Andrew Harkness

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to a Google Adsense publishing event at their new Montevetro building in Dublin. There were around 90 publishers from 26 different countries. Most of the publishers were from Europe, but one publisher had flown all the way from Mauritius for the event. The event took place on the thirteenth floor and the views across Dublin were stunning.

Welcome Sign at Google Montevetro Building

The day was broken out into general sessions on Adsense Optimisation, User Experience, The +1 Button and Search Quality. There were also three breakout sessions where I was signed up for Mobile Trends for Webmasters, Mobile Content Monetisation and DFP – Dynamic Allocation. There was also a 1-to-1 session with a Google Adsense expert from Google, something most Adsense publishers would give an arm and a leg for!

We covered a lot during the day and I’m not going to be able to fit it all into one blog, but I thought I’d try and provide a flavour of one of the key topics – Adsense Optimisation.

Adsense Optimisation

The session ran through the nuts and bolts of Adsense and provided a few optimisation tips. Here are some of those tips:

Continually Optimise

Websites that continually optimise their Adsense ads have the highest CTR.

• Experiment with different positions, sizes and so on to find what is best for your website.
• Track and analyse changes.
• Use A/B testing.
• Use custom channels to help you to test and compare ad units.

Out of Site Out of Mind

It was recommended that publishers utilise all three available Adsense units and that they show at least one Adsense unit above the fold.

Bigger is Better

Bigger is actually better when it comes to Adsense ads. It increases the likelihood of an ad being viewed, readers can view the ad better and ads are more readable. Wider ads also increase legibility. Here are some of Google Adsense’s best performing Ad Unit sizes.

• 300 × 250 Medium Rectangle
• 336 × 280 Large Rectangle
• 728 × 90 Leaderboard
• 160 × 600 Wide Skyscraper

Blend in Your Ads

Match the look and feel of ads with your site. Google recommends creating a ‘borderless’ look by setting the border and background of your ad units to the same colour as the page where it appears.

Maximise Competition

Maximise competition for ad spaces by allowing both image and text ads

Make Ads Targetable

Make ads targetable for advertisers by utilising Adsense custom channels.

Optimise the order of Ad Units

Now this is a top tip that many publishers were unaware of. The order of ad units in your code has a impact on the CPC! Optimise your Adsense units by ordering your code so that your most clicked Adsense unit comes first.

More information on optimising your Adsense units may be found on the Google Adsense Optimisation Lab.

View of the Aviva stadium from Google's Montevetro Building

Overall I was very impressed by the event, the Google employees were very friendly and down-to-earth, the location was great and the event was well run.

Hopefully I’ll get to blog about other topics covered during the event over the next while.