty tutorial that you might find useful.
And here are a few more reasons to try AdSense for feeds:
- Receive higher CPMs and maintain a positive user experience by displaying ads specifically optimized for RSS feeds.
- View detailed stats on your feed audience, distribution, and more through FeedBurner when you set up your feeds with AdSense.
- Manage monetization for your feeds through the same account that you use to manage other AdSense properties.
Want to learn more about what feeds are and how to get started with AdSense for feeds? Visit our Help Center and watch our introductory video from Product Manager Steve Olechowski:
To set up AdSense for feeds now, sign in and visit the AdSense Setup page of your account, or apply for an AdSense account.
Friday, August 15, 2008 at 3:52:00 PM
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Video units more widely available
We've heard your feedback about the availability of video units, so we've expanded the languages and geographies where they're supported. We've added French, German, and Spanish to our list of supported languages, and also Brazil, Germany, India, and Mexico to the list of supported countries. To help you determine whether you'll be able to use video units, consider these two questions:
You can find more information about video units in our Help Center, and as always, please feel free to leave us a comment with your video unit feedback. We'll be sure to keep you posted if video units become available in any additional countries or languages.
- Do you have an English, French, German, Japanese, or Spanish-language AdSense account?
- Are you located in one of the following countries?
Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, United States
You can find more information about video units in our Help Center, and as always, please feel free to leave us a comment with your video unit feedback. We'll be sure to keep you posted if video units become available in any additional countries or languages.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 10:09:00 AM
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Answers to your referrals retirement questions
Since our announcement about retiring AdSense Referrals during the last week of August, we've noticed a number of questions in your blog comments and in our Help Forum. In this post, we'll address some of the most frequently asked questions.
When you say 'AdSense Referrals' are being retired, does this only mean the program where I refer publishers to AdSense?Thanks for your feedback, and we hope this helps provide clarification. Feel free to visit our Help Center for additional details about the AdSense Referrals retirement.
No, all referrals will be retired. This applies to referrals for AdWords advertisers, as well as for Google products.
What's the deadline for generating referral conversions once the program has been retired?
In order for you to be credited for a conversion, the referred user must complete the required action by the last week of September 2008. However, please keep in mind that your referral units will no longer display after the last week of August.
I have referral earnings in my account, but they haven't been included in a payment yet. Will I lose all past referral earnings?
No. If you've had successful referral conversions in the past, they'll still be included in your earnings and future payments. As mentioned above, any additional conversions must occur by the last week of September 2008 in order to generate earnings for your account.
Can I sign in to the Google Affiliate Network with my AdSense login information?
At this time, no. You'll need to create a new login and password on the Google Affiliate Network site at http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/ .
Will my ad units and search boxes be affected by this Referrals change?
No, AdSense for content and AdSense for search will still be available to publishers in our supported languages, and you can continue to generate ad and search code by visiting your AdSense Setup tab.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 2:29:00 PM
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Earning revenue from YouTube videos just got easier
We'd like to let you know about two recent improvements to video units that make them more easy and appealing to place on your sites. First, we've partnered with some new content providers that we'd like to highlight. These partners have signed on to let AdSense publishers embed their videos and share in the ad revenue.
Second, we're happy to announce that video units now support 728x90 and 160x600 formats to more easily fit into your site. These two new formats will feature five video thumbnails - when a user clicks on one of the thumbnails, a full sized video unit will appear, along with accompanying ads:
728x90 video unit
728x90 video unit, expanded
160x600 video unit, expanded
You'll generate earnings for valid clicks or impressions on the ads which appear. To use the new formats, you'll need to create new video units by visiting your AdSense Setup tab. To choose the new content for your video units, you can edit any of your players or set up new video units dedicated to this new content. Please keep in mind that video units are currently only supported for English or Japanese-language accounts in the following regions:
While you can use video units like any other ad, they're also a great addition to the content of your page. So we encourage you to use video units as you may have used embedded YouTube videos in the past - to add variety and interest for your users.
Thanks for all the feedback that's helping us to make video units more useful to you. If you have more thoughts to share, please leave us a comment.
- Broadbandtv: "Broadbandtv is partnering with YouTube to bring the very best video program lineup to a growing and engaged online audience. Broadbandtv shows include hits from Fashion, Celebrity News, Sports, Technology, Comedy and Travel to top notch Spanish-language TV series like Somos Tu y Yo."
