Publishing Ads on Your Site

Chapter eight. Publishing Ads on Your Site > Claude: This is the part where it gets exciting. It seems like I've waited forever to get to this stage. > Eric: If you were an experienced Web site developer, AdSense ads would be simple to add to your site. Really, they're simple to add no matter what your experience level. The hard part is figuring out what ad formats to use and where to place them on your Web pages. > Stef: And you can help there, right? > Eric: I can help a bit, sure, but ultimately it's up to you to figure out what works best for your site and your audi ence. It may take you a while and some experimentation to do it. "This is the part where it gets exciting," Claude said. "It seems like I've waited forever to get to this stage." "That's because you had to learn a lot of new stuff, Dad," said Anita. "We all had to. We had to crawl before we could run." "That's right," I told Claude, "and if you were an experienced Web site developer, AdSense ads would be simple to add to your site. Really, they're simple to add no matter what your experience level. There's no mystery to becoming an AdSense publisher. The hard part is figuring out what ad formats to use and where to place them on your Web pages." "And you can help there, right?" Stef asked. "The ads were easy to put on my blog, but I didn't do any experimenting. I just followed the instructions that Blogger gave me." "I can help a bit, sure," I said, "but ultimately it's up to you to figure out what works best for your site and your audience. It may take you a while and some experimentation to do it." Claude was eager to get going. "I don't know if I can run yet," he said, "but I'm certainly willing to walk." I turned to Stef. "Let's start with you again, Stef," I said. "Why don't you show us what you did to publish ads on your blog?"

Reality Check

Reality Check "Do sites really make several thousand a month?" Claude wondered. "There are sites that claim they do," I said. "It's all a numbers game. With a lot of traffic and a lot of clickthroughs, anything's possible. But don't count on making that kind of money." "Speaking of which," said Claude, "isn't it time we learn how we make any money? I know Stef's figured it all out, but I'd like some more details." "Which brings us to part two of our session, how to place ads on your site," I replied. "That is the really interesting part, so let's get started."

Getting Paid

"If you only get paid when your earnings reach $100," Claude asked, "how many months does a new AdSense publisher have to wait to be paid?"

"There aren't any statistics available," I answered, "and it really depends on how much traffic the site is getting and how much money you're getting per click. My first site had pretty low traffic initially, so it took me a few months to get my first payment. And back then, Google always paid out accounts at the end of the calendar year, even if they had accumulated earnings less than $100. I don't think Stef will earn $100 this month, but $10 in a couple of weeks is a good start."

"When do you actually get paid?" Stef asked.

"Google sends the payments about a month after you've earned them," I said. "They're very consistent with their schedule."

"They send you a check?" Claude said.

"Yes," I said. "International publishers can even get paid in other currencies. You can get the check sent by courier to you if you're in a hurry. Alternatively, you can now sign up for EFTelectronic fund transfer."

"And have the money deposited directly into your bank account," Claude said.

"You choose your payment type from the Account Settings page," I said. "It's really easy. I still get checksit's nice to physically receive them. But if I were making several thousand dollars a month from AdSense, I'd probably want to get the money more quickly, and I'd either get the check by courier or use EFT."

Managing AdSense

"Now let's look more closely at each part of the console," I continued. "Remember, everything about AdSense is automated, so you'll spend a lot of time with the console initially."

"Can you ever talk to a human being?" Anita asked.

"Absolutely," I said, "there's a 'Contact Us' link at the top of the console. Or you can send email directly to adsense-support@google.com and someone will get back to you within one or two business days."

"I've already had contact with them," Stef said, "and they answered my question pretty quickly. The reply was very polite, too, even though they probably get a lot of dumb questions like mine!"

"Well, it's worth their effort to keep the AdSense publishers happy," I replied, "because the more ads get shown by more publishers, the more money Google makes. Remember, this is a partnership between you and Google, so it benefits both of you to treat each other well."

