2015 Year in Review

2015 was a year with new and exciting AdSense updates. Let�s have a look at 2015 to recap all the product enhancements launched this year.

New features for your AdSense account:

• New sign-up flow: Signing up for AdSense is now faster and easier. Now, you have immediate access to your AdSense account once you sign up for AdSense.

• New AdSense website and mobile apps: We announced our new AdSense website with a new design and new publisher stories. We also updated the AdSense app with a fresh new look using material design and added some new features. 

• New AdSense performance reports: To give you quick and easy access to these reports, we introduced a new design for AdSense reporting with a new dashboard. With the redesigned Performance reports tab, you now have more control and flexibility, allowing you to better understand your AdSense earnings and performance.

• Improved transparency in payments: We've received feedback from you that you want to know more about the differences between estimated and finalized earnings. Now, you�re able to see the invalid activity deductions that cause these differences. 

• Matched content: To help you grow the number of pageviews on your site and increase user engagement, we launched Matched content. It�s a free content recommendation tool that promotes your content to your site visitors. Matched content generates contextually relevant and personalized article recommendations from the pages on your website. Have a look at the site management settings in your AdSense account to see if your sites are eligible to run Matched content.

• Certified Publishing Partner Program: We launched a new Certified Publishing Partner program to help you earn more from your sites while also saving you time.

New features for your ads: 

• New mobile text ads: This new design allows for higher performance with a more beautiful and user-friendly appearance. The text ads feature elements such as a shaded background and a centered button which bring together the parts of the ad into a cohesive whole. To see these new mobile text ads, choose to show both text and display ads on your site, if you haven�t already done so.

• Richer text ads: Richer text ads are a new ad format that automatically creates image ads from text ads. They compete for both your text and display, and display-only ad units and could increase your earnings.

• Improved "Mute this ad" feature: With �Mute this ad,� users have a way to signal that they aren�t interested in certain ads. This feature gives users additional control over ad units. It also helps us find ad placements and creatives that users may not prefer so that we can continue working hard to serve better performing ads on your site.

We�re looking forward to 2016 with lots of new features and formats to improve your AdSense experience.

As always, we�d like to thank you for sharing your feedback. Please keep sharing your thoughts and suggestions and stay tuned for more updates in 2016.

Happy New Year, and see you online in 2016!

Google AdSense Team

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Can't log in? Here's how to solve the five most common issues

Not being able to log in to your account can be frustrating, and it happens to most of us now and then. Every week the AdSense support team receives emails from publishers who are logged out and stumped.

With that in mind, let's look over the five most common "can't log in" scenarios and how you can clear them up and get back into action.

1. The email and password you entered don�t match

This is always the #1 login issue. Luckily, a fix is just few clicks away. If you've run out of all your memory tricks for remembering your password, visit Google's account recovery service. Enter your login address to reset your Google account password.

2. You deleted your Google Account

Your AdSense account is linked to other Google services like Gmail, Calendar, and Google+ under one Google Account. Sometimes a user decides to delete one service and deletes their entire Google Account, which cuts off access to their AdSense account as well. The good news: even if you deleted your Google Account and lost access to AdSense, your AdSense account is still active. To continue using AdSense, you'll need to recover your Google Account.

3. Your account was hijacked

Hijacking is more common in some regions than in other. If you think your account has been hijacked, you need to act fast.

First things first, visit this page and follow the instructions to alert a Hijacked Accounts specialist and prove your ownership. Be sure to provide detailed and accurate information for each of the questions. Next, contact the AdSense support team by following the steps in the Login troubleshooter. This will let us restore your access to your AdSense account.

To prevent hijacking from happening, follow these security best practices:

• Enable 2-step verification 
• If you sign into your account from a public computer, make sure to log out when you're done
• Don't share your password with others and don't write it down on paper or in documents
• Use strong passwords. The strongest contain upper and lower cases, special characters, and numbers, like this:  �mYvErY234Strong_pAssWord�
• Change your password frequently 

4. You signed into a different Google Account 

If you have more than one Google Account, your AdSense account will be linked to only one of them. If you're signed in but don't see your AdSense account, you may be signed into a different Google Account. Try logging in with a different email and password.

5. Your Google Apps account is not opted in for AdSense

If your email is linked to Google Apps, the Google Apps administrator might have turned off AdSense service for the whole Google Apps account. To fix this, ask your domain administrator to grant you access for AdSense. You can contact Google Apps support if you have more questions.

