Adsense: my truth and some confidence

In many of the events and internet entrepreneurs I have had the opportunity to visit in 2008 I heard ideas I share only in part that "a business should not live Adsense", "Adsense is the easy solution", "Adsense only worth to self "... And I say that only partly agree on certain grounds. The first because it is important to say that Adsense has been a driving force of this business, has brought the democratization of advertising and has allowed many small and large businesses survive and have a viable business model. I think you should not demonize business models for monetizing only or mostly with this system because advertising has proven to be as stable or more, than the direct advertiser, affiliate networks and major ad networks.

Do they pay very low for CPC?, Does the cost per thousand impressions (CPM) that is achieved is insufficient?, A company can not live only for Adsense?, What point certain thresholds can not earn more ?, Is it worse performance if system not only use this shortcut?, Are there topics or formats to use Adsense bad? Everything is relative, and I will try to give my personal opinion, based on my experience with Adsense, since I have a of the first accounts of Spain since 2002 and I still use it. has given me joys and disappointments, as may some of my friends happen to Google reading this post and I think it's fair to reflect both and not just stay in the negative. I remember back in 2002 from Google Inc. in USA-then little more than a browser-Jeppssop Kristen contact me, I first spoke to Adsense , a program that had been launched in USA and wanted to implement in Spain. I offered to create a Premium account and explained that they have interest in me to begin deployment in Spain. See if it will be the prehistory of this program, we were months exchanging email and fax contract proposals (some contracts very made-in-USA with 15-20 pages of ridiculous clauses). Come on, just like today you register via web in two minutes. Incredibly for those who know the show today, I intended to buy and pay me all inventory permanently to CPM. I intended to buy for 3 years all my advertising. I guaranteed to grow steadily and display advertising support in the post-bubble era. In one of those decisions that take guru (this is in the top 3 of those taken in the last 10 years) I decided to "go soft" and not compromise the entire publication so aggressively in this new invention with these guys at Google and preferred choice in CPC and revenue share to try and learn gradually that future had this story. That is, I entered what is now known as Adsense pure and simple. Not if it was in 2002 or 2003 when I published my first contextual ads, even the continuous publishing. Profitable Adsense Is? Does Adsense dependency? My opinion on both issues is absolutely YES. Publispain Group portals have relied heavily on Adsense from 2002 to 2006. Having contracts with 8-9 ad agencies and international non nations that adsense has lessened one-dependence. The reason is clear; worked better and the quality and relevance of the ads made it much more profitable than conventional display advertising.! True, we learned a lot, in this period, not only us, also Google and there are certain tricks of locations, color, textual relevance, and even themed formats, etc. are basic test and know for good AdSense eCPM Conversion Factors like the color of an advertisement, or round the corner, the box or not, are critical and can make change in the same position and format up to 35-40% of your account performance. Not everything works according to sites and types of content.? Dependence Adsense?. Well I must admit I do. For just one example. In 2005 at the peak it represented 78% of total turnover of the portals of Publispain Group . I got to feel a highly paid employee of Google. When fitting Entertainment Networks wanted to minimize that "problem" to the fullest. I can comment that the percentage of billing system in the network Adsense blogs Entertainment Networks is residual exactly 12% in the last quarter of 2008.'ve Heard in a derogatory manner, a company can not have a valid business model based Adsense. Is that true?. Adsense Is self employment solution? Google Inc. will not let me (on pain of expulsion from paradise or something) publish detailed data traffic or performance of my mind, especially catches are problematic with the CPC, eCPM etc. but I can say that is a real and valid solution even as a business model for a company (hey, that does not mean it's the ideal so dependent on a single company.) How much money can you earn with Adsense? believe not breaking any Confidential Information that is public information and tax, if I say that we have to charge in the same year with Adsense an amount close to $ 1 Million in our portal network. Is that advertising revenue business model would not be enough for a Spanish company?. My answer is clear, a company can live Adsense, but beware that depend on Adsense, is a risk.

Where not give Adsense? There are places where it does not work. Sites forums, photoblogs, photos, wallpapers and generally give little contextual content very bad performance, I think social networks and blogs do not curdle also missing some integration versatility. Niche economy, renewable energy, travel, finance, information technology, business and science if integration is the key, is good, should work fine. ECPM What could aspire to achieve? There are people with very high eCPM. Yes, I know and I've seen them, but many are very specific traffic samples and small (less than 5 or 10 Mll page views). My experience is that handling large volume, the highest eCPM half a month has been around 2, x $. We publications with 8 and 10 U.S. $ / CPM but that kind of performance is not given in published inventories of millions page views per month. We must find the balance vs traffic. eCPM.