"So what part of the console should we start with?" Stef asked. "I haven't explored it all in detail."

"That's OK," I said, "we'll figure it out as we go along. Start with the ad reports and we'll go from there."

Stef then went on to describe (with my help) each page in the console.

Reports

The Reports tab consists of two pages: Ad Performance and Search Performance. The former reports on AdSense for content earnings, the latter on AdSense for search earnings. The pages are otherwise identical.

The controls at the top of the report page define what kind of report is generated. The actual report is shown immediately below the report controls. There are two basic types of report available:

• an aggregate data report summarizing each day's data

• a channel data report displaying channel-specific data

With the aggregate data report, you see how much you're actually earning. With the channel data report, you see how well pages or groups of pages are performing.

Overlapping Channels Pages that are simultaneously in custom channels and URL channels get their clicks and earnings double-counted in channel data reports. When overlapping channels are used, then, the total earnings shown in the channel data report may exceed those shown in the aggregate data report. The aggregate data report is always correct.

A report shows the data between two dates. A number of predefined date ranges are provided (Figure 7.7). The "today" and "this month" ranges are usually the most interesting ranges to look at (remember that Google pays AdSense earnings on a monthly basis, providing you earn at least $100 each month). Other ranges can be specified manually using the date controls immediately below the list of predefined ranges.

Figure 7.7. Predefined date ranges for easy report generation.

Aggregate reports can show total page impressions or total ad unit impressions. Channel reports are more flexible, allowing you to select precisely which channels you're interested in and how the data for those channels is to be shownper-date totals, per-channel totals, or a detailed list of channel earnings per day.

After changing the report controls, click the Display Report button below the controls to generate the new report. A typical two-day aggregate report for page impressions is shown in Figure 7.8. The data are initially sorted by date, but you can click any column heading to sort by that column. The columns are:

• Date the reporting date

• Channel the channel (channel reports only)

• Page impressions the number of times ads have been shown on a page

• Clicks the number of valid ad clicks

• Page CTR the page clickthrough rate, the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions

• Page eCPM the effective cost per 1000 impressions, how much money on average each page is earning based on a standard industry unit

• Your earnings the amount earned

Figure 7.8. A typical aggregate report.

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If you choose to view aggregate data for ad unit impressions instead of pages, you will see equivalent column headings (Ad unit impressions, Ad unit CTR, and Ad unit eCPM), with all calculations done using ad units.

Search Earnings Treated Differently At the bottom of the search report, you'll see this statement: "Revenue from AdSense for search may be offset at the end of the month by costs associated with performing searches." If a site's visitors do a lot of searching but don't click many ads, the publisher may find that Google has adjusted the site's AdSense for search earnings to recover some of the costs of providing the search service. (AdSense for content earnings are not affected.) This only occurs for a few sites, and the chargeback never exceeds the AdSense for search earnings for that month.

You can download any report to your computer by clicking the Download CSV file link in the top right-hand corner of the report. The downloaded report can then be opened with any spreadsheet application (CSV is a universally supported spreadsheet file format) for further analysis.

Ad Settings

The Ad Settings tab consists of four pages: Ad layout code, Ad colors, Channels, and Competitive Ad Filter. The Ad layout code and Ad colors pages are described in detail in the next chapter, so only the Channels and Competitive Ad Filter pages are described here.

You manage your custom and URL channels from the Channels page. At the top of the page are the URL channel controls (Figure 7.9). The custom channel controls are at the bottom (Figure 7.10). Creating new channels is simple: Just type the URL or the channel name into the appropriate input field and click the "Create new channel" button.

Figure 7.9. Managing URL channels.

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Figure 7.10. Managing custom channels.

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Channels

You can have up to 100 active channels at any timethat's more than adequate for most sites.

Ad Filters

For more details on competitive ad filters, see www.memwg.com/ad-filters.

A channel can be active or inactive. AdSense tracks only active channels for reporting.