Now let's hope you never need any of these. For more information, check the AdSense Help Center.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Kateryna Malinovska

AdSense and AdMob Support Program Manager

Got Policy Questions, Ask the AdSense Guy

As part of our continued effort to be as transparent and accessible to publishers as possible, weve launched a collaboration with Search Engine Journal with a column titled Ask the AdSense Guy.

In this monthly column, well answer questions on topics of interest from the readership of the Search Engine Journal, as well as provide insight into best practices for publishers of all sizes. Our hope is that these external collaborations strengthen overall understanding of our policy positions and allow publishers to scale their long term growth in ways that provide value for their users, as well as advertisers who place ads on publisher sites.

A Search Engine Journal managing partner, Brent Csutoras, interviewed me at Pubcon 2015 to get a glimpse of what investments Google is making to help the entire ecosystem: users, advertisers, and publishers.  Follow our column and share your questions, or submit them as a comment below.  We will answer questions posted on Search Engine Journal, as well as those we collect from our comments section and will post them in the Ask the AdSense Guy column.

Demystifying AdSense policies with John Brown: Five tips for a successful policy appeal (Part 5)

I�ve been posting a series to this blog relating to demystifying AdSense policies. Today we�re exploring what happens when ads are disabled from publisher sites, when to submit an appeal, and tips for making those appeals successful.

Our policies are designed to foster a healthy ecosystem which protects users, advertisers, and publishers. In 2014, the vast majority of publishers ( >98 %) did not receive a policy violation notice from us.

In order to ensure a healthy ecosystem we continuously monitor our ad network and periodically review AdSense sites. We use a combination of sophisticated, automated systems and manual reviews to identify violations.

If you�ve received a policy violation or ad serving on your website has been disabled have a look at our Help Center and review our Program Policies. You will find information on how to fix the violation and apply for an appeal.

Here are some useful tips, should you need to submit an appeal:

1. Understand the violation. If you receive a policy violation notification it will include a snippet explaining the violation. If you�d like more information you can visit our Program Policies located in the Help Center. We also encourage you to seek advice from our Forum. Our Top Contributors have a lot of policy knowledge and are often helpful in providing good advice.

2. Check your entire site. Each notification you receive will contain a link with an example of the violation. Please note, that you may have the same violation on multiple pages, so be sure to check your entire site.

3. Tell us what changes you�ll make for the future. What systems have you put in place to ensure this won't happen again? For example, tell us how you've updated your filters, hired human reviewers, or how you're now familiar with this particular policy.

4. Send URL with ad code examples. If you had a content violation, send us links to pages where you have made changes. You can simply remove AdSense ad code from pages, or as a last resort remove pages that have been flagged with violations. If you had an ad implementation violation, be sure to send us a link to the fixed page.

5. Understand the big picture. Although you might not always agree with our policy actions, they are there to protect the entire ecosystem of users, advertisers, and publishers.

Your success is important to us, and we want to see you succeed while keeping your users happy and engaged. Everyone in the digital ecosystem benefits when publishers provide engaging content and useful resources, which in turn incentivizes advertisers to bid for space on your site. We hope that these resources can provide some guidance. 

Posted by John Brown

Head of Publisher Policy Communications

New partners added to the AdMob Mediation platform

Showing ads from multiple ad networks increases competition in your app and can help you earn more revenue. AdMob Mediation offers you a way to manage many different networks to maximize your fill rate, all from a single interface. We�ve been adding new features to our mediation solution, such as ad network optimization, which dynamically generates the highest CPM for each ad from the ad networks in your mediation stack. And we�ve been continually adding ad networks, giving you more choice when selecting ad networks.
Today, we�re excited to announce that we�ve added Vungle and Vpon as our newest mediation partners, with Vungle also supporting ad network optimization.

Here�s what developers have to say about AdMob mediation:

After integrating AdMob mediation and opting into ad network optimization, Bangkok-based company Sinoze saw its AdMob revenue grow by nearly 70% and overall revenue by 175%. To learn more about Sinoze�s big revenue uplift with their popular music app Thapster, check out their case study here.

�AdMob delivers extremely high fill rates � up to 99% in some cases, which other platforms simply cannot match and the built-in mediation feature makes it convenient and effective to manage ads from several demand sources to maximize yield. What is more, the ads are varied, and the formats are high quality so the ads that our players see are perfectly in keeping with the premium feel of the app.�
- Chishima Shigeru, Manager, Sinoze

Digitalchemy went global with its popular calculator apps, enabling them to grow from a team of two part-time developers to a full-time app business with a staff of seven. To learn more, check out their growth story here.

