AdSense
AdSense is an ad
network belonging to Google. It is the biggest ad network in the world and the
main service through which Google can display ads on a lot of websites. The
secret behind AdSense is its simplicity. As a website owner you just need to
sign into your account, create your first ad, and insert the source code on
your website. The last one is the trickiest part for non-technical publishers,
but still a lot easier than what some other ad networks ask you to do.
At the beginning there
was just one way of getting paid with AdSense and this was on a per click
basis. This means that you earn money each time a visitor to your site clicks
on an ad. It doesn’t matter what he did afterwards on the target website. But
before you start thinking about it: When Google figured out that some people
tried to raise their payments by clicking on the ads on their own sites, they
started penalizing for such behaviour.
68% of the click price
How did Google AdSense
determine the amount you receive per click? Google also runs AdWords, which
is kind of a mirrored service to AdSense. On AdWords advertisers running shops,
services, or other marketers create ads and tell Google to publish them on
either the Google search engine or in the display network,
so all websites belonging to the AdSense network. 68 percent of the amount an
advertiser pays per click on their ads on your site is your income. The rest is
Google’s commission fee.
This still isn’t all
you need to know about how much AdSense pays you. The costs per click are
calculated in an auction. Every ad that is somehow in the pool to potentially
be displayed on your website takes part in it. In this auction, it isn’t just
the highest bidder that wins, but the winner is also determined by his
“quality”. Without going deeper at this moment just remember that Google will
ultimately run some smart algorithms that try to get the highest income per
thousand impressions (return per mille = RPM) for you (and them).
CPC, CPM, CPE
In addition to the
cost-per-click (CPC) model, there are two other bid types.
Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) is an income model where advertisers pay
you a fixed price per thousand ad impressions. No click on them is necessary for
you to earn something from AdSense. This bid type only works if advertisers
choose on AdWords that ads should be displayed only on your website. Before
they can do that you need to ad custom channels. I might cover this in an
upcoming article, so you might want to subscribe to the newsletter so as not to
miss it.
The most recent bid
type is cost-per-engagement (CPE). In this case the advertiser is defining an
action the visitor needs to fulfill like expanding the ad, watch a video ad,
finishing a poll, etc. This form is so new that the documentation from AdSense
doesn’t even mention it. As much as I would like to increase income from
AdSense, we will have to see how visitors react to this, because the new
engaging ad units might be a bit more jarring than the classical text or image
banners.
Which is the best bid type?
You are not able to
select the bid type yourself. Google calculates the best income when combining
them based on what runs best on your website. If advertisers know about your
good reputation and book CPM campaigns on your website, they might outrank your
CPC income. If your CPC banners are well placed and your content is written for
valuable topics like finances, your CPC might be unreachable. Lets see how the
new CPE ad types kick in. The first AdSense accounts I have seen them in look
very promising.
Should I use AdSense?
Once the ad code is
inserted in your site, you are ready to earn money with AdSense. In practise,
there is just one little problem for most small websites: to earn money with
any kind of ad type you need traffic on your website.
This is the point where
I normally stop new publishers who ask me for consulting. You are just building
your content and reputation, have to fight for every newsletter subscription
and the absolute traffic is below 10.000 pageviews a month. In this situation
you should consider waiting with ads on your website. They might not only drive
potential visitors away, but you also need time to manage and optimize
your ads. Are there exceptions? Yes, there are. You will know when you see
one.
Some
website owners explain their banners in terms of their costs for hosting and the
domain. I personally consider both to be so cheap nowadays that any hour
practically worked for free on your project costs you much more than those
things. If you don’t need those extra few cents per hour wait with AdSense or
any other ad network until your website has grown significantly.
How much can I earn with AdSense?
AdSense earning examples
The answer to how much
AdSense finally pays you depends on many variables. Still, the most important
is the content on your website. Still, this is not a very specific answer to
your question. Neither Google nor most publishers like to publish numbers on
how much they earn with AdSense. I also won’t publish my clients’ income
reports and their name so blank in this article. Sorry for that.
Still, there are some numbers
I found thanks to Peer Wandiger, a German blogger who publishes monthly reports
on incomes gathered from various sites. I took the following examples from his review
in September 2013.
$48/ 1000 visits
The first impressive
number comes from Pat Flynn, the owner of SmartPassiveIncome. In his own September
report he stated that his niche site SecurityGuardTrainingHG.com generates $1,466.33 in
revenue with 800 to 1,000 visits per day. This is about $48 per 1000 visits and
is a very respectable number for such a niche site.
Other ad networks beyond AdSense
A great example of the
chance for ad diversity is the income report of pinch of yum. Here,
AdSense has the smallest income from an ad network. They seem to be more
successful with the use of BlogHerAds. If you are more familiar with AdSense
and ready to go a step further, there is probably also an ad network better
suited for you.
Also moms-make-money.com earns
more from other ad networks and income sources than from AdSense. Still, $272.82
for 158,710, which seems to be page views, is not bad at
all considering the fact that you hardly notice the ads from Google.
Some general AdSense benchmarks
Even though I can’t
state detailed income reports from my clients, I would like to give you a
general benchmark of how much AdSense pays you when you use it on your website.
I already summed up the 3 rich media banners you are allowed to use as well as
link banners and the Google search on your website. Of course, your income is
also highly dependent on the size and placements of the ads, but you will see
there is a wide range of income possibility.
$0,25 – $3 RPM for unspecific, generic content
When you are running a
forum, social network or directory of non-business information, chances are
your AdSense income might not jump over $3 per 1000 page impressions. This is
due to either ad blindness of returning visitors or information, that isn’t
connected with products and won’t attract visitors eager to buy anything. Even
affiliate programs might not really work here.
$1 – $10 RPM for content-rich sites, e.g. blogs
Content-rich sites like
blogs should perform better with AdSense. How much AdSense pays does still
depend on your niche and how you implement the ads, but a high frequency of new
visitors and placement close to the main content will lead to a decent income.
If you have a higher amount of traffic you might want to try other ad networks,
affiliate programs and split tests.
$10 to a lot more for product-related sites
This is no surprise. If
you are running a product-related website, like a blog about products and
services, review products or a business directory, your income from AdSense,
but also other sources should be the highest. But don’t think you are the first
to have this idea
What to do now?
Many of you might now
be thinking of leaving your current hobby blog and starting a website with
product information to earn more money from AdSense. Stop for a minute and
rethink your monetization strategy. Maybe it is just AdSense that doesn’t fit
you and your content. Or maybe you should check your banner performance and can
earn more by using my basic optimization tips. Still, the numbers I
mentioned are in such a wide range that I would love to read your comments
about your AdSense income to either prove me right or wrong.
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