Ad filtering is done from the Competitive Ad Filter page (Figure 7.11). Just list the Web addresses you want filtered. Up to 200 addresses can be filtered at any time. This is one area where the AdSense Preview Tool comes in handy: If you see an ad you'd like to filter while using the tool, you can just select the ad and click the Show Selected URLs link on the tool to see the ad's destination address. Copy the address to the clipboard and then paste it right into the ad filter list.

Figure 7.11. Filtering competitive ads.

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Search Settings

The Search Settings tab is very similar to the Ad Settings tab and consists of four pages: Search code, Styles, Channels, and Competitive Ad Filter. The Search code and Styles pages are described in the next chapter. The other two pages are basically identical to their counterparts on the Ad Settings tab. Note that AdSense for search supports only custom channels, not URL channels.

Separate Channel and Filter Lists The AdSense for search channel and filter lists are separate from the AdSense for content channel and filter lists, so changes to one do not affect the other. If you're blocking sites and using both AdSense services, remember to update both lists.

My Account

The My Accounts tab consists of three pages: Account Settings, Payment History, and Tax information.

The Account Settings page manages general account settings:

• Login Information email address (which can't be changed), password, language choice (the AdSense console is available in different languages), and whether Google has permission to mail you anything other than routine service announcements

• Payee Information the name and address to use for payment

• Payment Details how the payment is to be made

• Payment Holding temporarily suspends payments

• Ad Type Preference whether or not image ads are allowed on pages by default (this can be changed on a page-by-page basis)

• Product Subscriptions whether you're signed up for both AdSense for content and AdSense for search or just AdSense for content

A typical Accounts Settings page, with important details blurred out, is shown in Figure 7.12. Note that edit links are available to change most of the information.

Figure 7.12. Viewing account settings.

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The Payment History page summarizes your monthly earnings and the payments you've been sent (Figure 7.13). There is one entry per month for earnings, but payments may occur less frequently if you haven't reached the minimum payment threshold ($100) or you've temporarily suspended payment. Clicking any Earnings or Payment link shows you more details about that month's earnings or payment. Details of earnings for both AdSense for content and AdSense for search are included under Earnings (Figure 7.14).

Figure 7.13. Payment history.

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Figure 7.14. Earnings details.

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Tax Help

Consult a tax professional for clarification if you have any questions about which Google Tax Information form to use or about any other tax issue related to AdSense.

The Tax Information page is where Google collects the tax-related information required by the United States government (Figure 7.15). The form you use depends on your citizenship, your country of residence, and other factors. A wizard is available to help you select the correct form.

Figure 7.15. Supplying Google with tax-related information.

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Tax Information Is Required for Payment You won't receive any payment from Google until you supply them with your tax information. Even foreign publishers not subject to U.S. taxes must supply some basic informationthere are no exceptions.

Touring the AdSense Console

"Tell you what, Stef," I continued, "since you're an AdSense expert now, why don't you take over? You can demonstrate things with my AdSense account, if you want." She said that was fine, so I opened a browser window to www.google.com/adsense to access the AdSense login page (Figure 7.1).

Figure 7.1. The AdSense login page.

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As I logged into my account, I gave them a warning. "Google uses a secure Web connection for AdSense account management, so if the Web address shown in your browser toolbar doesn't start with 'https:' and there's no lock icon in the browser status bar, don't log init's probably some kind of scam site looking to obtain your AdSense password."

Avoid Scams

Want the latest news on Internet scams and how to avoid them? Log on to www.scams.net/.

"And always keep the password confidential," Claude added.

"Absolutely!" I said. "You don't want to let anyone access your account. Treat it like an online banking account. There, we're in. Your turn, Stef. Give us a tour."

Stef switched places with me. "OK," she began, "this is the AdSense management console. Right now it's showing the default page, the Ad Performance page." She pointed to the report displayed on the screen (Figure 7.2). "Normally, it shows you how much money you've earned today using AdSense."

