Google Adsense
July 22nd, 2008
Google Adsense has resuscitated many online publishers’ business models over the past 3 or 4 years and it’s easy to understand why: because it works. If you’re unfamiliar with the program, publishers (webmasters like you) can sign up for a free account and start serving targeted online ads immediately. The ads are automatically targeted to your site content which means you get reasonable click-through rates while adding a valuable service to your readers. No more need to serve annoying mortgage ads on your site (ahem, Weather.com).
Over the years Google has added more sophisticated features to the Adsense program that allow publishers even great flexibility. Publishers can, for example, block certain advertisers from their site; choose the ad types shown (image, text, video, etc.); and customize ad colors to fit virtually any site design. What’s amazing is that this free tool that’s available to everyone is being used by some of the biggest sites around (myspace, CNN, etc.). If it works for them it must be pretty powerful and effective.
On our own sites we typically see Google Adsense clickthrough rates between 0.5% and 1% which may not sound like much but is actually slighly above industry averages. Our payment is typically around $0.25 per click but this can vary widely depending on your site’s content, industry competitiveness, etc. Google isn’t saying what percentage of the revenue they collect from advertisers they pay out to publishers but suffice it to say it’s around 50%.
If you’re looking for the industry standard in website monetization, look no further than Google Adsense. It’s a great place to start to get a feel for the types of advertisers that might target your site’s content - and you’ll earn some dough in the process!
