Google AdSense offers channels to help you answer the following important questions:
- Where is AdSense earning me the most revenue?
- How can I use this knowledge to help me to earn even more?
Channels offer a deeper level of analysis than that provided by overall revenue reports. They allow you to break down reporting to monitor the performance of sites, sections of sites, or even individual ad units. Any time a channel is created, AdSense will record impressions, CTR, CPM, and earnings statistics for that specific page or ad unit.
This provides you with a precise method of evaluating which sites and which locations will enable you to realize your maximum earning potential.
AdSense offers two kinds of channels: URL Channels, for domain, sub-domain, and page-specific reports, and Custom Channels, for more granular reports specific to an ad unit or ad placement.
This guide covers several topics, so feel free to skip ahead to a specific section:
- URL Channels
- Creating URL Channels - Custom Channels
- Creating Custom Channels - Generating Channel Reports
- Which of my domains is generating the most revenue?
- On what sections of my site are ads performing best? Articles? Forums? Blog?
URL Channels are easy to create and implement through your AdSense account. To find out how, let's take a look at an example.
Scenario: Sally owns a site about dogs -- www.ExampleDogSite.com -- and wants to know if her AdSense ads are performing better on article pages or in forum sections.
She would do this in 2 easy steps:
- The first step is to log in and click on the AdSense Setup tab. A row of links will appear beneath the tabs - click the Channels link.
- Next, make sure you are on the subtab for the right product -- AdSense for content or AdSense for search -- and that you're creating a URL channel rather than a custom channel. Click the Add new URL channel link, then create a new channel for each directory by entering their addresses (omitting the 'www') into the resulting box.
Once created, URL channels begin collecting statistics instantly. For channels to be most useful, it's important to be able to generate an effective channel report. To learn how, see below.
For answers to some common questions on URL channels, feel free to visit the following links:
- How can URL channels track my subdomains?
- Can I rename a URL channel?
- Do URL channels provide historical data?
- Which ad units are the highest earners on my home page?
- Leaderboard at the top of the page?
- Rectangle in the middle of an article?
- Skyscraper on the right side of the page?
- Link unit under the left navigation?
- Do my ads perform better with or without a border?
- Tip: ads generally perform better without borders
- How does revenue for each of my AdSense for search boxes compare?
Creating Custom Channels
Understanding how you can use custom channels to answer the questions above will be essential in optimizing your AdSense ad unit performance. Let's take a closer look in the following example.
Scenario: John owns a site about cars. His homepage currently has three ad units and one link unit, and John wants to find out which of the units is performing most effectively. To do so, he'll create a separate custom channel for each of the four units to monitor their performance.
Creating and implementing custom channels requires a more involved process than that for URL channels. No worries - we'll show you how to create custom channels in 4 easy steps:
1. Start off by logging in to your account and clicking the AdSense Setup tab, followed by the Channels link. For this scenario, we'll be looking at AdSense for content custom channels, so make sure you're on the right product and channel subtab. Then click the Add new custom channel
2. The next step is naming your channels.
It's important to be precise and consistent when naming custom channels. The more information you provide in the name about where and how the ad unit is being used, the easier it will be to identify later, when you're generating your channels reports. For the example used here, we suggest names like:
It's important to be precise and consistent when naming custom channels. The more information you provide in the name about where and how the ad unit is being used, the easier it will be to identify later, when you're generating your channels reports. For the example used here, we suggest names like:
- HomeTopLeaderMotherEarth
- HomeMidRectMotherEarth
- HomeRightSkyscpMotherEarth
- HomeLeftNavLinksMotherEarth
You'll notice that all of these names follow the pattern Page+Location+Ad Format+Color Palette. This is a pattern we've found useful, but feel free to use whichever method works best for you.
Enter the channel names into the new channel box and click Add channels.
- Now you can create your channel-specific ad code. Once your names are in place, click the AdSense Setup tab, then choose AdSense for content as the product.
Continue to choose the ad type, ad format, and color palette as you would normally, then in the Channels section,
select the name of the channel(s) you'd like to add by clicking the Add>> link (you can add up to 5),
and click Continue to see your choices reflected in the ad layout code.
- Finally, you'll copy-and-paste the code into your webpages. The channel identifier within your code will immediately begin tracking performance. If you already have ad code on these pages, you should replace it with the new channel-specific code.
Repeat the process for each of the ad units you'd like to track.
1. After logging in, click on the link to 'Advanced Reports'
2. Select the product you're tracking: AdSense for content or AdSense for search.
3. Then click the radio button labeled Channel data.
4. Next choose the date range in which you're interested.
5. Now choose the channels for which you'd like to assemble a report by using the check boxes.
o Note: To easily find a particular group of channels, use the search function.
According to the naming convention described in the custom channels section, if you wanted to find all of the channels associated with your home page, you'd type 'Home' in the 'Find Channels' box. Similarly, if you wanted to find all of the channels associated with rectangular ad boxes, you'd search for 'Rect'. Once you've completed the search, you can simply select all of the results or choose them individually.
According to the naming convention described in the custom channels section, if you wanted to find all of the channels associated with your home page, you'd type 'Home' in the 'Find Channels' box. Similarly, if you wanted to find all of the channels associated with rectangular ad boxes, you'd search for 'Rect'. Once you've completed the search, you can simply select all of the results or choose them individually.
6. Once you've selected the desired channels, decide how you'd like to group the data.
o For a day-by-day report of the data from the selected channels choose the Date radio button.
o For an aggregate report of channel statistics over a selected date range, choose the Channels radio button.
§ Tip: useful for simple comparisons between two or more channels
o For a comprehensive evaluation of one or more channels' performance displayed by date, choose the Both radio button.
7. Finally, click the Display Report button.
Tip: Not sure what to test with your custom channels? Review our Optimization Tips for suggestions on optimizing your ad performance.
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