�We�ve seen a 30% to 40% bump in revenue since we started using mediation in AdMob. AdMob offers a simple way to work with multiple ad partners to maximize fill rates and revenue. The way AdMob automatically optimizes across multiple ad networks is fantastic.� 
- Micah Koffron, Founder, Digitalchemy

Not mediating yet? It�s easy to set up and takes very little time to manage. With AdMob, you can focus on building great apps while we do the hard work for you. Here�s how you can get started.

For more about AdMob Mediation, visit our help center, and to stay connected on all things AdMob, follow our Twitter and Google+ pages.

Posted by Henry Wang
Product Marketing, AdMob

Getting to know Active View and the world of viewability

We've had a lot of questions recently from AdSense publishers about viewability and the new Active View metrics in AdSense accounts. Active View can really help you improve your AdSense earnings, so let's take a closer look.

What are Active View and viewability?

Active View is Google�s ad viewability measurement solution. It tracks the viewability of ads served by AdSense: that is, the percentage of ads that are considered viewable out of the total number of ads measured. We use the online ad industry standard: a display ad is counted as viewable when at least 50% of the ad is within the viewable space on the user�s screen for one second or more.

So an ad that is (for instance) placed below the first screen on a given page won't be counted as viewable if the viewer never scrolls down. This is why viewability a good way of determining whether your AdSense ads are actually being seen by your website visitors or simply loading without a chance of catching the viewer's eye.

Why is viewability important?

The industry shift towards viewability is good for both publishers and advertisers for many reasons.

• Benefits for advertisers and the advertising industry

Without viewability metrics, advertisers could be paying for ads that loaded on a page but were never seen. If you're an advertiser paying per click you might not care, but if you're paying by the impression it could be a much bigger deal.

Active View metrics help because they show advertisers what percentage of their ads are actually being seen by users and which publishers provide the highest level of viewability. This helps advertisers make smarter decisions about where they should buy ad impressions. That makes display ads both more measurable and more effective.

• Benefits for publishers

Viewability metrics also help publishers understand the true performance of the AdSense ads they display. Whether the ad is being paid for by click or by impression, ads that aren't seen by the user can�t have an impact. In the long run, they won�t generate reliable ad revenue.

If publishers notice that the Active View percentage for certain ad units is lower than others, that ad position is probably underperforming and ought to be optimized. Active View can help publishers increase their AdSense earnings as they take corrective action and improve the performance of these ads.

How to improve your ad viewability

Once you become familiar with viewability statistics, there are two changes you can make to improve your results.

• Change ad sizes

Vertical ad units such as 160x600 and 120x600 tend to have higher Active View percentages. This makes sense: vertical ad units are in view for longer as the user scrolls up or down the page. Other ad sizes with high viewability rates include the 120x240 and 240x400 ad units.

• Change ad positions

Rethinking the position of your AdSense ad units can also help improve your viewability rates. It's not always just a matter of putting more ads at the top of the page: for example, ads positioned just above the fold tend to have higher viewability rates since they remain within view for longer as the user scrolls down. Experiment with what works best on your site.

Paying close attention to your Active View numbers will help you bring your visitors the targeted ads you want them to see and remove the uncertainty around unviewable ads. In the end, that should mean fewer underperforming ad units and a potentially a new way to achieve better revenues overall.

We think that in the long term viewability will change the way that advertisers allocate their budgets to online display. And if you're a publisher, it's a good idea to start paying attention to these new numbers and make adjustments to your ad sizes, ad units, and ad positions to improve viewability and potentially achieve better results.

To learn more about viewability and Active View, see the AdSense Help Center.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Paul Healy

Publisher Monetization Specialist

Appkruti, creator of Crazy Helium Booth, doubles income with AdMob by Google

Founded in 2012 in India, Appkruti Solutions� mission is to put smiles on faces and bring families together through fun, engaging apps. Their popular app, Crazy Helium Video Booth, lets users create videos with funny video and sound effects, and has garnered over 15M downloads worldwide. To monetize its massive user base, Appkruti turned to AdMob because of its global reach. Using AdMob mediation, Appkruti was able to tap many different networks without integrating additional SDKs, helping them to double their income. Watch how Appkruti is growing their business with AdMob by Google.



To check out other success stories, visit us at at the AdMob website. Until next time, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter and Google+ pages.

