Google AdSense

Over the past few months, we've been gradually inviting publishers to integrate their AdSense accounts with Google Analytics, and today we're happy to announce that this feature is now available to all publishers. Integrating your account with Analytics will provide you with more detailed information about traffic to your pages and how users interact with your site.

Once you link your accounts, you'll find an AdSense-specific menu under the 'Content' section of the left-hand navigation bar on your Analytics homepage, containing these reports:

• The Top AdSense Content report allows you to see more details about specific pages on your site and analyze ad performance. For instance, if you find that some of your pages generate a high number of pageviews but aren't monetizing as well as other pages, you can focus your optimization efforts on improving these pages.
  
• The Top AdSense Referrers report can help you see how different incoming traffic sources contribute to your revenue.
  
• Last, the AdSense Trending report lets you analyze how your site generates revenue during different times of the day and different days of the week.
  

You'll also notice that other sections of your Analytics account will show a new 'AdSense Revenue' tab. You'll be able to compare how much of your AdSense revenue is coming from new visitors versus existing ones, and view revenue based on user language.

To take advantage of these new reports, sign in to AdSense and click the 'Integrate your AdSense account with Google Analytics' link on your Reports Overview page. You'll be taken to a step-by-step wizard that will guide you through the rest of the process. If you use AdSense in a language that's not supported by Analytics, you can still link your accounts and view your Analytics reports in a different language.

We also recommend watching the video below, which will help explain the linking process:



Enjoy your new data, and don't forget to visit our Help Center if you have other questions about linking your accounts or reviewing your reports.

One of the top requests we've heard from publishers is to have more control over the ads appearing on their sites. We've been working to address your feedback, and today at ADSPACE, our team announced an upcoming beta test of a new feature in the Ad Review Center called category filtering.

Category filtering will give publishers the ability to block ads that fall into specific categories such as dating, religion, and politics. Regardless of how ads are targeted, they'll be filtered if they're within one of the selected categories. We'll also show the percentage of recent revenue that ads in each category generate, so publishers can predict how filtering selections will impact their revenue.

We'll be launching category filtering as a beta to a small group of publishers to collect initial feedback about the feature. Here's a preview of what the feature currently looks like, but please keep in mind that the layout and categories may change based on feedback from beta test participants.


Although we're not able to expand the limited beta to additional publishers at this point, we wanted to give you a glimpse into one of the ways we're working to give you more control over your ads so you can ensure a positive experience for your users. We'll continue to refine this feature, and hope to be able to roll it out more widely in coming months. Please stay tuned to the blog for any updates, and feel free to leave us a comment in the meantime.

After talking about a few Google Ad Manager features and optimization tips on this blog in the past, we've received questions from new publishers, asking what Ad Manager is and whether they should use it. In this two-part series, we'll go back to the basics to provide you with an introduction to Ad Manager.

What is Google Ad Manager?

Google Ad Manager is a hosted ad management solution for publishers with smaller direct sales teams; it can help you sell, schedule, deliver, and measure all of your directly sold and network-based inventory.

Should I use Ad Manager?

You'll probably want to use Ad Manager if:

• You operate a website and sell your ad inventory directly to advertisers (or plan to sell directly to advertisers in the future).
  
• You'd like to improve the efficiency of your sales process and feel confident in your forecasting.
  
• You've been left with unsold inventory because you weren't able to forecast availability accurately.
  
• You need a consistent way to serve ads that make you the most money in undersold situations.
  

What are the benefits of using Ad Manager?

• A simple, intuitive user interface: you can manage your campaigns, inventory, and advertiser data quickly and efficiently.
  
• Revenue optimization and AdSense integration: the system will consistently deliver the highest-paying ad for every ad impression on your site.
  
• Precise inventory forecasting: you'll be able to sell more of your inventory without overbooking it.
  

How will I benefit from using AdSense with Ad Manager?

Using AdSense with Ad Manager on your websites can help you maximize your revenue in a number of ways. You can use AdSense to backfill all of your unsold inventory, ensuring that all of your ad spaces are filled. AdSense can also be used as a competing network against your other networks -- AdSense can compete with your remnant and house campaigns to deliver the highest value ads, and an AdSense ad will only show if it can pay you more than any alternative ads.

Moreover, since AdSense is integrated in your Ad Manager account, the only thing you need to do is to choose the Ad Slots for which you want to enable AdSense. You can modify your AdSense settings within Ad Manager, and you can manage your visibility to advertisers by using the placement targeting feature.

How do I get started with Ad Manager?

You can create an account by visiting the Ad Manager homepage and using your AdSense login. Once you've done so, don't forget to visit our Help Center for detailed instructions and video tutorials on getting started. We also recommend taking a look at how Ad Manager works.

In Part 2 of this series, we'll help you get accustomed to your new Ad Manager account and guide you through the creation of your first campaign. We're also hosting a Getting Started with Google Ad Manager Webinar on April 21st at 11:00 am PDT, where we'll give a live demo of Ad Manager, share best practices, and help you get started. Sign up at: https://googleonline.webex.com/googleonline/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=570486361.

Earlier this week, we provided a basic introduction to Google Ad Manager to help you determine whether the product is right for you. If so, we hope that you've signed up for an account to help you manage your ad inventory. As you begin using Ad Manager, we'd like to give you some tips and instructions to help you on your way.

In addition to the tips below, we'll be hosting a Getting Started with Google Ad Manager Webinar on April 21st at 11:00 am PDT, where we'll give a live demo of Ad Manager, share best practices, and help you get started. Sign up at:
https://googleonline.webex.com/googleonline/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=570486361.

