If you use link units, you may have noticed a small addition to the page users see after clicking a link unit topic. We recently added an image ad to the bottom of each of these pages, after our testing showed revenue improvements for many publishers.


These image ads are contextually targeted, based on the link unit topic users clicked to reach the ads. If no image ads are available for the given topic, we'll only show the original text ads -- in other words, we won't show a PSA or insert a blank space in place of the image ad in this case. Advertisers can bid on these image ads on a cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM) basis, so you'll generate earnings for valid clicks and impressions. You can review the performance of image ads on your link unit pages by generating a link unit report on your Advanced Reports page.

If you aren't using link units on your pages, we encourage you to give them a try. They don't take up much space and can help add to your AdSense revenue -- learn more in our Help Center, or visit your AdSense Setup tab and select 'AdSense for content' to get started.

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

Since introducing reports in Euros for publishers located in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain, we've received a number of questions about this launch. For publishers in these regions, we've addressed some of your concerns below.

How will my earnings be converted to Euros?
Once you switch to the new reports, earnings generated from advertisers paying in currencies other than the Euro will be converted. This will happen on a daily basis using the prevailing market rate from the previous day. If you generate earnings from an advertiser paying in Euros, they won't be converted.

When I'm issued a payment, will my earnings be converted again?
If you've switched to Euro reports and are receiving payments in Euros, there will be no additional conversions when your payments are issued. However, if you're receiving payments in U.S. Dollars, your payment will be converted from Euros to U.S. Dollars at the end of the month.

When I switch to Euro reports, will that automatically change the currency of my payments?
No, your selected payment currency and method won't change after you switch to Euro reports -- unless, of course, you want them to change. (You can update them by visiting the 'Payments Details' section under your My Account tab.)

Will there be a delay in receiving my unpaid earnings once I make this change?
No, making this change will not affect the timing of your payments. After you switch to Euro reports, your unpaid earnings in U.S. Dollars will be converted to Euros before the next upcoming payment selection deadline (typically the 15th of each month). For instance, if you make this switch on June 3rd, your unpaid earnings will be converted by June 15th; if you make this switch on June 20th, your unpaid earnings will be converted by July 15th.

How will this change influence VAT and any taxes I have to pay?
While you may receive your payments in your local currency, all payments are being made by Google Ireland, a company incorporated under the laws of Ireland, in accordance with the terms of your agreement with Google. Unless your business is in Ireland, you shouldn't have an obligation to charge Google VAT or treat any of our payments to you as VAT that needs to be paid to any VAT authorities. If your billing address is located in Ireland, you may have an obligation to charge Google Irish VAT. For more specific answers, we suggest you head for your local tax adviser.

I'm not located in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, or Spain. When will you include other countries?
We're working to offer Euro reports to publishers located in additional countries. When we do, we'll be sure to post any updates here on Inside AdSense.

Do I need to update my account if I'm eligible?
Although this change is currently optional, in the future we will require that publishers located in eligible countries make this switch. Eligible publishers who haven't yet updated their accounts will currently see an interstitial page with additional information after signing in. We understand that some eligible publishers would like to continue receiving payments in U.S. Dollars; while you can still choose to be paid in U.S. Dollars, it will be mandatory to view your reports in Euros.

If you're eligible to make the switch to Euro reporting, we encourage you to review the updated Terms and Conditions and update your account soon. To get started, sign in to your account and look for the prompt, "See your daily earnings reported in Euro amounts!" on your Reports Overview page. You can also find more information in our Help Center.

Posted by Arlene Lee - The Inside AdSense Team

Are you a developer, or are you interested in learning about developer tools and technologies like Android and OpenSocial? If so, we'd like to let you know about the Google I/O Developer Conference on May 27th and 28th in San Francisco.

As an AdSense publisher, you may be interested in learning how to spice up your site with our APIs, or how tools like App Engine and the Google Web Toolkit can help you focus on your content and code rather than maintenance or scaling issues. At Google I/O, you'll have the opportunity to learn about these topics from Googlers and also meet other developers.

Over 2,000 are expected to be in attendance, and if you'd like to be one of them, we hope you'll register for the event. For more information, check out the official site or follow us on Twitter.

