Over time, CTR diminishes naturally as Internet users get more and more used to the ads and less attracted by them. This is exactly what happened to Image banners that used to have something like 5% CTR and that are nowadays performing less than 0.5% !
AdSense sponsored links are successful today because they managed to come up with an innovative way of advertising through link like ads. This success is mainly measured, though not exclusively, by a high CTR ranging from 0.5% to 20% in some cases, the average being around 3 %. Now it is up to you to take advantage of this high optimisation potential.
We have listed three main ways to improve a website's AdSense click Through Rate:
Improve CTR using Ad Format
Improve CTR using Ad Colours
Improve CTR using Ad Placement
Monday, June 8, 2009
How do I create advanced reports ?
The first thing you are asked to set to your needs is the product data you want to analyse. Below the "choose product" heading, you will find a drop down menu covering all three AdSense products:
adsense for content
adsense for search
refferals
Once you have choosen the product, you will need to define a date range. You can either use the drop down menu to define a period of time like today, yesterday, las 7 days... or define your own customised date range like from Sept 5 2006 to Oct 31 2006 to see how the Septembre update affected your performances.
Next you will need to tackle the "Show data by" section. I understand this is quite confusion so I advise you to choose the default criterion which is "Page". However, advanced adsense users must be able to use any additional data provided by google so let's take a look at how the adsense team explains it. I have modified the text to make it a bit clearer.
Advanced reports provide the option to view your performance by page, ad unit, or individual ad. We've highlighted the differences between each report below.
Page reports will show an impression every time a user views a page displaying Google ads. We'll only report one page impression no matter how many Google ads are displayed on a page.
Ad unit reports will show an impression every time a user views a Google ad unit on your page. For example, if a page with one half banner and one vertical banner is viewed once, we'll display two ad unit impressions.
Individual ad reports will show an impression for each individual ad that's shown in any ad unit (remembre that a single ad unit can contain more than one idividual ad). For example, if a page with one half banner and one vertical banner is viewed once, it will generate three ad impressions.
The last decision you need to make is choosing between displaying "aggregate data" and "channel data".
Unless you want a summary of your overall performance on a daily basis or that you have not defined any channels, I think you should opt for "channel data" option that will give you valuable data on the performance of every channel you set up earlier.
Once you choose "channel data", more options are displayed. This is a little confusing at first but if you are familiar with SQL queries and databases you shouldn't have any difficulty using these options. For others I have tried to list some guidelines:
select at least one channel you want to analyse
set grouping to "date" or "channel", avoid using both
try many combinations till you get what you want
try to understand the data and you will see what other data you need
adsense for content
adsense for search
refferals
Once you have choosen the product, you will need to define a date range. You can either use the drop down menu to define a period of time like today, yesterday, las 7 days... or define your own customised date range like from Sept 5 2006 to Oct 31 2006 to see how the Septembre update affected your performances.
Next you will need to tackle the "Show data by" section. I understand this is quite confusion so I advise you to choose the default criterion which is "Page". However, advanced adsense users must be able to use any additional data provided by google so let's take a look at how the adsense team explains it. I have modified the text to make it a bit clearer.
Advanced reports provide the option to view your performance by page, ad unit, or individual ad. We've highlighted the differences between each report below.
Page reports will show an impression every time a user views a page displaying Google ads. We'll only report one page impression no matter how many Google ads are displayed on a page.
Ad unit reports will show an impression every time a user views a Google ad unit on your page. For example, if a page with one half banner and one vertical banner is viewed once, we'll display two ad unit impressions.
Individual ad reports will show an impression for each individual ad that's shown in any ad unit (remembre that a single ad unit can contain more than one idividual ad). For example, if a page with one half banner and one vertical banner is viewed once, it will generate three ad impressions.
The last decision you need to make is choosing between displaying "aggregate data" and "channel data".
Unless you want a summary of your overall performance on a daily basis or that you have not defined any channels, I think you should opt for "channel data" option that will give you valuable data on the performance of every channel you set up earlier.
Once you choose "channel data", more options are displayed. This is a little confusing at first but if you are familiar with SQL queries and databases you shouldn't have any difficulty using these options. For others I have tried to list some guidelines:
select at least one channel you want to analyse
set grouping to "date" or "channel", avoid using both
try many combinations till you get what you want
try to understand the data and you will see what other data you need
Prepare Data for Analysis
To summerise my approach I would say that it is all about "identifying what works and what doesn't to take appropriate actions" .
Setting up a framework for analysis
By default, your adsense account will only give basic data about how well your ads are performing. In fact, the data is only grouped by product type and no difference is made between ad units and link units.
This is really not enough if you are serious about developping your adsense business.
Using channels
To figure out what channels to use, you need to ask yourself what data you would like to have. Would you like to know what ad format has the best performance? Would it be better to have an idea about the performance of each section of your site? Are you concerned about where to put your ads (top of the page, bottom, left...)?
According to your answers you need to use different types of channels.
- URL related data:
If you have more than one domain (or website) that displays your ads, I highly recommend that you add all of your domains as URL channels to track each one's global performance individually.
For an indepth analysis of a particular domain, use URL channels to track directories or even pages if these are not too numerous. This will provide an idea about how well every section or page of the website is doing.
- Ad format related data:
Some ad formats are known to be more profitable than others. To make sure this is true for your website too, I recommand that you define a custom channel for each format that you use. For example, use "300-250" for small rectangles or simply name the channel "Small rectangle"...
- Positionning related data:
Where you place ads on a page is sometimes crutial to their performance level. To track this influence (if there is any) use words like "left", "top", "middle", "text embeded", "in menu"... to define custom channels.
- Colours related data:
Colors can also be intersting to track as they can impact the CTR of an ad unit for example. The best choice here is to define custom channels based on the palette you use ("open air", "ink"...).
Of course, these are just suggestions and you are free to come up with other criteria you find relevant to track.
Setting up a framework for analysis
By default, your adsense account will only give basic data about how well your ads are performing. In fact, the data is only grouped by product type and no difference is made between ad units and link units.
This is really not enough if you are serious about developping your adsense business.
Using channels
To figure out what channels to use, you need to ask yourself what data you would like to have. Would you like to know what ad format has the best performance? Would it be better to have an idea about the performance of each section of your site? Are you concerned about where to put your ads (top of the page, bottom, left...)?
According to your answers you need to use different types of channels.
- URL related data:
If you have more than one domain (or website) that displays your ads, I highly recommend that you add all of your domains as URL channels to track each one's global performance individually.
For an indepth analysis of a particular domain, use URL channels to track directories or even pages if these are not too numerous. This will provide an idea about how well every section or page of the website is doing.
- Ad format related data:
Some ad formats are known to be more profitable than others. To make sure this is true for your website too, I recommand that you define a custom channel for each format that you use. For example, use "300-250" for small rectangles or simply name the channel "Small rectangle"...
- Positionning related data:
Where you place ads on a page is sometimes crutial to their performance level. To track this influence (if there is any) use words like "left", "top", "middle", "text embeded", "in menu"... to define custom channels.
- Colours related data:
Colors can also be intersting to track as they can impact the CTR of an ad unit for example. The best choice here is to define custom channels based on the palette you use ("open air", "ink"...).
Of course, these are just suggestions and you are free to come up with other criteria you find relevant to track.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