Figure 7.2. The Ad Performance page.

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"That's what I really want to know!" Claude said.

"And it's updated throughout the day, as you pointed out," Stef continued, glancing at me. "But you can also generate reports for any range of dates. Of course, I only have a couple of weeks of data. How far back does it actually go?"

"To the day you displayed your first ad," I said. "In my case, that's August 8, 2003. Stef, do you see that message just above the report?"

"You mean the one in the box with the little arrow?" she said, pointing to it (Figure 7.3).

Figure 7.3. An AdSense announcement.

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"That's how Google makes most of its announcements about AdSense," I explained, "so always be on the lookout for those. New features get added to AdSense all the time, so read them carefully. The management console was actually a lot simpler back when I first started with AdSense."

"Does Google ever send you email?" Anita asked.

"Sometimes," I replied, "for new feature announcements or when there's some kind of problem with your account or your Web sites. But I'll tell you about that later. Stef, please continue with the tour."

"Right," she said. "So at the top of the page are the tabs to switch between the major functions of the console." She clicked each tab in turn (Figure 7.4). "Reports to see how much you're earning. Ad Settings for creating ads, ad channels, and ad filters. Search Settings for creating search boxes, search channels, and search filters. My Account for managing your payment and tax information." Stef paused for a moment. "Huh. The My Account tab is different than it was last week, but I didn't actually notice it until just now."

Figure 7.4. The management console tabs.

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"I told you," I said, "AdSense is always changing. Sometimes it's subtlethey add another reporting option. Sometime's it's majorlike when they added AdSense for search. You can usually tell when a major change occurs because Google updates the AdSense Terms and Conditions. When that happens, you're asked to agree to the new terms before Google lets you access your account."

"And if you don't agree?" Claude said.

"You're kicked out," I said, pretending to cut my throat with the side of my hand, "so you don't really have a choice but to agree if you want to stay in the program. But so far it's not been an issuethe Terms and Conditions have actually gotten more flexible as time's gone on. With Yahoo!'s entry into the game, I think you can expect even more features and flexibility."

"Where do I find the Terms and Conditions again?" Claude asked.

"I think there's a link to them in the online help," Stef answered, clicking the Help link at the top of the page and causing a new browser window to pop up (Figure 7.5). She scrolled the help page. "It's there at the bottom of the help page."

Figure 7.5. The AdSense help page.

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"Looks like there's a lot of help available," said Anita.

Stef agreed. "I've read through a lot of these items to help me understand AdSense."

"This is also where you can access the AdSense Preview Tool," I pointed out. "The Preview Tool lets you see what kind of ads AdSense would display on any random Web page."

"But only with Internet Explorer on Windows, though," Stef said.

"I couldn't use it on my Mac."

"But I have it installed, Stef," I said, "so why don't you open an Internet Explorer session and go to a random Web site. Now right-click the Web page and select the Google AdSense Preview Tool." A small window popped up. "You can click those ads if you want," I continued, "even if you're using the tool on your own site's pages, because the advertisers don't get charged for them."

"But why would you use this tool?" Anita asked.

"It lets you see what kind of ads will appear on new pages," I explained, "before you actually show ads on those pages. You see, it's a bad idea to add the code prematurely, before the page is finished, because AdSense may mistarget the ads. You can use the Preview Tool to see if the page is correctly targeted."

Stef was playing with the tool. "Or you can use it to see what kind of ads people in other countries see," she said, changing the tool to show us ads for Japanese visitors (Figure 7.6)

Figure 7.6. The AdSense Preview Tool.

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"And that," I said, "concludes our initial tour of AdSense. Now we can"

Claude interrupted me.

"What's that 'Invite a Friend' link at the top of the console?" he asked.

"It's for referring AdSense to your friends," I answered. "If you know anyone who has a Web site, you ask Google to send them an invitation to join the program."

