A peek into recent AdWords developments

A peek into recent AdWords developments


If you're an avid Inside AdSense reader, you know that we frequently post about the latest developments in AdSense and new features you can take advantage of. However, we've heard from some publishers that they want to know more about what's happening in AdWords, and what we're doing to bring more relevant, targeted ads to AdSense sites like yours. With that, we'd like to take a moment to give you insight into a few recent AdWords developments, and what they mean for you as an AdSense publisher.

One of the main changes is the ability for advertisers to be more specific with their ad targeting through a combination of contextual targeting and placement targeting. As you may know, contextually targeted ads will appear on your pages if an advertiser's keywords match your content, while placement-targeted ads will appear if an advertiser has specifically selected your ad placement or site. Now, advertisers can target your site or placements, but can also specify keywords for them so that their ads only appear in the most relevant pages. These ads will still need to compete with the available inventory of ads for a particular placement, and so only the highest-paying, most relevant ads will appear on your pages. At the same time, you'll still be able to use your Competitive Ad Filter to prevent ads from specific URLs from appearing.

What does this mean for you, as an AdSense publisher? Your users may see more relevant ads on your pages, and advertisers who become more confident that their ads are reaching the right audience may increase their ad spend -- both of these can result in higher monetization for you. In addition, while advertisers previously could only change their bids for all ads running across multiple sites, they can now adjust their bids for individual sites. This means that advertisers can spend more of their budgets on the specific AdSense sites which perform well and generate high-quality leads for the advertiser.

With these recent improvements, we're looking forward to expanding the number of advertisers who use the AdSense content network and increasing the relevance of their ads on your sites. Not only will this increase your earnings potential through the AdSense program, but it will also strengthen the ads ecosystem that benefits publishers, advertisers, and users.

Optimizing your search box

Optimizing your search box



Following on the five tips on AdSense for content optimization our Sydney team presented a couple weeks back, now let's turn to AdSense for search. As you may know, we recently integrated Custom Search Engine into AdSense for search to provide additional customization options and improved targeting. Whether you've already implemented an AdSense for search box on your site or you're just getting started with this feature, we recommend these five optimization tips:
1. Place your search boxes in visible locations.

Integrate your search boxes in easy-to-find locations, such as under the header or in your left navigation. Also, keep the placement of your search boxes consistent on all your pages, so users will know where to look if they need help finding something.
2. Add two search boxes to content-rich pages.

For pages with a lot of content or which require scrolling, try placing one search box at the top of the page and another at the bottom. A box at the top of the page will allow users to perform a search immediately, and a box at the bottom will provide a search option to users who've just finished reading your content. You can also track and compare the performance of each search box by creating custom channels.
3. Host your search results on your own site.

To keep users on your pages, you can host your search results and ads within your own pages. If your users don't find what they're looking for in the search results or ads, they'll still be able to to navigate to other sections of your site using your site's template. In addition, you can further integrate your search results into your site by customizing the colors of the results page.
4. Add a search box to your search results pages.

Similar to #3, try placing a search box on your search results pages so users can perform additional searches from your site.
5. Customize your ad locations.

Place ads at the top and right sidebar of your search results pages. This layout offers added visibility, and our tests have shown that these ad locations can improve monetization.
After you've optimized where search boxes are placed on your site, don't forget to try new targeting options such as keyword refinements and vertical search. To generate AdSense for search code and take advantage of these features, sign in and visit your AdSense Setup tab. You can also find more information in our Help Center.

NEWBIE

Newbie, newbie do

(To the tune of "Strangers in the Night")

"Publishers with websites, creating content
Wondering about their sites
If with their content, they could show some ads
Before the day was done

Something in AdSense, was so inviting
Something about those ads, was so exciting
Something in our Help Center
Told them they must be one

Publishers with websites, yearning for earnings
They were just publishers with websites
Up to the moment
When they placed their first ad code
Little did they know
Revenue was just a click away
A happy-user-generated click away and --

Ever since that day, they've been monetizing
Newbies at the start, they're now optimizing
It turned out so right
For publishers with websites.

