So Google tells me that I’m not earning as much as I could and that I should start using image ads. Ok, I’ve tried this experiment a few times. This doesn’t seem to be the case, for me at least. Here is the email they sent me:

We just reviewed your site,yourdomain.com, and noticed that you’re not opted-in to show both text and image/rich media ads on at least 148 units.

Enabling all of your units to display both text and image/rich media ads can significantly increase your revenue. Your 336×280 ad unit on yourdomain.com/ is one example of where you can make this change.

Click to upgrade your units now!

Once you’re logged into your AdSense account, click the “My Ads” tab
Select all ad units
From the Actions dropdown, edit ad type to “Text & Image / rich media ads”

Need more proof?

Opting into text and image/rich media ads increases the pool of advertisers competing to appear on your site. More competition means a higher eCPM for you. Units that are opted into all ad types typically see an eCPM that’s 4402% higher than text or image only units. Check out our case study to see how sf.funcheap.com started earning 51% more by making this change.

I think that’s a load of bull… for me, at least. I’m someone going for optimization and not just throwing as many ads on as many sites as I can – a theory that I’ve seen pay off.

Going with text and rich media ads seems to actually give you a wider group of advertisers but also a wider group of ads. Image ads are pretty much like $0.10 each for advertisers (good, cheap advertising if you’re a business), so they’re not going to earn more, sorry. You’d think that demand would be higher but it just doesn’t work that way for me and I’ve tried this a number of times. It takes about a week to recover once I go back to text ads only so I don’t like testing this too often.

Next, what I found is that if you go with a different ad group (channel?) for your home page than your inside pages, you won’t earn as much. Keep them all the same. It seems that advertisers that will want to get on your home page will then also have to advertise on your other, good pages, too. I thought Google had more per page kind of control but maybe not.

The other experiment is the number of ads per page. For my best website, only 1 ad per page. If advertisers want to get on that page, they’re going to have to pay more. I get more revenue this way. For other sites, go with the max amount of ads (3 of each kind) – go for volume.

So what I’ve found works best (for me, at least) is going with text ads only and have all your ads for one website in the same group and only 1 ad per page.

This analysis is not scientific. I’d be interested in what others have found.

-T

Related articles

• hiver64 on “Google Ads” (upgradewordpressnow.com)
• 13 Ways for Bloggers to Make Money with Advertising (problogger.net)
• How to Monetise Your Exit Pages (carocomarketing.com)
• AdSense is still Top Dog for Display advertising (web-workathome.com)
• Google says AdMob is for apps and AdSense is for mobile websites (mobile-ent.biz)
• How To Add Google Ads To Your Website (informationweek.com)
• New procedures for approving AdSense application! (blogavenues.blogspot.com)

The monthly Google paycheck came a few days early this month, so thanks Google!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Here’s a video that explains how to increase revenue with Google Adsense:

We had been guessing 50% but it turns out that 68% goes to publishers – nice!

Here’s the Google AdSense Blog Post:

The AdSense revunue share (adsense.blogspot.com)

AdSense for content publishers, who make up the vast majority of our AdSense publishers, earn a 68% revenue share worldwide. This means we pay 68% of the revenue that we collect from advertisers for AdSense for content ads that appear on your sites.

And another article:

How is Google AdSense Revenue Share Calculated? (blog.searchenginewatch.com)

AdSense for Content, the ads which are contextually targeted to the words on your web page is calculated at a 68% split to the publisher. Google takes 32% of the effective CPM (eCPM) they charge the advertiser.

AdSense for Search, the ads which are plugged into your own website’s internal search engine and triggered and matched to keywords used in the search query is calculated at a 51% split to the publisher. Google takes 49% of the cost-per-click (CPC) they charge the advertiser.

-T