Posted by Henry Wang and Deborah Fray-Chaudhuri
Product Marketing

A new look for your text ads on mobile

Have you noticed the new look of text ads on your mobile site? We�ve given them a makeover.

This new format allows for higher performance with a more beautiful and user-friendly appearance. The text ads feature elements such as a shaded background and a centered button which bring together the parts of the ad into a cohesive whole. The look and feel is inspired by material design, like the richer text ads that we launched earlier this year.

To see these new mobile text ads, choose to show both text and display ads on your site, if you haven�t already done so.

We�d love to hear your thoughts on this new mobile ad design. Share your comments below and let us know!

Posted by Clyde Li

AdSense Software Engineer

Introducing new interactive ads to drive app installs

Cross-posted from the Inside AdWords blog.

We�re launching two new immersive ad formats to help advertisers drive app installs. As an AdMob developer you may start to see these new formats appear in your apps. If you opt into �Image� as an �ad type� in your account, you�ll be eligible to show the Interactive Interstitial format, and if you opt into �Text,� your app can begin to serve the Trial Run format. At this time, Interactive Interstitials show on Android and iOS apps, and Trial Run Ads show on Android apps only.

Developers are constantly looking for new ways to bring users to their apps. But because people�s attention on mobile is becoming shorter and more intent-rich, finding engaged users of your app is an ongoing challenge � both before and after an install. In fact, we found that one in four installed apps is never even used. We�ve focused our efforts on offering developers advertising tools that engage users and showcase an app at its best. We recently redesigned one of our in-app ad formats, and are building on our desire to create beautiful app ad experiences. That�s why today we�re introducing two new rich, immersive ad formats to our growing suite of creative app install solutions.

Play a game within an ad with Trial Run Ads
Trial Run Ads are an app ad format that lets a user play a game for up to 60 seconds by streaming content from the app before downloading. The immersive demo increases the likelihood that an install is coming from someone who enjoys playing the game. Users get a taste of the game before going through the download process,  and the app developer attracts better qualified users who�ve chosen the game based on their experiences in the app.

Trial Run Ads provide:

• Ultra-immersive and delightful ads designed for games
• The opportunity for gamers to trial before download 
• More relevant ad clicks, app downloads, and pre-qualified app users

Cookie Jam's Trial Run Ad

Get ultra-creative with customized mobile ads
We�re also launching a beta for Interactive Interstitial ads, which are HTML5 ads that offer a completely customized user experience tailored to each advertiser's app. They give advertisers creative freedom to use HTML5 instead of standard templates and pull in data dynamically. Diversity potential is high with this format and it's not limited to just gaming apps. Interactive Interstitials offer a truly custom experience that can include your app�s value proposition and the functionalities you want to highlight, all painted in your personal branding strategy. This is particularly valuable for advertisers who are looking for higher user engagement in installers.

Interactive Interstitials provide:

• A beautiful and flexible canvas for the advertiser to become truly creative
• Unique testing and optimization capabilities
• The opportunity to bring a piece of the app experience to the user before download
• Unique brand building possibilities

Marketers are already taking advantage of these engaging ads to drive app installs. Zalora built a an ad that allowed users to swipe to discover an exclusive offer.

Zalora's Interactive Interstitial allows users to use a finger to
swipe a screen to discover a special promotion.

Customization can be as big or small as you want � from adjusting standard templates to developing a fully custom creative. Marketers can also use their live app content to create compelling, real time ad formats. With more control over layout and interaction, you can A/B test creatives and try various CTAs to increase conversions. Rather than just telling a user about your app, you can offer them an experience unique to your app that inspires them to want to spend time with your app.

Advertisers can use Interactive Interstitials to showcase their latest product offerings through galleries, highlight elements of their personal branding, and to more powerfully demonstrate the value of their app before someone installs.

Zalora showcases a gallery of products that users can
swipe through in its Interactive Interstitial ad.

We understand that experiences on mobile need to be made for mobile, and an ad is no different. We�re continually exploring new and better ways to build out interactive formats for the small screen.

Trial Run Ads and Interactive Interstitials are currently in beta and available to a limited set of advertisers. Reach out to your account manager if you are interested in joining the betas.

Posted by Sissie Hsiao, Director of Product, 
Display and Pasha Nahass, Product Manager, Display

Charge your game monetization with a winning combination of in-app purchases and ads

Predictions estimate that by 2017, 94.5% of app downloads will be free [1]. As a developer, you are probably juggling creating great content for your game and finding ways to monetize it. It�s important to develop a robust monetization model that takes into consideration the spending preferences of all users. That�s why today we are unveiling a new white paper with insights and ideas on building effective monetization models: A Winning Combination - How using in-app purchases and ads together can maximize mobile game revenue.

Today, in-app ads and freemium (free download with IAPs*) fuel the growth of mobile app revenue, growing at 71% and 72% respectively from 2013 to 2014 [2]. Through an analysis of over 10,000 top Android apps, we found that for games, using IAP and ads together can potentially generate 117% more revenue than just IAPs alone.

However, a hybrid approach is more than simply bundling ads and IAPs together; it�s about targeting the right users at the right time with the right monetization opportunity. The goal of our white paper is to help you accomplish that easily and effectively.

In this white paper, you will learn the following:

• What an effective hybrid monetization model looks like and the benefits it can deliver;
• The principles and frameworks for building an effective hybrid monetization strategy;
• Best practices from developers around the world.

You can download the white paper here. Find out what AdMob�s IAP solution can do to help you build a strong hybrid monetization model.

We�d love to hear what you think of the white paper. Please share with us on Twitter and Google+ what other tips you have in building a strong hybrid monetization strategy.

Sean Meng
AdMob Product Marketing

* In-app purchases

[1] - Gartner: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2648515

[2] - IDC/App Annie: Mobile App Advertising and Monetization Trends 2013-2018

Five useful ways to check your AdSense performance

Sometimes it's a good thing to step back and look at the basics.

With that in mind (and with the new AdSense interface now in place), we'd like to recap the big five AdSense reports you should start with to analyze your overall account performance.

Let's take a look at these reports.

1. The reporting dashboard: Get an overall summary of your performance

As the name suggests, the reporting dashboard gives you a quick summary of three main reporting metrics: estimated earnings, page views, and revenue per thousand impressions (RPM). 

This report is a great way to get a quick check of your recent AdSense performance. You can switch to a wider date range, too, like the past month or year. If you see a sudden change in your results for any area, you can see a more detailed report with a click on the View report button.

2. The entire account by day report: Monitor your daily performance

To see this report, visit the Performance reports tab, click Common reports on the left-hand panel and then select Entire account by day.

Use the Entire account by day report to analyze your daily performance. Try selecting estimated earnings, impressions, CTR, and impression RPM to view them all at the same time and get a better idea of why your earnings change over time. 

For example, if the drop in estimated revenue is mainly due to a drop in CTR, take a closer look at ad units and ad placement to understand what caused that CTR drop.


3. Ad units + Platforms: Check ad performance by device

To use this report, visit the Performance reports tab, click Common reports on the left-hand panel, select Ad units and then add Platforms from the top as a secondary dimension.

This combination offers a good look at how your ad units are doing on different device types. Maybe every ad is doing great across the board, or maybe some ad units are doing well on desktop but not on mobile (or vice versa). 

CTR and Active View Viewable are two key metrics to check first. Active View Viewable shows how many of your total measurable impressions were truly viewable. Google considers an ad viewable if 50% of the ad is visible for at least one second*. With some impressions, for instance, the visitor may not scroll down your page to see an ad. 

If an ad unit has an active view percentage below 50%, check the ad's placement and try to improve this.

Hungry to learn even more? Take it one step further by filtering the report for any individual ad unit that you would like to analyze.


4. The Platforms report: Compare platforms

The Platforms report enables you to see which devices your ad units were viewed on, for example, on desktop or mobile. You can see and compare the traffic and estimated revenue coming from any platform. If there�s a big discrepancy between these two, you might want to check the desktop ad placement and find ways to optimize it to close the revenue gap as much as you can.

5. The Sites report: Compare different domains

Manage multiple domains in your AdSense account? The Sites report can compare the overall performance of those domains.

If you have different versions of one site (like one for desktop and one for mobile), you'll see them separately. If you have a responsive site you can add Platforms as a secondary report dimension to analyze your mobile and desktop performance separately.

Start with these big five and you'll be getting a good basic view of how your site is running. Most of these reports can be found in the Common reports section under your Performance reports tab. You can also create your own reports and save them to run later.

Have a favorite report? Share it with us in the comments!

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Cansu �zaras

Publisher Monetization Specialist

Meet AdSense Publisher BuildEazy

Les Kenny was around 50 years old when he first used a computer. BuildEazy was his first website, designed to show people how to make everyday things out of wood. Every BuildEazy project, whether it�s a guinea pig hutch or a picnic table, comes with detailed plans, material lists, tool lists and step-by-step instructions, so anyone can give it a try.