Newbie, newbie dooo, da da da daaaa da..."
If my lyrical effort didn't clue you in, and our Newbie Central resource wasn't a big enough clue, let me come right out and say it: we care about new publishers. For the next few weeks, we'll be sharing that caring every Friday, with posts especially intended for all the publishers who have recently joined AdSense, fresh and green like a newly mown lawn in the summertime. Look for this logo to identify posts in this series:

Earning revenue from YouTube videos just got easier

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.
• 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."
To give you a better idea of the videos that are available for syndication to your site, we've also created a gallery of some featured video units content partners. Note that to choose any of these content providers for your video unit, you should get their YouTube username by visiting their YouTube channel, and then put this username into the "Channel" field when choosing content for your unit.

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 States
Finally, 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.

WELCOME ADSENSE

Selamat datang!


We're happy to welcome Indonesian into the AdSense for search family. If you manage a site in Indonesian, you can now begin generating AdSense revenue by displaying search boxes on your pages.

To put you in an Indonesian mindset, we've provided some interesting facts about Indonesia:
• Indonesia is made up of 17,500 islands and is the world's largest archipelagic state. It has a population of over 200 million, making it the world's fourth most populous country.
• The largest Buddhist temple in the world, Borobudur, is located in Indonesia and is a ninth century monument.
• Indonesia is the native home of the Komodo dragon, the largest lizard in the world.
Visit the AdSense Setup tab of your account to get started with AdSense for search today!

Meet an India payments specialist
We recently sat down with Amrita Kamat, a payments specialist in our Hyderabad office, to find out more about payments in India.

When you're not at work, where would one find you?

In gaming parlors -- I love gaming! Counter-Strike is one of my current favorites. Running around and fighting opponents (while still sitting on the comfort of my sofa and sipping a hot mug of coffee) is the highlight of my weekend. I also love the outdoors, trekking, and sports like badminton and basketball.

There are a few payment-related issues specific to India. What tips do you have for Indian publishers?

I have a 5-point Mantra for payments for Indian publishers:
1. Enter an accurate, complete address – I'd recommend updating your address in this way:


2. Choose INR checks over USD checks – This will reduce the bank charges levied (if any) to convert the dollar checks to Indian rupees. Also, the INR checks will be easy to process.
3. Set a self-hold – If you've reached $100 in unpaid earnings and would like to get paid once in 2 months or once every 6 months, we have an option to set a self-hold. Accumulate your earnings and receive a bigger check in the future. Don't forget that you'll need to remove the hold before the 15th of the month to be paid in that month.
4. Use Secured Express Delivery – For tension-free delivery of your hard-earned money, try our Secured Express Delivery option, which will cost you US$25 for the DHL charges -- the check will be delivered at your doorstep within 10 days.
5. Understand your payment cycle - Please go through the Payments Demo to understand when payments are processed. It's an 11-minute demo that is well worth your time!
Why do checks and PINs take longer to reach Indian publishers? What are the other options?

This can happen because of incorrect mailing addresses and the postal service. While nothing much can be done about the postal service at this time, I'd again recommend that you update your physical address -- an accurate house number and/or house name can make a big difference to how a postman will locate your house. If you're relocating, feel free to place a self-hold on your account until you've completed the relocation process. Please ensure that your address is updated before the 15th, and the address doesn’t exceed the 35-character limit in each line. Finally, the only alternative for receiving checks right now is to choose Secured Express Delivery checks over Standard Delivery checks.

Any weekend plans?

This weekend I am off to Bangalore to catch up with a few friends. We've planned a bicycle trip to Nandi Hills for a picnic. In the evening, we intend to make good use of the new telescope one of my friends acquired recently. Isn’t star-gazing on a Sunday evening an ideal way to end an eventful weekend?


Mid-day more than midway to success
Note: Google does not sell or endorse any registration kits or CDs for the AdSense program. If you have reached this page after being asked to purchase a registration kit or CD, please know that Google is not affiliated with any offers of this nature. To sign-up for a free AdSense account, please visit www.google.com/adsense.