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: "CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada's national public broadcaster and one of its largest cultural institutions. CBC/Radio-Canada is available how, where, and when Canadians want it."
- The Orchard: "A global leader in digital music, video, new media and brand services, The Orchard offers family content like Gumby, Mr. Bill, My Favorite Martian, and other categories of content like music and comedy."
Second, we're happy to announce that video units now support 728x90 and 160x600 formats to more easily fit into your site. These two new formats will feature five video thumbnails - when a user clicks on one of the thumbnails, a full sized video unit will appear, along with accompanying ads:
728x90 video unit
728x90 video unit, expanded
160x600 video unit, expanded
You'll generate earnings for valid clicks or impressions on the ads which appear. To use the new formats, you'll need to create new video units by visiting your AdSense Setup tab. To choose the new content for your video units, you can edit any of your players or set up new video units dedicated to this new content. Please keep in mind that video units are currently only supported for English or Japanese-language accounts in the following regions:
Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, United StatesFinally, if you haven't edited or made a new video unit recently, you may not have noticed that you can now preview the kinds of video that will show up in the unit, based on the filtering choices you've made. We heard that you wanted more insight into the types of content that would display, and we think this will help.
While you can use video units like any other ad, they're also a great addition to the content of your page. So we encourage you to use video units as you may have used embedded YouTube videos in the past - to add variety and interest for your users.
Thanks for all the feedback that's helping us to make video units more useful to you. If you have more thoughts to share, please leave us a comment.
Thursday, July 03, 2008 at 5:47:00 PM
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We're retiring AdSense Referrals
We're constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program during the last week of August. We appreciate your patience during this transition and here are some alternative options to consider:
- Google Affiliate Network: As part of the integration of DoubleClick, the DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. For further details, please visit: http://www.google.com/ads/affiliatenetwork/.
- AdSense for content ads: If you have less than three AdSense for content ad units on a page, you may wish to replace the referral ad units with standard AdSense for content ad units.
- Remove the referral code from your site(s): Please take a moment to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, so you can continue to effectively monetize your ad space.
- Run and save all referrals reports on your desktop: Create and save all reports related to the referrals program on your desktop, so you continue to have access to your valuable campaign information.
Monday, June 30, 2008 at 4:41:00 PM
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Video units now available in Australia and Japan
Following the success of video units in a number of international locations, we're excited to announce the launch of video units for English-language websites in Australia. In addition, video units are now available to publishers who are located in Japan or who have Japanese-language websites. If you're not already familiar, video units are embedded, customizable video players which both enrich sites with relevant video content and enable publishers to earn extra revenue. Relevant and non-intrusive companion and text ads accompany the video content.
With this new launch, you can show videos from our YouTube content partners on your site. You can choose those videos by category, choose individual YouTube partners, or have video units automatically target your site with relevant video. You can also choose the individual videos to be displayed in your video units. Finally, if you have video content of your own, you may even be able to sign up as a YouTube partner to have your content distributed to other AdSense publishers' video units.
To set up video units on your site, log in to your AdSense account and visit your AdSense Setup tab; if you have a site in one of our supported countries and languages, you'll see the option to set up video units. For more information about video units, please feel free to re-visit our original launch post and our discussion of some of your most frequently asked questions. In addition, you might find the information in our Help Center useful. Finally, we'd like to note that we're working on expanding video units to additional countries, but we're not able to provide a timeline for when that may occur.
With this new launch, you can show videos from our YouTube content partners on your site. You can choose those videos by category, choose individual YouTube partners, or have video units automatically target your site with relevant video. You can also choose the individual videos to be displayed in your video units. Finally, if you have video content of your own, you may even be able to sign up as a YouTube partner to have your content distributed to other AdSense publishers' video units.
To set up video units on your site, log in to your AdSense account and visit your AdSense Setup tab; if you have a site in one of our supported countries and languages, you'll see the option to set up video units. For more information about video units, please feel free to re-visit our original launch post and our discussion of some of your most frequently asked questions. In addition, you might find the information in our Help Center useful. Finally, we'd like to note that we're working on expanding video units to additional countries, but we're not able to provide a timeline for when that may occur.
Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 12:32:00 PM
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Introducing third-party ads on the Google content network
The Google content network now accepts display ads served from qualified third-party vendors. Third-party ad serving has been a longstanding request from top brand AdWords advertisers who use third parties to create and manage their online campaigns. Initially, we will be only accepting third-party ads in English, but we hope to expand to other languages soon.