What began as a hobby soon became a source of income as Les began dabbling with AdSense on the site. By experimenting with the position of ads, he went from earning a few dollars a day to a steady income.

Eventually Les was able to give up his day job as a building contractor and host BuildEazy full time, giving him the freedom to do what he loves (and hang out with the grandkids). He�s still authoring projects and BuildEazy is going from strength to strength.

Almost two million people are using AdSense right now. Learn more about how to start turning your passion into profit today.

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Stacey Garcia

AdSense Marketing Manager

How to improve your AdSense performance with Google Analytics

Want to freshen up the AdSense performance on your site? Google Analytics can help. Here are some simple and effective places to start.

1. Find out where to focus

Content Groups let you bundle your offerings to analyze them more clearly. Instead of analyzing all shoes at once, for instance, a shoe company might divide content into shoes for adults and kids, for men and women, or by tennis shoes and high heels. You can view and compare aggregated metrics by group, or drill down to any individual URL or page title.

Suppose you want to know: What topics have the best AdSense CTRs?

• Group content by topic (such as food, politics and sport)
• Use the AdSense Pages report to view metrics

Once you learn which topics have the best clickthrough rates, you could then focus on creating more content for those topics.

Suppose you want to know: Which product groups have slow-loading pages?

• Group products by type (such as shirts and shoes)
• Use Page Speed reports to look at page load performance

Are some pages very slow? You might focus on fixing uncompressed images to improve the user experience (and your AdSense revenue).

Content Groups are easy to set up. Learn how to create them and then follow these best practices from Google Analytics evangelist Justin Cutroni.

2. Understand where your users arrive and leave

A Landing Pages report can show you how engaged visitors are with your content. You can analyze individual pages or the Content Groups we just talked about.

Suppose you want to know: What pages cause visitors to leave?

• Look for pages with high bounce rates, this usually indicates content that isn't appealing to visitors or is irrelevant to their needs
• Try changing the headline of your article or finding better images
• You may also want to analyze the page speed for pages with high bounce rates; visitors may be giving up on a very slow-loading page 

Both Content Groups and Landing Page reports can help you find underperforming pages on your site and take action to fix them.

3. Get to know your users 

Demographics and Interests data helps you understand the age and gender of your users, as well as their interests based on their online browsing and buying.

Suppose you want to know: How old are my visitors?

• Try Demographics Report > Age  
• Check the bounce rate: if it�s high, consider changing the headline or the visuals to make your pages more relevant and engaging for your target audience

Suppose you want to know: What are my users interested in?

• Try an Interests report
• Then shape your content based on the user interests you see; if viewers of you tech blog are interested in photography, try publishing more articles on that theme

To get started with the Demographics and Interests reports, enable them in your Analytics account.

The key to making your site better is to jump into the data, have fun, and experiment. Find out what works and do more of it. Have any ideas to share about using these reports? Add them in the comments below!

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Stephen Dunleavy

AdSense Analytics Expert

[Infographic] Are you prepared for the busiest quarter of the year?

The holiday season is the busiest time of the year, with shoppers out in full force to gather their holiday gifts, round up their decorations, and treat themselves to something special. 2014 was a record-breaker in terms of ad spend, which goes to show just how important it is that your advertising is as targeted as possible, and that you�re fully prepared for the final, and most lively, quarter of the year.

Check out these stats and tips below which can help you be in tip-top form for the season:
(viewing from mobile? Download it here.)

Not yet an AdSense user? Sign up now!

Posted by Yigit Yucel

Marketing Communications Specialist

January is the Black Friday for Apps

Shoppers are on the hunt for gifts in countless moments throughout the holiday season. In between going to festive parties, sipping eggnog, and making the required visits to see extended family, millions of shoppers will be buying new mobile devices. In fact, Gartner reports that 30% of all smartphone sales worldwide happen in the last three months of the year.

As people unwrap those shiny new phones and tablets, you can bet that many of them will be downloading apps -- and not just one or two. Our research shows that the average smartphone user has 36 apps installed on their device. Games, messaging, news and shopping apps all rank highly as the first kinds of apps people download within a week of purchasing their phones.

We looked at AdMob data from last year and found that ad impressions spiked across apps by nearly 30% between the months of October and January, with the largest spike occurring in January. This is perhaps due to people trying out their phones and downloading new apps with the added free time during the holidays. Developers should take advantage of the January Black Friday by promoting their apps, but also understand the monetization opportunities that lie beyond installation.

Check out our new infographic, put together in collaboration with App Annie, which features strategies to help get your app ready for the holiday (and post-holiday) app explosion. Let us help you �deck the installs!�

For additional holiday app monetization tips, download our free Holiday App Performance Guide. It features data and tips tailored to several countries that do very well during the season�Brazil, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Also, be sure to stay connected on all things AdMob by following our Twitter and Google+ page.

Posted by Arun Balaraman
Product Manager, AdMob

_______________________________________________
¹Gartner, Smartphone Sales Worldwide, Q1 2012 - Q2 2015
²Google & Parks Associates, Global Apps Consumer Study, Q1 2014

Give your site a content boost

5 tips to grow site visitors

If you're like most publishers, you think a lot about how to grow your site audience. It should be no surprise that for this topic, content is key. Great content attracts and engages new users and keeps your wonderful old users coming back again and again.

But how do you produce content that is high in quality, value, and unique? For the answer, look back to why you became an AdSense publisher in the first place. Do what you love and your content will naturally be at the heart of all you do.

As you build your new content, use these five tips to make what you create as engaging as it can possibly be.

Be targeted, be consistent, be frequent
Take time to figure out who is reading your content and what topics they find most interesting. Does your blog about dogs get 20 comments about Chihuahuas for every one comment about Great Danes? Maybe you should focus on the little guys!

Update your content as often as you can. With regular updates you�ll build trust and engagement with your users, and they�ll be more likely to share your content with their friends and family.

Create engaging videos
People crave video. In fact, the average mobile viewing session on YouTube is now around 40 minutes. You could boost the amount of time your visitors spend on your site by using video and photos.

Create your own videos; it gives your site personality and unique content. Try adding a separate video section, or integrate video within your articles. Use A/B testing to find the best spot for your video: for instance, see how a video performs in the middle of article versus at the end. Remember, if you use videos that aren't yours, make sure that you have the rights to distribute them.

Be mobile-friendly
The number of smartphone users is estimated to grow by 16% to two billion users in 2015. In all, web access from mobile phones will represent 69% of all traffic by 2017, according to emarketer.com. The average user now spends almost three hours per day on mobile devices.*

To win more visitors, optimize your site for all screens. Your site needs to be accessible anywhere and anytime, on smartphones and every other device. (Hungry to learn more? See more tips on going mobile.)

Go social
The way users find and share content has changed. Along with direct and search traffic, social sharing is key for your site visitor strategy. Remember, your article or video could be the perfect fit for someone�s micro-moment, so make sure you have the most important message in the first few moments.

Use social plugins and sharing buttons to help users share your content on the spot. Use large icons to highlight those sharing options. Try to A/B test where those buttons get the best engagement: at the top, at the bottom or embedded right in the article. For the best user experience, keep those buttons separated from your AdSense ads.

Look at what the numbers are telling you
If great content is job #1, great measurement is job #2. Google Analytics can bring you a deeper understanding of your audience and their demographics, time on site, which pages people leave fast, and which they visit most.

Use these insights to provide your users with the right content that works across devices. For instance, try the long-term revenue framework.

Have some top tips of your own? Share them with us in the comments below.

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Posted by

Jason Le

Account Strategist 

and

Draven Leong

AdSense Onboarding Agent

When writing for humans, it helps to think like one

What is human-centered design, and why should you care?

Suppose you want to come up with a new way to engage your site visitors and attract more of them. You could lie on the couch and hope to dream up a genius idea... or you could try human-centered design.

Human-centered design is a creative approach to problem solving. It's taught by innovative institutions such as IDEO and the Stanford Design School and is often used to design new products.

But it's not just for designers. Publishers like you can use human-centered design to understand what audiences want and create new content to match. Why not give it a try?

The steps go like this:

1. Empathize: Observe, engage, and immerse

To get started, look at your users� behavior and think about why they behave that way.

• Meet some of your users and watch what they do with your content.
• Engage with them. Ask them why they read or watch your content. Try to uncover their needs. 
• Immerse yourself in their experience however you can. Try to discover the emotions that guide their behaviors. Which specific users do you want to create new content for?

Let's say we have a blog focused on the millennial generation and their interests. By meeting and talking with our audience, we learn that a small but growing group of young professional women find our blog really valuable. We decide to focus on this audience.

