Google India recently invited some of their AdSense publishers for a day-long event in Mumbai to share insights into the state of online advertising in India, they offered a sneak peek of some upcoming ad-related products and all this was followed by interactive sessions on how publishers can better monetize their ad inventory.
google logoThe event, called Google Partner Connect 2011, had Rajan Anandan (Google India MD) deliver the opening address and that was followed by sessions on AdSense, DoubleClick, Google Analytics and YouTube.
I may not be able to share every single detail here (the slides read “NDA and confidential”) but some of the tips shared at the event might benefit all AdSense publishers. Let’s go:
Tip #1: When creating channels in AdSense, always specify the following details in your channel name so that advertisers can better target your website.
a. Location of the ad unit (ATF for Above the Fold or BTF for Below the fold)
b. The size of the ad unit (like 336×280)
c. The type of ads that the unit can accept (Image or Image_Text or Text)
d. The category of pages where that ad unit will be displayed (like TechPages)
A sample channel name could therefore look something like this:
300x250_ATF_ImagesOnly_TechRelatedPages
Tip #2: Try to manually share the demographics of your website audience in the channel descriptions to give advertisers a better understanding of the target traffic.
Tip #3: If you are a frequent producer of video content, apply for the YouTube Partners program now. They are accepting entries from small video publishers in India and once you become a partner, you get better analytics for your videos, you get a customized YouTube page (see example) and best of all, the video views can be monetized through AdSense.
Tip #4: When using split A/B testing to determine your best performing ad units, run the experiment for at least two weeks before drawing any conclusions.
Tip #5: If you come across sites that are scraping your content, use this online form to directly report the issue to Google. Also, make sure that you submit a spam report to Google through your own Webmaster tools account.
Tip #6: Always link your AdSense account with Google Analytics and also share your traffic statistics in DoubleClick Ad Planner to attract potential advertisers. When more advertisers decide bid on your site for the same ad slot, the CPM rates will naturally go north.
Tip #7: Find your pages that have the highest bounce rate according to Google Analytics. You can’t really do much to reduce that figure but what you can do is experiment with different kind of ads on such pages.
Tip #8: Find pages through Google Analytics that bring the maximum revenue through AdSense (you can easily find this data under your Analytics dashboard – > Content – > AdSense – > Top AdSense Content). Create separate channels for such pages and expose them to advertisers so that they directly target these high-performing units through placement targeting.
Tip #9: Instead of serving AdSense ads directly using the default code, you may consider serving them via Google DFP. You’ll then have more control on who sees and who doesn’t see your ads. For instance, you may setup domain targeting in DFP such that visitors coming from site abc.com don’t see a particular ad unit (or vice-versa).
Tip #10: Place the site search box at a very prominent and visible position on your web pages (like top-center or top-left). Though you can add a regular AdSense ad unit on search results pages, DO NOT use one as ads in that unit will not be contextually related to the search terms and hence may not perform well. You may instead use Google Custom Search with ads displayed at the top and right of search results.
See more AdSense Optimization Tips.
And one more thing. The Google AdSense team is currently based in Hyderabad but they will soon be shifting base to Gurgaon.