If you use Adsense besides other display advertising solutions. Is it worse my CPM? Yeah, but minimally. Both options are perfectly compatible and recommended to me not to depend on a single system. Which is the greater risk? They're a number. There are people who like to be, other people do not. If one day you close the account and is unfair because it is not nice to be one greater. You'll have to send emails and receive emails often type. The lack of a direct and personal contact in a business you can rely on high percentage, is an obvious risk, and restlessness. I break a lance for Google to say that in recent times trying to improve this point. There is a department for it. Unfortunately not in Spain but in Ireland. If anyone serves my example, I have no direct contact with Google in Spain Are surreal, right?. If in USA, Ireland and France. In Spain only commercial Adwords. A pity. Hear Adsense has worsened, is that true? Yeah, without any doubts factors as the falling dollar, measures to separate the network CPC Google search (which generally outperforms the advertiser) and Content Network, Google's new products or even measures to help minimize click fraud or wrong benefit system and advertisers, have led to reduced income from Adsense to the holders (companies and webmasters.) Should we have one or more accounts Adsense Well, I have three. I have more than one reasonable. Once, in 2004, I eliminated a problem for a forum with user-uploaded content. Today no longer act like the brave, self-generated content better understand and analyze more things ... but ... I maintain three accounts Is Adsense a tyrant? Wow that if, as all mo-no-po-lio. But if you adapt and understand that tyranny can enjoy not caring because it is a fair system if you know how to use well. If you work with a reasonable traffic, a good theme, and well you optimize your ads will work. Hear much talk about social networking and more power in the future of online advertising. That, plus the contextual advertising system, could magnify the success of Adsense on my social network? Believe that large generalist social networks in the background that are not going to know what you think and check with Adsense. It requires an evolution of Adsense for blogs and other social networking completely different from today. Social networks will not win regarding page views (huge) but in relation to unique users. In a way users behave as users of the forums, they nail it, will not read or clicarán this advertisement, are "vaccinated" and go straight to the content they are looking for mechanics. Networks like Tuenti can make money with Adsense, but they will not find in this great eCPM system, in fact I think it will be very low and must experience as they do with other solutions. Which formats would not let Adsense would not let the headboard The banner 728 × 90 (Leaderboard) above. Works regularly is not related to the text (important for higher quality ads) and is the quintessential form of display advertising. I do not like anything the links of links. It give / receive traffic without losing income because if there is after the second click. Also aesthetically scare me. I do not like to have published graphic, text only. I am of the opinion that "Zapatero ... your shoes." Is it possible to create a competitor to Adsense? Well, Yahoo! and Microsoft should have tried better or more seriously ... If Yahoo! begins to use the system only is Microsoft. If they have failed you can not: Can you get 100,000 or 200,000 advertisers in Spain?. Google's success lies in an effective, robust and which attacks the Long Tail of advertisers in Spain. Airlines use Adsense and invest many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in the program, but that is not successful, the success is not replicable and relevant budget 1000-10.000Eur investing thousands of small travel agencies in Spain. If you think today may get a local player to compete in this field contextual ... possibly think you can throw a cola in Spain to compete with Coca-Cola. It gives me today almost impossible, it succeeds greatly surprised me.

Hum, as I write this it is possible for someone to believe that I apology for Adsense, or that yesterday I had dinner with someone from Google and I'm a bit polluted .'m Extremely critical in this blog, with this company on many things, of course also admire others, but lately I hear very good things about Adsense and wanted to share my experience and give my view of contextual advertising system. Still do not want to stop counting for my Adsense has problems and I find no one anything new: - That apparently is managed. Whenever I have a feeling it's a churro machine in which the churrero lives in California and cut open the tap at certain times. - Que cada día minimiza más los ingresos a los webmasters/soportes porque Google tiene una cuota de mercado tan alta que la manera de mejorar el rendimiento y los beneficios muchas veces es rascar el margen operativo del soporte haciendo suyos también esos ingresos. Hemos visto ejemplos claros en música con lo que prepara Google Labs , pero también en búsquedas locales, o viendo proyectos como Knol esta claro que persigue Google Inc. - Que en España cobran en euros y pagan en dólares . Sangrante y poco serio para los que como yo son anunciantes y soportes a la vez. Dijeron hace 1 año que lo iban a solventar… fumando espero… - Los emails tipo!! Nada como escribirles y recibir un email tipo que no entra en tu problema. En los últimos años parecen intentar mejorar el soporte, pero deben gestionar cientos de miles de cuentas… y… aun así yo cuando he tenido un problema serio he de agradecer que Isabel Macias me ha dedicado su tiempo y atención. Aun así me encantaría que pudiéramos trabajar más codo con codo con gente de Google en la optimización ya que tengo clarísimo que podríamos lograr resultados mucho mejores. - Es un misterio porque si compro una palabra en concreto me cuesta un mínimo de 0,8Eur click, y esos clicks en páginas mías de la misma temática no están en esa proporción ni aun quitando el margen operativo de Google… es un tema de misterios sin resolver… a no ser que Google disponga los clicks más altos en sus soportes, y los bajos CPC se deriven residuales a contenidos de terceros. - Trabajamos juntos hace años, me parecería lo justo y ético que ambos (Adsense y yo) sepamos que gana el otro . Somos partners, ¿o no para todo? Soy consciente que doy en este post algunos datos personales de nuestra relación con Google, que es importante por muchos motivos y no sólo ecónomicos para mis compañías, y me cuido de no violar los términos del servicio al darlos. Si doy datos reales de nuestra relación es sólo con el objetivo de que a alguien le pueda ser útil la información y porque no veo habitualmente que se entre en harina y se comenten números reales de funcionamiento. Creo que a algunas personas les puede ser útil conocerlos. Si es así me encantará saber que ha sido así. Los gráficos de calor de Adsense para portales, blogs y foros que ilustran este mazacote de texto son de la FAQ de Adsense de Google.

Tags: Adsense , Google , publicidad

El valor real de un click

The click is the king of advertising since the arrival of contextual advertising systems like Adsense. However, display advertising has a very different life, we are tired of seeing brading campaigns graphically effective and very visual with the click ratios under the 0.x-1%. Advertisers and agencies over the years have come to click encourage and seek in various ways, but there are branding campaigns that should not and can be measured by the ratio of click thru. Many carriers, including mine included, at one point in recent years have decided to avoid or stop except Adsense CPC campaigns. The reason is obvious, Adsense is contextual advertising works and is well segmented. The content is relevant and often click ratio that makes the user is interested in clicka usually "see behind" ad. The ratios are positive and advertiser support. Abuse of display advertising based on CPC me for years not authorize the sale in our media CPC campaigns, advertising prefer if no channel adds even launch our portals and services. The reason is the abuse of advertisers (sometimes in convenience with agencies) to deliberately make brading of campaigns we all know that there will be click and launch even millions of views on your sites to laugh prices. In the last 10 years there have been known cases of banks (especially in the birth of the internet banking) and I remember one particularly painful for me to Yahoo! Music a couple of years ago, in the month of August a vacation that was launched a cheeky campaign brading CPC camouflaged and I slipped 8-9 million impressions that seemed to say "look at me, but I do not click! "a CPC with what I think I should not bill for it or 200 Euros, so the" slipped "to dozens of media. That summer, it's been at least 3-4 years, we prohibit advertising campaigns CPC chart. But what is worth a click? That is tremendously variable. I imagine that if you sell cars with a high profit margin, the click of a user interested in that vehicle is high. By that logic very niche sectors or large commercial sectors (tourism, economy, engine) have high click prices. This is an example of today, almost 5 Euros for a click on "hotels" and committing SEDO discounting. I mean by that click should be paid 8.6 Euros (for the commissioning Adsense, SEDO) before reaching us. On the opposite side of the clicks you can find everything from token amounts to 0.01 by theme and Ip.

But for me the most useful observing actual clicks is to be able to study, analyze and measure the temperature of niches and sectors as competition, price and number of advertisers.

Tags: Adsense , sedo

Key reading in digital media

Read on your computer, especially reading blogs is not the same as reading printed paper. There are guidelines and codes for writing and designing web half that must adapt to these new reading habits. Users is very impatient, has a single click, or a single Google search, an alternative to your text, and that makes scan the screen for information very quickly. The more heavy user, fast and intuitive the scan information within seconds and the higher the risk of "not read" and post output. Some studies allow us to determine what the first look at a web page, one of them is Eyetracks and is to trace the visual behavior of the users during reading. This study was conducted first by Stanford University and the Pointer Institute researchers, while the Spanish version of this analysis was conducted by Alt64 and the Association for Research in Media (AIMC) in 2005. The study is especially interesting be intended users in Spain, but it has a downside, was conducted on a critical mass of at least 17 ​​people. Some data are at least curious and consider:

• Women read and vertical zigzag man. This is an interesting fact to keep in mind if you know or have a well-defined target of your post.

• Readers decide in milliseconds if you read or not read the intros as the first words that the spearhead. In the key digital newspapers is as pictured in a lecture as "E" on the user scans the information quickly.

• If the title of the story is much larger, users do not read the first article and only read the title. In USA found that in smaller fonts motivate and focus the view that the greatest force the aforementioned visual scanning. One might conclude that if you provoke greater attention and know or are unsure of the text beforehand that interests the reader profile, you can sharpen your concentration varying the font to a smaller size.

The search keywords are generally perceived through a quick side. Black women are the key to a lesser extent italics. When seeing the ads do not appear to be a difference between men and women. And yes we should recover that 60% of users set their sights on advertising regardless of your experience level in between. At a purely advertising, advertising formats that most attention were the top banner and skyscraper outside, just the two largest. And within these two the first was the one that led to greater retention of the brand. These results are consistent with what is known in online marketing with the generic term golden triangle . The hottest spots of a search in the search that created God in which we fix our gaze when track information have to do with the first six top search results. I remember a few weeks ago got me thinking a post by Ismael El-Qudsi saying you have the possibility of losing 2 out of 3 clicks , if you are not well positioned in the middle. From another perspective talked about it Jorge Arevalo .

I believe that we are positioned differently when reading an online newspaper, the result of a quest and a blog. Blogs have a different structure to online news publishing: tops the publication date, then there is a title, the text always contains hyperlinks, and finally, author, categories, links.

• In addition to content, we must not forget that the design does influence : margins, backgrounds, fonts and colors determine if a person finds something interesting in a web page. influences design content, in ads and a performance dramatically of contextual advertising.

• Read more runs on the screen than on paper, so if we put very dark backgrounds long texts, we are complicating life for the user and reducing a very interesting SEO factor TMC (average connection time).

• The menu should be organized blog with relevant information, so could subtract professionalism to blog. Do not forget that is formatted external skyscrapers. The Board Index makes two readings of a blog, a quick (bold and italics) that takes 2-3 seconds, and if that is positive may make a second, reading the first and last paragraph, as shown in this picture just before deciding whether Read on.

• Links are good because they ensure publicity of sources but must be used with head and reasonableness in texts that are cited concepts is to open in a new window. Too many free links mislead the reader.

• Upon highlight the concepts we should avoid the use of underscores to avoid confusion with hyperlinks. The bold or italics can achieve the same effect of attention, is a key use of bold to summarize briefly web content or post. First thing the user read and digest, and will mark the words that will decide if the reading of worthwhile content.

And finally the great paradox. In post or low-quality content ratio increases click advertising, contextual advertising in particular, that if properly contextualized thematically with the post, is used as a way out of similar content. Many Sometimes the "prize" of a good editorial quality comes as a reward in the medium term in search engine positioning for high TMC, but not economic at higher advertising performance. The award for poor quality content becomes well positioned high ratios of clicks on advertising, used by novice users as an escape. Read on your computer is becoming more a thing of every day, but it is also a kind of mystery because we do not have accurate tools to direct it and make it work to our liking. Even the most expert readers only read 28% of written information, as well says Jakob Nielsen , a reality a little overwhelming, but invites you to refine the positioning of our content.