"Do you get paid if they do?" Stef asked. "Friends of mine are always trying to get me to join things because they'll make some money if I do."

Google Referrals

For up-to-date information about Google's referral program, see www.memwg.com/google-referrals.

"While a lot of commercial Web sites have referral and affiliate programs that pay money, so far Google doesn't," I said. "But who knows? That might change in the future."

Be Proactive

The AdSense customer service representatives are happy to answer any questions you have about the program, so contact them for clarification before you do anything that might contravene the AdSense program policies.

"So why didn't you send us referrals?" Anita asked.

I laughed and said, "Because I was dumb! You're right, I should have, in case it's worth something later. Oh well85.The referral program is one of those features that was added later, so I've not paid too much attention to it. I'll certainly keep it in mind from now on."

AdSense

Chapter seven. Becoming an AdSense Publisher > Stef: I've been showing ads since a couple of weeks ago. Blog- ger's online help pages show you how to add them to your blog's sidebar. So I did. > Anita: So have you made any money? > Stef: A bit. I've made over $10 so far. It's pretty exciting, actuallyI check my AdSense account several times a day! > Eric: You're doing great, and that's because you already had traffic coming to your site. But we'll save the traffic topic for later. Today we'll split our session into two parts. First, we're going to manage an AdSense account using the AdSense management console. In the second part, we'll use the console to publish ads on Web pages. As it turned out, it was just over a month later when we all met again. This time we met at Claude's house, where his wife told me he'd been quite busy during the past few weeks. This I already knew, because he'd been asking me questions by email. "I've been spending a lot of time working on my site," he said, waving to me as I entered. "I know," I answered, "and I'm not surprised. Building a good site takes time. Did you have any problems joining AdSense?" "No," Claude said. "I waited like you told us until I had at least a dozen good pages of content. The approval came by email within a couple of days." "Great," I said, as I heard Claude's daughters greeting their mother at the door, "and it looks like the others are here now, too." Claude had moved his computer out to the dining room, so we sat down there and waited for the women to join us. "Hey, guys!" Anita said. "Guess what? I got my AdSense approval yesterday." "I got it three weeks ago," Stef said. "I applied as soon as I had moved my old blog entries over to the new blog." "Good," I said, smiling, "it looks like we're all set. Have you all logged onto your AdSense accounts?" They all nodded. "I'm already showing ads, you know," Stef said, seeming quite proud of herself. "You are?" Claude asked. "Since when?" "Since a couple of weeks ago," she explained. "Blogger's online help pages show you how to add them to your blog's sidebar. So I did." "So have you made any money?" Anita asked. "A bit. I've made over $10 so far," she said. "It's pretty exciting, actuallyI check my AdSense account several times a day!" "Some people check it hourly or even more frequently," I said. "It's fun to watch the pennies add up. You're doing great, and that's because you already had traffic coming to your site. Completely new sites won't make as much at the startmaybe not anything for the first while. They have to build their traffic first. But we'll save that topic for later. Today we'll split our session into two parts. First, we're going to manage an AdSense account using the AdSense management console. In the second part, we'll use the console to publish ads on Web pages."

Now the Real Work Starts

"That was a great sessionI can't wait to get home and try this stuff out," said Claude. "I'll mail you each the files so you have something to start with," I said. "But now the real work beginsyou have to build some content." "How soon can we apply for AdSense?" Anita asked. "As soon as you have some decent content," I said. "Don't do it before then, though, there's no point. Get started on your sitesor work on your blog in your case, Stefand send me regular updates. When you're ready to join, it's just a matter of filling out the form at www.google.com/adsense. It's easy. Then you wait a few days to see if you're accepted." "What if we're not?" Claude wondered. "We'll deal with that if it happens," I replied. "If you follow the rules we've already discussed, it shouldn't be a problem. So get to it, and we'll get together again once everyone's in the program." Unless I was mistaken, it would be at least a couple of weeks before we would meet again.