Making the Google content network more accessible to large brand advertisers also benefits AdSense publishers and end users. Third-party ad serving will introduce a greater variety of advertising into the Google content network, increase the inventory of quality display ads competing to show on AdSense publisher sites, and offer more engaging ads for end users. In the long run, we believe the increased inventory and ad competition will result in increased revenue for many AdSense publishers.
Rest assured that ad quality on the content network will remain one of our highest priorities. Only advertisers with whom we have proven relationships and who've clearly demonstrated commitments to our quality standards may participate in this program. And our policies governing ad content and formatting are unchanged.
How to control third-party ads shown on your site
The same ad management features for Google ads also apply to third-party ads. You can use the Ad Review Center to filter specific placement-targeted ads from appearing on your site. To block contextually-targeted ads from a given advertiser, you can use the Competitive Ad Filter. (The Ad Review Center currently only shows placement-targeted ads, not contextually-targeted ads.)
Optimizing your site to allow third-party ads
To allow third-party ads on your site:
Want to learn more about third-party ads? Visit our FAQ.
Making the Google content network more accessible to large brand advertisers also benefits AdSense publishers and end users. Third-party ad serving will introduce a greater variety of advertising into the Google content network, increase the inventory of quality display ads competing to show on AdSense publisher sites, and offer more engaging ads for end users. In the long run, we believe the increased inventory and ad competition will result in increased revenue for many AdSense publishers.
Rest assured that ad quality on the content network will remain one of our highest priorities. Only advertisers with whom we have proven relationships and who've clearly demonstrated commitments to our quality standards may participate in this program. And our policies governing ad content and formatting are unchanged.
How to control third-party ads shown on your site
The same ad management features for Google ads also apply to third-party ads. You can use the Ad Review Center to filter specific placement-targeted ads from appearing on your site. To block contextually-targeted ads from a given advertiser, you can use the Competitive Ad Filter. (The Ad Review Center currently only shows placement-targeted ads, not contextually-targeted ads.)
Optimizing your site to allow third-party ads
To allow third-party ads on your site:
- Opt into image ads - Currently, third-party ads are only available in image or Flash, so they won't appear in text-only ad units.
- Enable advertisers to target your AdSense channels - Most advertisers who use third-party ads are brand-conscious. They prefer to specify websites where their ads will appear in order to optimize the targeting and effectiveness of their campaigns.
- Opt into placement targeting - Placement targeting will allow advertisers to target their ads specifically to your site.
Want to learn more about third-party ads? Visit our FAQ.
Monday, May 19, 2008 at 9:20:00 AM
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Video advertising & monetization: A discussion at Ad:Tech San Francisco
Last month, Google product managers and marketers held a workshop on video advertising and content monetization at the Ad:Tech conference in San Francisco. We thought our publishers would be interested in hearing some perspectives on industry trends, some new details about AdSense for video, and the opportunities that Google is offering advertisers to get their messages in video content. Here are some highlights to guide your viewing:
A state of the market: First, your friendly author takes you through trends in video consumption, users' consumption habits, and the estimated market size for video advertising.And if you want to snack on some more Google AdSense videos, check out our overview of options for publishers to make money from video content on their pages. You can also visit our video solutions site for publishers.
History of video ad serving: Robert Victor uses conversations with "Joe and Sam" to describe the evolving needs of buyers and sellers, and previews how Google and DoubleClick In-Stream can fill the gaps.
AdSense for video: Shamim Samadi goes into detail about AdSense for video, describing the various formats we're supporting and recent success stories from Revver on the publisher side and HP on the advertiser side.
YouTube: Tracy Chan describes the compelling opportunities for advertisers on YouTube and how marketers and video creators can take advantage of the new Insights tool to gather a variety of data on viewership of their videos.
Monday, May 12, 2008 at 9:27:00 AM
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AdSense for search now powered by Custom Search
We're happy to let you know that AdSense for search is now powered by Custom Search. If you've used Custom Search Engine (CSE) before, you know that Custom Search offers advanced customization options to help improve the accuracy of your search results and tailor them to what users are looking for. With the integration of Custom Search into AdSense for search, you can take advantage of CSE's most popular features without having to leave your AdSense account.