Posted by Christine Tsai - Google Developer Programs

We've been working to make it easier for advertisers to show display ads on the content network -- which benefits you, because it results in more budgets devoted to advertising on AdSense sites like yours. (As a reminder, "display ads" include all types of image-based ads, such as banners, rich media, and video ads.) In addition to recent launches such as DoubleClick Studio, third-party ad serving, and expandable rich media ads, we also launched the AdWords Display Ad Builder last October. This tool allows AdWords advertisers to create display ads using customizable templates and to target them to AdSense sites in a matter of minutes.

Since its launch, the Display Ad Builder has been extended to advertisers in over 100 countries and 40 languages. With over 90 customizable templates and thousands of active users of all sizes, the Display Ad Builder has quickly become what we believe is the largest platform for self-serve display ad creation on the web. Its usage varies from the largest digital agency, like Razorfish, to smaller advertisers like the Wilshire Grand Los Angeles. We'd like to take a few minutes to tell you more about the impact of this tool and how it can benefit you as a publisher:

• More advertisers creating display ads: In just six months, the Display Ad Builder has significantly increased the number of AdWords advertisers using image-based ads. Many of these advertisers were already advertising with text ads on Google.com and AdSense sites, but have now found the visual elements, interactivity, and animations of display ads to be effective at increasing clicks, conversions, and overall ROI.
  
  
• Higher quality, more relevant display ads for your site: With simplified display ad creation now available to advertisers of all sizes and industries, the display ads that show on your site are likely to be even more relevant to your content and audience. For sites with niche content or with an advertiser base that would be less likely to have the budgets to invest in display ad creation, this is especially true. The templates that we offer also vary well beyond simple static banners, including interactive rich media templates that allow users to scroll between or roll over multiple product images, in addition to multiple templates with animated text and images.
  
  
• Higher potential earnings: As the reach of ads created with Display Ad Builder grows, we've seen encouraging results -- ads created with the Display Ad Builder have average click-through rates that outperform industry averages. We believe that this is due to the combination of advanced contextual targeting on AdSense, combined with templates that encourage best practices in effective display ad creation. We've also heard from many advertisers that they're finding improved cost per conversion efficiencies with the tool, meaning that more of their marketing budgets can be effectively deployed online, on your sites.
  

So what can you do to take advantage of the many newly created display ads? First, make sure that your ad units are opted into image ads. And, since many publishers are advertisers too, you may be interested in getting started with the Display Ad Builder yourself. To learn more, you can also view our series of how-to videos or read our feed of Display Ad Builder announcements.

We invite you to join us at our next Optimization Webinar tomorrow, where we'll show you how to experiment with different formats and colors to improve the performance of your ads. We've heard that you'd like us to hold our webinars at different times of the day, and we hope that this helps accommodate those of you who weren't able to attend our last optimization webinar. Remember, we're only able to accommodate a maximum of 500 publishers, so please sign up soon.

Here's the information you'll need:

Date: Thursday May 7, 2009
Time: 6:30 pm PDT (GMT -07:00)
Registration: https://googleonline.webex.com/googleonline/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=366085742

As a reminder, you'll be asked to enter your publisher ID number when registering. For more information on this, and all upcoming webinars, please visit our Help Center.

Posted by Ashutosh Satpute - AdSense Publisher Support

To help you increase the visibility of your sites to potential advertisers, we've just launched the Publisher Center in Google Ad Planner. This will allow you to provide details about your sites to help attract advertisers. Though the Publisher Center is only available in English at this time, any publisher can use the tool.

As a quick reminder, Ad Planner is a media planning tool that helps agencies and advertisers find sites that cater to their target audiences. In the new Publisher Center within Ad Planner, you can claim sites you own and customize the descriptions for each. For each site, you can also add up to five categories that describe your site's content, and the types, sizes, and formats of ads that your site supports.


In addition, you can share your Google Analytics data with Ad Planner to provide advertisers with additional details about your site, such as the number of unique visitors and page views. By replacing Ad Planner traffic estimates with data measured directly by Google Analytics, you'll be able to provide advertisers with more accurate site traffic information.

Based on this information, agencies and advertisers using Ad Planner will be able to identify appropriate sites to include in their placement-targeted campaigns. As more advertisers become aware of your sites and bid to show ads on them, the competition among your ads will increase and so should your earnings potential.

We encourage you to visit the new Google Ad Planner Publisher Center to begin claiming sites you own. For more information about the Google Ad Planner Publisher Center, visit our Help Center, or watch our video below: