Using Adsense
Google Ad Manager can also be set to serve Adsense ads instead or Orders if it thinks it can beat the CPM of Orders running in Ad Slots. In the example above the CPM of Ad Slot 1 running Campaign 1 is $1. What Google Ad Manager will do is serve a test number of Adsense banners in Ad Slot 1 to see what eCPM can be achieved. If it finds that the eCPM of the adsense banners is for example $1.5, then it will serve Adsense banners instead of the $1 campaign increasing the performance of that Ad Slot by another 25%. If the same were done with Ad Slot 2, then the $2 from Campaign 3 would beat the $1.50 so Campaign 3 would still be served, but Campaign 1 wouldn’t so the adsense banners would be served instead of Campaign 1 and Ad Slot 2 would make:
- Campaign 3 for the 50% of traffic that is US based=500 views x $2CPM=$1 revenue, and serve Adsense for the 50% of traffic that is not US based=500 views x $1.5CPM=$0.75revenue. $1.75 total revenue – a 17% increase
Using this facility all of the banner slots on my site now have the capability to serve Google Adsense banners instead of my network and direct banners. For every Ad slot Google Ad Manager looks at the CPM of my ads and if it can beat that CPM with an Adsense banner, it serves an Adsense banner instead.
Only Using Adsense? You Can Still Increase Revenues!
Now even if you only want to serve Google Adsense banners in particular Ad Slots you should do so via Google Ad Manager rather than via adding the Google Adsense code directly to your pages. Why? Well, when you add Google Adsense code to your pages Google Adsense adds the best performing adverts to the first unit, and then the next best performing ads to the 2nd adsense unit and even worse ads with lower CPC ads to the 3rd adsense unit. Because of this, adding more than 2 adsense units to a page usually is a waste of time and you should always make sure that the first adsense unit on your page is in the best position e.g. if your site has a sidebar on the left you shouldn’t add an adsense unit to it as it will get the best ads and not your adsense unit nearer your content.
Now, when Google Ad Manager delivers Adsense banners it doesn’t follow this process – it displays the best possible adsense ads FOR EACH UNIT not just ads that haven’t been displayed somewhere yet on the page. Because of this, the eCPM of your 2nd and 3rd Adsense units will be vastly improved because the order of the adsense ads becomes irrelevant so you don’t have to worry about where adsense ads are displayed. In the screenshot below you will see that the same ads are being displayed in each adsense banner due to the way Google Ad Manager delivers banners:
In future parts of my Guide to using Google Ad Manager I will explain how to:
- Target Campaigns To Multiple Slots: If you have more than slot of the same size on your site e.g. 2x 300×250 banner slots, then how to ensure that your best ads are always displayed
- Delivering CPC Affiliate Campaigns: how to add CPC campaigns to your server so that they compete with CPM campaigns on an equal footer
- Manage Passbacks: how to use Google Ad Manager to allocate the best campaign to unsold network inventory, so that multiple ads can be chosen from rather than only one ad
- Other Google Ad Manager tips & tricks