Tags: Adsense , Blogs , advertising , SEO

Online advertising market in periods of uncertainty

In recent months, Internet advertising is evolving unevenly and that directly affects sectors such as membership or domain parking. I never believed in the parking lots of domains, in fact I consider them as a "necessary evil" and have always seemed worthless not provide "bread for today and hunger for tomorrow." I am also particularly critical of the negative that is the domain parking systems for SEO, if then develop or want to develop a domain will have to pass a Google filter months and months to position many times. Still, as I was saying the car parks are a necessary evil when you are like us more than 1,000 domains. Something to do with them. For several years we worked with SEDO , not only buying and investing in our own portfolio of domains but its parking system. believe that technologically optimization, content quality and the current system of domain parking is much improved, in fact I'm surprised a company like SEDO is not developing as they should be 2.0 parking systems, more proactive, dynamic, multimedia, autogenerando content by the user and providing something of value, not just being an advertising medium sterile. Yet our experience this past year has been very positive, growing up to 100% revenue from domain parking within SEDO. firstly I think is due to some improvement of SEDO and better optimization on our part, but I also believe that the crisis has helped in certain niche markets. It may be a paradox, but certain sectors, with an adverse economic situation have the pressing need to sell, so they engage in Internet advertising to attract customers. Especially shops, banks (capturing assets), investment companies, etc., who have to make the rent and justifying advertising within their companies. For just one example. Several years ago I became very interested in renewable energy, especially in Solar Photovoltaic, investing in solar farms in Extremadura and Navarre. 2-3 years ago there were huge and insurmountable waiting lists for this type of investment, supported by the Renewable Energy Plan in Spain (PER) 2005-2010. Today, many of these companies, especially large ones, have problems to market and attract investment to the crisis, the market has been reversed, and there is fear of investing the money is hidden. Interestingly a little less than one year we bought the domain renovables.es and we have it in our domain parking. The evolution of the ratios of clicks I think is very significant and illustrates a sectoral movement. In December 2007, good month for the advertising market, and with a more positive today, this was the state of our domain renovables.es: As you can see a reversal of € 0.24 minimum, with 4 clicks, which we gives a CPC of 0.06 € (in capturing EPC). However, with the worsening economic situation has improved dramatically to the real need to attract customers via web by these companies, the month of June this is evolution:

You see, a domain parked and unused we generated € 0.24 / month, now with the new economic situation and need to sell the advertiser is getting to generate up to 15 € monthly growth brutal step which leads to a CPC € 0.94 (from € 0.06). With this reversal and being through Google Adsense and SEDO, as necessary intermediaries, we could conclude that maybe advertisers are paying around 2.5 to 3 click € (very good price for Spanish words) when before no more betting € 0.3-0.6 margin for clicks. For months they test campaigns, branding, and maintenance and now, the situation offline use internet more aggressively looking for potential customers and ultimately looking for sales, which makes them much more aggressive to overtake your competition. I think this small example can illustrate the theory that many professionals remain around that Internet advertising holds in overall numbers, but partly in the industry is migrating from the branding and the CPM to special actions, contextual advertising, membership or email marketing aimed at achieving a subscription or sale.

Tags: Adsense , advertising

And God created ... Google Trends (for websites)

Leo a few days ago that God enlightens us now creating Google Trends for Websites sort of rank , much improved, and more reliable data. No one can deny the children of the many Google Labs projects that are able to take the time and developments that can offer us. But sometimes I wonder frankly, but what for? ... I start to bother about the way Google control and dependence, based on these and other tools and programs, or even your Analytics, Adsense, or your own browser exerts about me and my companies. I have the feeling and the more evidence we also make certain certainties (someday tell in detail), this company knows too of all, we depend more and more of it and they act accordingly on us too.

It really bothers me that this tool is available for almost all ... Google will measure and data, with varying success for all websites in the world .... except BBC explains data from their own sites as rightly stated Blas Garcia Martin recently. Google will give your details, but not your services like Search, Picasa , YouTube and Orkut, because as we explained in a statement "Our policy is not to provide clues about our internal finances and decided not to publish figures for Google according to this policy. "That is, their policy is to give information about you like it or not and its rivals, but not their own, they are beyond good and evil, have no intention to lead by example and This is a universal service to all but them, they are the bosses.'m a fan of Google since its inception, in fact one of the first Adsense accounts who arrived in Spain offered us directly and Kristen staff Jeppssop from Google Inc Headquarters in December 2003, the prehistory of this advertising program. Although we retain and use. Do not ask me the reason very well, but at the time, I had hated the teasing of pay per click campaigns, I did not hesitate a moment and started working together. And we're glad we did, even if things do not work well and that will be a topic for another post. Really I think that Google has become too big and has too many vested interests at all. Some of us knew and worked closely in the years 2003-2005 with another company, much more dynamic, much more exciting and much less ambitious than this. Looking back now, I laugh and I remember with nostalgia when the late 90's many drank with eagerness dominant monopoly and Microsoft ( Mocosoft ) and to a lesser extent in Spain Telefónica ( Timofonica ). That time, today, versus which is upon us, these companies are almost sisters of charity, because if you have your own business, using Adsense, Analytics and receive traffic on a major search engine%, maybe these point you start to realize that you are not as independent, but, like it or not, perhaps without knowing you are an employee of a company based in Mountain View, California. You doubt it?, but until you have imposed their corporate email @ Gmail !

Tags: Adsense , Google , Microsoft , advertising , Telefonica