"How Smart Pricing Effects AdSense (TM) Publisher Revenues"
I constantly receive phone calls from clients, prospective clients and reporters
asking the same question – what percent of the keyword price does Google
pay AdSense (TM) publishers. While the AdSense Standard Terms and Conditions explicitly
forbid disclosing such information, the range I often give is 20% to 50% based
on numerous conversations I have had with AdSense publishers.
While the precise percentage is not clear, what is evident is that the percentage
that Google pays publishers has gone down significantly since April 2004. It
was at this time that Google announced it would be lowering the price of ads
(i.e., charging AdWords(TM) clients less) that appear on the sites of AdSense
publishers. Susan Wojcicki, Director of Product Management for Google, stated
that this change came from requests of advertisers who wanted different pricing
on clicks from search and content ads.
Google stated that it considered search-based ads more targeted than content
ads, and that they therefore generated more clicks and revenue for advertisers.
However, Google did realize that some content ads perform as well as search-based
ads. As a result, “Smart Pricing” was born.
Smart Pricing adjusts the value of clicks based on a number of factors such
as time of day, type of content, and conversion tracking. The latter, conversion
tracking, measures how often a click on an ad produces a desired action for
the advertiser, such as a product sale, newsletter signup, etc. The example
Google gave for Smart Pricing was that “a click on an ad for digital cameras
on a web page about photography tips may be worth less than a click on the same
ad appearing next to a review of digital cameras.”
While web forums are filled will AdSense publisher complaints about Smart Pricing,
it is actually a fair system – publishers get paid based on the quality
of the traffic they provide to Google advertisers.
While the switch to Smart Pricing has decreased revenues for many AdSense publishers,
there is still a massive opportunity to generate significant revenues via the
AdSense program. The key is to identify valuable/expensive keywords, attract
qualified customers to your site, and provide compelling text that gets visitors
really interested in a product or service. This will ensure that the visitors
click on the appropriate AdSense ads and buy that advertiser’s product
or service. A true win-win-win.
About the Author:
Dave Lavinsky is the President of TopPayingKeywords.com, a firm which tracks
and publishes databases of the 15,000+ most expensive PPC keywords.
http://www.toppayingkeywords.com |