What terms do I need to know in my Ad Manager account?
With Ad Manager, you'll manage all of your inventory according to the following terminology:

• Ad Slot: This is the most granular inventory component, and represents the location of an ad. It's the equivalent of an ad unit in AdSense. For instance, you can set up an ad slot for the top banner on your pages.
  
• Placement: This is a publisher-defined collection of ad slots, and represents inventory to be sold. In AdSense, this is the equivalent of an ad placement . You should include at least one ad slot per placement, as campaigns are all linked to a placement. For instance, you can create a placement for all of your ad slots on your sports pages, or the top banners on all pages of your site.
  

Then, to create campaigns, you’ll use the following terms:

• Order: This is a summary containing information about an ad campaign including the campaign dates, the advertiser or agency, and the contact numbers.
  
• Line Item: You’ll enter all the details of an ad campaign including the flights dates, the cost, the priority level, the targeting criteria, and the delivery information.
  
• Creative: This is the actual media being delivered in your ad slots.
  

I'm ready to start using my Ad Manager account. How do I serve my first campaign?
There are three parts to serving your first campaign: setting up your inventory, tagging your pages, and creating your campaigns. Follow our three-part guide below for instructions:

A. Setting up your inventory
There are two main steps to follow to organize your inventory. In the Inventory tab, you’ll need to:

1. Create your ad slots: At this stage, you can choose to enable AdSense Optimization in order to fill your unsold inventory with AdSense and to make it compete with your ad networks. The baseline for the competition is the Value CPM that you set for your networks.
   
2. Group your ad slots into placements: In order to allow advertisers to target their campaigns to your specific placements, you'll need to enable placement targeting.
   

B. Tagging your pages
Once you've set up your inventory in Ad Manager, you’ll need to tag every page on which you want to use Ad Manager to deliver your ads. For each page, you’ll need to define all the ad slots that should appear and generate html code:

1. Go to the Inventory tab and click on “Generate HTML code”.
   
2. Select the Ad Slots you want to appear on the page you’re tagging
   
3. Generate the code and use it to tag your page
   

You can also review our tagging guide if you need help implementing the code.

C. Creating your campaigns
Once your inventory is ready and your pages are tagged, then you can start creating your campaigns. To manage your campaigns, you should always refer to the Order tab. Here are the 3 key steps to remember in order to create a campaign:

1. Create the advertiser’s Order: Choose between the Default Order (for Directly sold inventory) and the Ad Network Order.
   
2. Create the advertiser’s Line Items
   
   • Select a level of priority (there are 5 different levels)
   • Select a cost type: CPC, CPM, CPD
   • Specify goals and settings, such as targeting, daily and user capping, and creative rotation.
3. Upload the creatives
   
   • Select the creative type (we currently support Flash, Image and Rich Media)
   • Choose to add a click macro or a cache buster
   • Test the creative in the preview tab or directly on your website

If you're reading this, you're probably an active publisher who stays up-to-date with all things AdSense. You're probably also signed up to receive newsletters and surveys from our team. But publishers like you keep telling us that we're not doing enough to reach out to you. That's why we're happy to announce that we'll be rolling out new email notification preferences in your account over the next few days.

What does that mean? Simply put, you'll soon have the option to receive specific messages like event invitations, information about webinars, and personalized account suggestions from members of our team.


In a few days, you'll be prompted with a one-time interstitial page after you sign in, which will ask you to select the types of messages you'd like to receive from us. We encourage you to take the new email preferences out for a spin once they're available in your account. If you change your mind, you're welcome to update your selections at any time. Just sign in to your account and visit the Contact Preferences section of your Account Settings page to update the types of emails you want to receive.

As you may know, we frequently review our products and features to ensure their effectiveness. After reviewing our AdSense video units feature, which allows you to show YouTube content and ads on your pages, we've found that it hasn't had the impact we had hoped for. As a result, we've decided to retire this feature at the end of April so we can focus our resources on other opportunities to help publishers earn from their sites.

If you'd still like to display video content from YouTube, you can do so through YouTube.com directly. Visit any specific video page and look for the code in the 'Embed' box, or sign in to your YouTube account to create a playlist. In addition, please note that this change won't affect the availability of other video-related ads options -- video ads may appear in your AdSense for content ad units if you've opted into image ads, and AdSense for video is still accepting applications from eligible publishers who produce video content.

Starting today, the option to sign up for video units is no longer available to new publishers. If you're currently displaying video units, we recommend that you start removing the video unit code from your pages as soon as possible so you can optimize your available ad space in advance. Please be assured that any earnings you've generated from video units in the past will still be credited to your AdSense account.

Once video units are retired at the end of April, any remaining Leaderboard or Skyscraper video units on your pages will direct users to YouTube.com, while other video unit sizes will automatically be changed to standard embedded YouTube players. These standard video players will display top YouTube videos, but you won't generate earnings from them once this change occurs. If you have less than three ad units on your page, you may prefer to replace your video unit with a regular ad unit.

If you're displaying multiple ad units on your pages, you may have noticed that your pageviews were higher than normal for part of yesterday and today. Our engineers identified a bug which prevented ad units from detecting other units on the same page. As a result, our system logged a pageview for each ad unit that was loaded on a page, instead of a pageview for each page containing ads. In some cases, this also may have caused specific ads to appear in multiple ad units on the same page.

Please be assured that ad unit impressions were still logged correctly and ads were still displayed on your pages, so you were properly credited for all earnings generated from your ads. We've resolved the issue, and although you won't see the pageview count in your reports retroactively changed, your pageview tracking is now back to normal.

Thanks for your patience and your help in identifying this bug.