Here are some of the new features:
Ready to learn more about the new features available for AdSense for search? Just visit our Help Center. (You might also notice that we've just implemented Custom Search there too.)
Here are some of the new features:
- Site Search: You've worked hard to attract users to your site, so it's understandable that you'd be concerned about those users leaving through web search. Now you can choose to provide just site search so users can find all the information they're looking for on your site, and you can host the search results on your own pages so that they can find that information without leaving your site.
- Improved indexing of your pages: We've recently improved our indexing technology so that you can provide a more enhanced Site Search experience for your users. AdSense for search will now index even more pages of your site, as long as we’re able to crawl them, so that your users will see more results from your site in your AdSense for search results. Stay tuned for more updates on future crawl and indexing improvements!
- Vertical search: You can also allow your users to search across multiple sites - this could be a network of sites that you own or other related sites that you think your users might find useful. If you write book reviews on your blog, for example, you can use vertical search to specify a list of online bookstores for users to search through. Other examples of vertical searches include computer forums, travel blogs, political sites you endorse, etc.
- Tuning search results and ads with keywords: Search terms can have different meanings in different contexts, so you can now configure your search engine with relevant keywords. Let's say you manage a site about yoga - you can enter keywords such as 'yoga,' 'exercise,' and 'meditation' so that when a user searches for 'mat,' the search results and ads will be more related to yoga mats and less to commercial floor mats. (You can see an example of this in the video below). In experiments, we've found that this tuning has led to an increase in earnings for publishers.
- Selecting ad location: Do you want ads to appear at the top and bottom of your search results? Or along the right sidebar as well, just like on Google.com? Now you can make the call on where ads are placed. (Here's a tip: we've found that placing ads at the top and right monetizes the best for publishers.)
- Quick and easy updates: Just as you use our ad management feature to quickly change the settings for your ad and referral units, you'll be able to do the same for your search engine within your AdSense account. Your settings will be saved in your account, so you won't need to generate new search code for each change.
Ready to learn more about the new features available for AdSense for search? Just visit our Help Center. (You might also notice that we've just implemented Custom Search there too.)
Monday, May 05, 2008 at 4:53:00 PM
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Image ads for your mobile content
Our mobile ads team is pleased to announce that mobile image ads are now available in Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and the UK, as well as the US. With this mobile ad type, you now have a new way to monetize mobile content while still providing the same benefits as our standard text ads.
Mobile image ads enable you to take advantage of the large and growing group of Google mobile advertisers. Ads are matched to your site content and the size of a viewer's screen, and are paid on a cost-per-click basis. You can view example ads and sizes in the AdWords Help Center.
For publishers, mobile image ads provide added flexibility and profitability. Publishers choose whether they want to show text ads, image ads, or a mix of both and Google will then dynamically return the ad that we expect will perform best at the time a user is looking at their site.
If you're a current AdSense for mobile content publisher, you'll need to update your AdSense code in order to enable image ads for your site. Directions on how to do this can be found in our Help Center. We recommend selecting "Text and image ads" as your ad type, in order to take advantage of all available ads for your content. Once you have your code, paste it into the source code of your mobile website where you'd like to show image ads. If you're new to showing mobile ads, you can follow the same directions to generate code that allows for mobile image ads.
For more information on AdSense for mobile content, check out our microsite or our September post on the AdSense for mobile content product launch. You can also take a look at our posting on the Google Mobile Blog for news on this launch and for information on other mobile and mobile-advertising related topics.
Mobile image ads enable you to take advantage of the large and growing group of Google mobile advertisers. Ads are matched to your site content and the size of a viewer's screen, and are paid on a cost-per-click basis. You can view example ads and sizes in the AdWords Help Center.
For publishers, mobile image ads provide added flexibility and profitability. Publishers choose whether they want to show text ads, image ads, or a mix of both and Google will then dynamically return the ad that we expect will perform best at the time a user is looking at their site.
If you're a current AdSense for mobile content publisher, you'll need to update your AdSense code in order to enable image ads for your site. Directions on how to do this can be found in our Help Center. We recommend selecting "Text and image ads" as your ad type, in order to take advantage of all available ads for your content. Once you have your code, paste it into the source code of your mobile website where you'd like to show image ads. If you're new to showing mobile ads, you can follow the same directions to generate code that allows for mobile image ads.
For more information on AdSense for mobile content, check out our microsite or our September post on the AdSense for mobile content product launch. You can also take a look at our posting on the Google Mobile Blog for news on this launch and for information on other mobile and mobile-advertising related topics.
Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 2:23:00 PM
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Ad Review Center available to all publishers
Many of you have been eagerly waiting for the Ad Review Center to arrive in your accounts, and we're happy to tell you that this feature is now available for all publishers. By enabling you to review all ads placement-targeted to your site, the Ad Review Center gives you more transparency and control, and ensures that ads are relevant to your site's content and users.
We wanted to share a publisher's thoughts about the Ad Review Center, so we chatted with Jennifer McDonald, Account Manager at RealNetworks for sites such as rollingstone.com and film.com. Before using it, Jennifer says that "the concerns Real had... were mainly concerns about running competitive ads on our sites." But she says that by using the Ad Review Center, her team has been able to keep competitive ads from running. As she notes, "We are able to quickly review the ads before they run on our sites and block any ads that are considered competitive to our services."
The Ad Review Center is now available for all publishers utilizing placement targeting. You can get started with this feature by visiting your 'Competitive Ad Filter' page, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab.
Before getting started, we strongly recommend keeping your review preference set to the default of 'Run ads immediately.' This will let you allow or block ads after they have run. If you choose the other option of 'Hold ads,' the ads will await review for 24 hours before being allowed to run automatically. Using the 'Hold ads' setting will keep ads from participating in the auction while they await review, potentially lowering winning bids and your AdSense earnings. Ads that you have blocked can't compete in the auction either, so we ask that you keep in mind the revenue impact of blocking ads or switching from the 'Run ads immediately' setting.
For more information about using the Ad Review Center, please visit our Help Center, and to start using it, please log in to your account.
We wanted to share a publisher's thoughts about the Ad Review Center, so we chatted with Jennifer McDonald, Account Manager at RealNetworks for sites such as rollingstone.com and film.com. Before using it, Jennifer says that "the concerns Real had... were mainly concerns about running competitive ads on our sites." But she says that by using the Ad Review Center, her team has been able to keep competitive ads from running. As she notes, "We are able to quickly review the ads before they run on our sites and block any ads that are considered competitive to our services."
The Ad Review Center is now available for all publishers utilizing placement targeting. You can get started with this feature by visiting your 'Competitive Ad Filter' page, located under the 'AdSense Setup' tab.
Before getting started, we strongly recommend keeping your review preference set to the default of 'Run ads immediately.' This will let you allow or block ads after they have run. If you choose the other option of 'Hold ads,' the ads will await review for 24 hours before being allowed to run automatically. Using the 'Hold ads' setting will keep ads from participating in the auction while they await review, potentially lowering winning bids and your AdSense earnings. Ads that you have blocked can't compete in the auction either, so we ask that you keep in mind the revenue impact of blocking ads or switching from the 'Run ads immediately' setting.
For more information about using the Ad Review Center, please visit our Help Center, and to start using it, please log in to your account.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 11:10:00 AM
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Show me the ads
After months of testing, we've just updated our text ad format to include 'next' and 'previous' arrow buttons for cost-per-click (CPC) ads. When a user clicks on the 'next' button, an entirely new group of ads will appear in the ad unit, giving your users greater control over the ads they see and click.
While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher's content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking -- for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears.
You won't generate earnings for clicks on the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, but these buttons will help improve both advertiser value and your potential revenue. When users click on the buttons, they begin interacting with the ads and are more likely to find the specific offering they're looking for, which can lead to higher earnings for you.
While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher's content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking -- for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears.
You won't generate earnings for clicks on the 'next' and 'previous' buttons, but these buttons will help improve both advertiser value and your potential revenue. When users click on the buttons, they begin interacting with the ads and are more likely to find the specific offering they're looking for, which can lead to higher earnings for you.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008 at 10:27:00 AM
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Working with the Ad Review Center
As you may remember, we started enabling the Ad Review Center for publishers back in December to let you review ads placement-targeted to your site. We've recently enabled the Ad Review Center for more accounts and will continue rolling it out over the upcoming weeks. To get a publisher's perspective on the new feature, we chatted with Richard Tribe, Director of ski.com.au.
Australian snow enthusiasts can visit ski.com.au to learn about resorts and travel deals, as well as news and photos of conditions. The site also serves as a skier community, with videos, forums, wikis, and several blogs. Richard has been using the Ad Review Center to ensure relevant, high-quality ads appear alongside his content. He explains that "the Ad Review Center allowed me to see who was targeting my site, and I saw a wonderful array of high-quality advertisers in there... The Ad Review Center is a great way of managing the quality and style of advertiser you would like to have associated with your publication."
To highlight specific inventory, Richard has turned his custom channels into ad placements. For instance, he found that his live camera feeds of snow conditions drove significant advertiser interest, so he created specific snow camera ad placements. He elaborates, "That extra choice helps make my site look more attractive and allows advertisers to place their ads exactly where they want to place them." With targetable custom channels, Richard has given advertisers more control over where their placement-targeted ads can appear, and using the Ad Review Center, he ensures those ads are relevant to his site's audience.
To check if the Ad Review Center has been enabled for your account, visit the 'Competitive Ad Filter' page under the AdSense Setup tab and look for a green notification box.
When setting up the Ad Review Center in your account, we strongly recommend you keep your review preference set to the default of 'Run ads immediately', and review placement-targeted ads after they have run. Ads don't participate in the auction while they are awaiting review, and ads that you have blocked can't compete in the auction either. We ask that you consider the revenue implications before blocking ads or switching from the 'Run immediately' setting.
Happy skiing (and reviewing)!
Australian snow enthusiasts can visit ski.com.au to learn about resorts and travel deals, as well as news and photos of conditions. The site also serves as a skier community, with videos, forums, wikis, and several blogs. Richard has been using the Ad Review Center to ensure relevant, high-quality ads appear alongside his content. He explains that "the Ad Review Center allowed me to see who was targeting my site, and I saw a wonderful array of high-quality advertisers in there... The Ad Review Center is a great way of managing the quality and style of advertiser you would like to have associated with your publication."
To highlight specific inventory, Richard has turned his custom channels into ad placements. For instance, he found that his live camera feeds of snow conditions drove significant advertiser interest, so he created specific snow camera ad placements. He elaborates, "That extra choice helps make my site look more attractive and allows advertisers to place their ads exactly where they want to place them." With targetable custom channels, Richard has given advertisers more control over where their placement-targeted ads can appear, and using the Ad Review Center, he ensures those ads are relevant to his site's audience.
To check if the Ad Review Center has been enabled for your account, visit the 'Competitive Ad Filter' page under the AdSense Setup tab and look for a green notification box.
When setting up the Ad Review Center in your account, we strongly recommend you keep your review preference set to the default of 'Run ads immediately', and review placement-targeted ads after they have run. Ads don't participate in the auction while they are awaiting review, and ads that you have blocked can't compete in the auction either. We ask that you consider the revenue implications before blocking ads or switching from the 'Run immediately' setting.
Happy skiing (and reviewing)!
Monday, March 17, 2008 at 8:48:00 AM
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A follow-up to our referrals announcement
You may have seen our recent post about the upcoming changes to referrals promoting AdSense. Since we made this announcement, we've received a number of responses about the program being dependent on the location of the referring publisher. We've carefully considered your feedback, and have decided to modify the original plan.The changes to referrals promoting AdSense will now depend on where your users are located, regardless of your location as a publisher. You'll earn $100 for every user you refer to AdSense who is located in North America, Latin America or Japan when they generate $100 in AdSense revenue within 180 days and they remove all payment holds. You'll no longer be paid for users you refer who are located elsewhere. These changes will go into effect the last week of January.The option to add a referral unit for AdSense will reappear in your account when you target any referral unit to Japan and/or any countries in North America and Latin America. To ensure payment for valid conversions, we recommend that you check the targeting settings on your current AdSense referral units.
We've also heard from a number of you that you're no longer seeing recent AdSense referral earnings in your account. Please be assured that this is a display error -- past conversions have not been removed from your account. Our engineers are working hard to resolve this issue quickly.
Finally, we'd like to let you know about upcoming changes to the referrals programs for Google Pack and Firefox:
- Google Pack: Currently, you can earn up to $2 when a user downloads and runs Google Pack for the first time after being referred through your link or button. Starting the third week of February, each successful Pack referral will earn up to $1. This change will apply to all referrals for Google Pack and is independent of user location or publisher location.
- Firefox: We'll also be reducing payments for Firefox referrals from China during the third week of February. This specific referral payment change will only affect installations from users in China. Again, this is independent of your location as a publisher.
Again, thank you for your feedback and support of the referrals program