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Graph and Chart your Google Adsense Revenue
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Google Adsense has no way to graph your Adsense reports. Digital Point has created a nifty utility to chart and graph your Adsense revenue, impressions, clicks, earnings, and earnings per click. This is a perfect companion to any blogger who relies on Adsense to generate revenue.
Google Adsense CPC vs Referrals 2.0
So for a few days I have been testing the new referrals platform that Google is testing inside Adsense. Lucky Adsense advertisers get the chance at making extra revenue from Cost Per Action instead of CPC. The bounty can be high, instead of making a few cents off of the click you could make anywhere from $1.00 to $20.00 (from my experience) and it can look very attractive.
CPA is also an publishers dream in the internet world. They get to pick the price per lead and so they can factor in an advertising budget right into their margin that never changes.
The problem with CPA for advertisers though is that people have to actually click, and then do something which usually requires some kind of purchase. My experience the last few days has been one of disappointment. Replacing several of my ad blocks that were high paying CPC ads previously with Google Adsense Referral ad blocks made my adsense revenue drop like a rock. Keep in my mind click through rate stayed about the same but my ad revenue from the inventory that Google gave me just plummeted. It could be that it takes a while to trip the revenue back to the affiliate (in this case Google) but I doubt it. My guess is that the ads simply weren’t compelling enough to get a purchase out of the click or that the buyer is taking longer to respond to the click. Now obviously with Google Adsense TOS we can’t get into specific revenue and clicks but we are in the neighborhood of a 90% drop in revenue.
This may not be news, Google’s own Firefox with Google Toolbar referral seemed to disregard clicks my tracking showed were there. On the install end I imagine I also was loosing some of my credit for Firefox installs. In the case of Google Referrals you have to wonder what assurances you can have about getting ad revenue whether CPC or CPA when you put the power into the publishers hands.
Simple code updates could kill the mechanisms that report back to Google, and while I believe Google would do nothing sinister you have no idea what the publisher’s intentions are.
So what do they look like? Do they look the same as regular ads? Yes they do in fact for the purposes of this article I have left some ads on the left of this article. You can see that it clearly says “Referral Ads by Google” but other than that there is little to distinguish CPC ads from CPA.
For us here at Noheat there just seems to be too many variables and too little revenue coming from the Adsense Referrals, we’ll keep you posted if the numbers change but for now CPC seems to be the way to stay if you are a Adsense Advertiser.
Nintendo and Apple to partner on games for iPhone
If you can’t beat them join them. With the iPhone days away from being launched Nintendo has apparently begun working with Apple, licensing a limited amount of content for the new phone. It was rumored a while back that Nintendo was planning on releasing a phone on their own, however this was scuttled shortly after the iPhone was first shown in January.
These exclusive games will be released on the iTunes Store at a $29.00 price point a few months after the iPhone launches. No word on whether Nintendo will be distributing iPod versions of these games. A major hangup in development has been the lack of buttons on the iPhone that was remedied by a touchscreen D-pad. One might wonder how Nintendo fans may see view playing on a phone without a traditional D-pad.
Asked anonymously whether or not these games would cut into Nintendo DS sales, we heard a resounding no. The logic is that because the licensed games will be exclusive and cater to an older audience they should not intrude into Nintendo’s existing markets.
The one thing Nintendo does worry about is their amount of control of Apple. While not developing a cell phone internally has its advantages, giving up control of platform has not historically been a practice Nintendo has taken. Nevertheless Nintendo sees gaming on Mobile Smart Phones as a threat to their core business and a partnership with Apple could be seen as a bold move into a very profitable market. One thing is for sure Nintendo should expect to share in the marketing spotlight of the iPhone in the same way that AT&T has.
Can’t wait for Nintendo to put games on the iPhone you can some here and here
Google Adsense tips, Make More Money from your Ads
Google adsense is a simple way to monetize your blog or webpage but many people don’t know that if Google cannot find an ad match for your website AdSense will instead choose to show a “public service ad”. The problem with this is if Google displays such an ad you make nothing.
There are several reasons Google Adsense may show a PSA which may range from poor keyword optimization or it could be just little traffic on a site with a broad range of content. However those ad impressions do not have to be lost. Google knew upfront that there was going to be times when their ad inventory would not equal websites trying to display ads and they give you an alternative. One adsense tip to monetize those PSAs would be to show ads from your own site or alternative ads such as AlternateURL.
The best I have seen so far is AlternativeAds which duplicate Adsense style. You simply choose the style and then login to your AdSense or other ad program account and add your AlternateURL.
10 Best Google Adsense Wordpress Plugins
QuickOnlineTips.com has a great article on Adsense plugins for Wordpress that may make me change my plugin for Adsense. Its a pain to add adsense for every blog entry and its a pain to try and get everything looking right without doing all of this manually. All for a few bucks to cover hosting costs and time. Here is just a few…
- Adsense Deluxe - offers advanced options for managing the automatic insertion of Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) ads to your WordPress posts. Adsense Deluxe+ claims to have a an improved ad limiting algorithm.
- Adsense Injection - inserts Adsense code randomly into a pre-existing blog.
- Adsense Inline - inserts Google adsense in blog posts
- Adsense Beautifier - makes your Adsense look beautiful by placing images beside them to increase your clicks (CTR) and subsequent Adsense earnings.
- AdSense Widget for WordPress Sidebar - Google AdSense widget designed for the new WordPress Sidebar Widgets plug-in.
- MightyAdsense - allows you to host the code in wordpress without having to modify the templates. Ads are displayed in post item and you can specify how many blocks its going to show up in a page.