Mid-day.com is a newspaper website for readers in Mumbai, India which has been in the AdSense program since 2005. According to Gauri Daswani, who was the Mid-day.com Assistant Manager at the time, 50% of the site's revenue is generated through AdSense. "Monetization has become much easier with the AdSense model," she says. "To ensure good results from AdSense, it is imperative that we create compelling content which in turn accounts for a good user experience and definitely benefits Google's advertisers."

Initially, Gauri and her team relied on fixed ad colors and placements. They noticed that the site was earning a similar amount of revenue each month. "We had a problem choosing color codes and ad placements, which we didn't know could actually impact our revenue so drastically," she remembers. But she soon found the benefits of testing with custom channels.

"We placed channels on the ad units and changed the ad positions to understand the performance of each unit, resulting in much higher revenue," she says. For example, Gauri added a 300x250 medium rectangle to the bottom of each article and moved her link unit from the right sidebar to the left. In addition, she updated the colors of her ad and link units to match the look and feel of the rest of her site. Together, all of these changes resulted in a 60% increase in revenue.


"It is now easy to optimize the site's performance with custom channels. They give us a complete picture of how different ads are performing on our site, and help us to compare all ad units and pages," Gauri comments. Even now, her team continues to experiment with other changes to find what will perform best for Mid-day.com. "We have learned that subtle changes can produce significant results."




EFT launched in Hungary and Hong Kong
We're happy to announce that publishers located in Hungary and Hong Kong can now sign up to receive payments by Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). With EFT, your earnings will be directly deposited into your bank account so won't need to wait for checks to arrive in the mail and clear at the bank. Signing-up for EFT is a simple process, and just involves entering your bank account information, then verifying a small test deposit. Please keep in mind that all EFT payments will be made in your local currency, and the exchange rate is determined at the time of payment.

While EFT is currently only available in a limited number of countries, we're working on expanding our payment options and will announce any updates right here on the blog.

UPDATED for accuracy

Google Analytics and Ad Planner

Google Analytics and Ad Planner



Since the announcements of Google Trends for Websites and Google Ad Planner last week, we've gotten lots of interest from agencies and advertisers excited about the opportunity to expand their media plans to sites that they might have overlooked before. But we've also noticed some confusion as to how Google Analytics data might be used in those products, and we'd like to clear that up.

Google Analytics doesn't share individual, site-level information with Google Trends for Websites or Google Ad Planner. These products gather data from multiple sources, then check the data against anonymous, aggregate, industry benchmarking data within Google Analytics. This helps Google Trends for Websites and Google Ad Planner calibrate category data and correct for under- or over-reporting in certain verticals. The benchmarking data comes from Google Analytics customers who've chosen to share their data in aggregate (see our earlier blog post).

Your data confidentiality is important to us, and we're committed to preserving your trust in us.

You can check out Google Trends for Websites for yourself here or sign up for the Google Ad Planner beta here. More information is available on the Trends for Websites Help page and on the Google Ad Planner Help Center.

Google Analytics and Ad Planner



Since the announcements of Google Trends for Websites and Google Ad Planner last week, we've gotten lots of interest from agencies and advertisers excited about the opportunity to expand their media plans to sites that they might have overlooked before. But we've also noticed some confusion as to how Google Analytics data might be used in those products, and we'd like to clear that up.

Google Analytics doesn't share individual, site-level information with Google Trends for Websites or Google Ad Planner. These products gather data from multiple sources, then check the data against anonymous, aggregate, industry benchmarking data within Google Analytics. This helps Google Trends for Websites and Google Ad Planner calibrate category data and correct for under- or over-reporting in certain verticals. The benchmarking data comes from Google Analytics customers who've chosen to share their data in aggregate (see our earlier blog post).

Your data confidentiality is important to us, and we're committed to preserving your trust in us.

You can check out Google Trends for Websites for yourself here or sign up for the Google Ad Planner beta here. More information is available on the Trends for Websites Help page and on the Google Ad Planner Help Center.