AdSense FAQ

Here is a list of some common questions I get from readers regarding AdSense ads.

How do you place AdSense ads on Blogger?

Four methods are available to place AdSense ads on Blogger blogs. They are:

1. The AdSense Gadget - From the Page Elements view, if you select an Add Gadget option in any of the sections, the list of gadgets provide an AdSense gadget. You can easily configure the ad options from the dialog box and place the ad unit in any place where gadgets can be dragged and dropped. (See How to Add More Gadgets to increase the ad placement options)
2. Ads Between Posts - The Posts gadget has an option to display ads between posts. From the Page Elements window, go to Blog Posts -> Edit and select Show Ads Between Posts.
3. The Monetize Tab - This is more recent addition which offers a convenient way of adding ads. Go to the Monetize tab on your blog's admin console and select the required display option
4. HTML/Javascript Widgets - This is the most flexible method of adding ads which gives you more control over how to place them. Simply copy the ad code from your AdSense accout and use an HTML/Javascript widget to place it anywhere you want.

How many adds can I display at a time?

AdSense has a limitation of only 3 ads of one type per page. That means you can have up to 3 ad units and 3 link units per page.

I enabled Ads Between Posts. Now my sidebar ads are gone?

This can happen due to the limit of 3 ads of one type per page. If you have configured your Posts widget to show 4 or more posts on the homepage, then the Ads Between Posts option will consume the maximum of 3 ad units on the home page. If the sidebar loads after the posts column (which is usually the case when the sidebar is on the right), then the ads on the sidebar will not be loaded ad they will exceed the ad limit per page.

My blog shows irrelevant ads. Why?

There can be several reasons for this.

Firstly, if your blog is new, then it takes some time for Google to properly index it and understand the relevant type of ads.

Secondly, if your blog is not focussed on a particular topic, it becomes hard for AdSense to decide which type of ads are relevant.

Thirdly, even if your blogs is focused on a particular niche, that niche may not have enough relevant ads. The focus of this blog itself is an example for such a case.

Fourthly, due to the geo-targeting of ads (i.e. serving ads based on the locality of visitors), you might not see relevants ads on your blog. But visitors from the other parts of the world miget see more relevant ads than what you see.

There can be more reasons. But the above are the most common ones for irrelevant ads.

My earnings are random. Why?

See Fluctuations in AdSense Earnings

How can I optimze my ads?

See AdSense Tips for some useful tipe on making more out of your ads.

Google Certified Ad Networks with AdSense

Google has announced an interesting new feature in AdSense, Google-certified ad networks.

Ad networks are like the ad marketplaces where advertisers and publishers get together. Though the advertisers and publishers don't meet each other physically, the ad network works as the intermediary between these two parties who want to buy and sell advertising space.

Up until now, AdSense served only AdWords ads (except for some display ads from third party vendors). With this change, they are going to allow third party ad networks to serve ads to AdSense publishers. This feature will be initially made available to publishers in North America and Europe, but according to Google, will be rolled out to other regions in due cause.

This means that more advertisers will be competing for ad spaces and the additional competition is certainly good news for publishers.

For more information, see this post on the AdSense blog.

Fluctuations in AdSense Earnings

The AdSense earnings can vary from as few as two to three cents per click to as much as one dollar per click. These fluctuations are quite normal and are usually the result of one or more of the following reasons.

• Drop in ad impressions due to reduced traffic or page views
• Drop in the click-through-rate (or CTR) - A CTR of 1% to 4% is considered normal but I have seen days where it drops to as low as 0.5%
• Lack of relevant contextual ads for the content of the pages - low relevancy would mean that AdSense would serve low paying ads
• Reduction in advertising budgets of advertisers
• Seasonal variations - for example, festive seasons may attract bigger advertising budgets and therefore there will be higher cost-per-clicks (CPC)
  

The advertisers seem to bid higher on the beginning and in the middle of a month. But, CPC seem to drop towards the end of the month, probably because advertisers run out of gas.

Further Reading:

• Diagnosing and treating revenue fluctuations (Part I)
• Diagnosing and treating revenue fluctuations (Part II)

AdSense Tips

Google AdSense is the dominant provider of contextual advertising services. If you are also using AdSense as a means of monetizing your blog, this article will provide you a set of tips for maximizing your revenue.

Eye Catching Positions
A typical visitor to a web page scans its content in what’s called an F-shaped pattern. According to an eye-tracking study conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group, the dominant scanning pattern of readers consists of a starting horizontal scan at the top of the page, followed by a shorter horizontal scan slightly below the first scan and finally a vertical scan along the left edge of the page. These three scans form a general F shape pattern.

This is an important advice given by many web design gurus when it comes to deciding the layout of a site. Web designers are generally advised to place their important content to fall in this field of view. The same tip is useful for ad placement, a fact also confirmed by the heat map published by AdSense Help.

According to that map, ads placed below an article also performs well because readers generally look for where to go next?. The study referenced above says that this behavior forms an E-shaped scanning pattern, which is also common.

Complementing Ad Design
Ads that complement the color theme of your blog tend to perform better than those that contrast. Even though this AdSense Help article explains three forms of color schemes, namely Blend, Complement and Contrast, ads that contrast don’t perform that well. This fact is confirmed by an optimization tip published on the AdSense blog and also a guest post by pro blogger Darren Rowse on the same blog.

Find the Right Size
Ad size also plays a crucial role in catching the readers’ eyes and also in attracting better ads. Generally, bigger ads perform better. However, too big is also bad. According to Darren, the Medium Rectangle size (300 x 250) tends to perform better than the Large Rectangle. This is due to the fact that more advertisers tend to prefer the Medium Rectangle because of its wide use.

The AdSense blog, too, recommends the Medium Rectangle along with the Leaderboard (728 x 90) and Skyscraper (160 x 600) formats.

Number of Ads
This is another useful advice by the blogging guru Darren. General belief is that higher the number of ads, higher the chances of readers clicking on them. But too much ads can drive away the readers.

Use of different ad formats such as Link Units, Image and Video ads, and using Google Analytics to find out which content generates the most revenue are the other tips offered by Darren. Last, but not least, experimenting with different ad sizes, color schemes and positions etc is the best way to find out which ads works well on your blog/site, says Darren.

Related Posts

• Color Elements of AdSense Ad Units
• HOWTO: Find the RGB Values of a Color
• Customizing AdSense Ad Units
• Standard Ad Units

Color Elements of AdSense Ad Units

An AdSense ad unit has 5 basic color elements. Having an understanding of these elements are useful when it comes to customizing an ad unit to match your blog's colors. The figure below shows a mapping of those elements to an actual ad unit.


The elements are Border, Background, Text, Title and Url. Border is the area where you see the "Ads by Google" part. This is in fact the background color of that rectangular area. The Background element is the background color of the area excluding the border. Each individual ad comprises of 3 elements, its title, the descriptive text and the ad URL. The Title, Text and Url elements correspond to these 3 elements of each ad respectively.

Whether you customize your ad unit using the Blogger Layout Editor or your AdSense account, these are the 5 color elements available for color customizations.

The actual color of each element is specified using a cryptic number similar to the #6699cc given for the Border element in the above figure. They are called the RGB color values. This article explains the RGB colors and a simple technique to find the exact RGB value for a given color is found here.