2. Define: Focus and paraphrase

What is the main user need? Based on what you've heard and learned, create a problem statement. It should look something like this:

"Young professional women need to know more about how to advance their careers, because they aspire to move into management roles."

This is a good problem statement because it:

• Targets a clear cohort of users.
• Addresses a specific need.
• Is something you can take action on.

3. Ideate: Explore

Now it's time to explore as many possible ideas as you can think of. Here are some key ideas for brainstorming:

• Be prolific. Go for a high quantity and wide variety of ideas.
• Be positive. Use the mantra "Yes, and" to build ideas on top of each other.
• Be patient. Don't interrupt yourself or critique ideas as you think of them. You can judge them later.

Use guiding questions. For instance, "How might we�"

1. Connect relatable role models with our young professional women readers?
2. Give them useful strategies for managing up?
3. Address the biases women may face in the workplace? 

4. Prototype: Create

Now you're ready to start building. Choose your best idea and build as many prototype solutions as you can. Prototypes can be things like:

• Post-it notes
• Role playing
• Storyboards
• Objects

Use any prototype you like, as long as it's something you can show to test users to judge their reactions.  For our blog, we might:

Create a video interview with female executives and transcribe it for the blog.

Go to a conference on women in leadership and post notes on conversations we have there.

Present data that shows how progressive companies have tried to address the problem and what can be implemented at smaller companies. 

Hold a Google Hangout and invite readers to join in and talk with a guest speaker.

5. Test: Experiment, refine

Now you're ready to take things back to your target users again. Show them your prototypes and once again observe, empathize, and immerse yourself in their experience. Ask for feedback. Listen. Then use what you hear to refine the prototype. Refine and repeat as necessary.

You'll need patience for this creative problem-solving approach. But when you're done, your ideas will be stronger because they grow from the needs of your users. The more you get to know your audience, the better you can anticipate their needs and adjust your content strategy to engage them in the future.

We hope you find this new thinking useful whenever you design something new. Let us know what you think about the human-centered design in the comments below.

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Posted by Michael Le

Strategic Partnership Manager

The time is now for multi-screen

We live in an exciting time, where the number and variety of connected devices are growing at a rapid pace. People are coming online for the first time, and they�re accessing the Web through a mobile device.

Having a solid multi-screen strategy will help you prepare for the next wave of mobile web users. By following the simple steps below, we can help set you up for success on mobile web and answer questions like: How will my users react?, how do I keep my brand identity?, and what will happen to my earnings?

1. Test your site 
Start by understanding how your site currently runs on mobile devices. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to see how your site is performing on mobile and identify your site�s most crucial needs and what to take care of first.

2. Pick your strategy
Next, it�s time to make a choice on which multi-screen strategy to move forward with. The most common solutions are:

• Separate mobile/tablet site
• Responsive web design
• Dynamic serving

The choice is yours and all strategies have both pros and cons. When making the decision, you should consider the following:

• Do I want to serve the same content to all platforms? If so, a responsive design should do the trick.

• What�s more important; speed or flexibility? A separate mobile site or dynamic serving allows for better optimization.

• Do I have the resources to maintain more than one site? Responsive design can help you save valuable time and resources.

• What kind of technical capabilities do I have? Pick a strategy that best suits your skill set.

3. Follow best practices
We�ve finally made it to the fun part � building the site. No matter what solution you choose, every multi-screen developer should follow these general rules of thumb.

• Focus on the main action that you want the user to take: While you had plenty of space on desktop, you�ll have to be resourceful on mobile.

• Make your navigation easy to understand: Users want quick access to key actions, so make things easy to find.

• Use existing design paradigms: Do you already have a brand identity on your desktop site? Reuse the same design elements when possible. Try adapting to the user�s device, for example using Material Design for Android: users like familiarity.

• Make sure videos work: Design your look and feel and page animations using modern web technologies. Read more about Look and Feel for video in our Web Fundamentals guide.

• Limit image-based text: Make use of web fonts when possible. Mobile means lower bandwidth.

• Simplify payment processes: Auto-populate shipping addresses and contact details. Use existing payment solutions such as Google Wallet.

4. Avoid common mistakes
Learn from other developers by checking out some of the most common mistakes on mobile sites. This can save you time as you plan and launch your multi-screen strategy.

We hope these guidelines are useful when thinking about your multi-screen strategy. Let us know if you have any other tips that have worked well for you in the comments below.

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Posted by Felix Nermark

Marketing Communication Specialist