Improve Adsense CPC
I recently wrote about one of the most common queries I hear
from my fellow bloggers - how to get my blog rank first in Google search. This
time I am going to share some tips to increase the CPC for AdSense.
CPC is a term familiar to everyone using ads to monetize
their online content. It stands for Cost Per Click
Tips to improve the
AdSense CPC
Many publishers have reported that their CPC has gone down
suddenly after giving high rates consistently for several months. Possible
reason is, some advertisers have been targeting your website and the campaign
ended recently. If your traffic and overall revenue increases but CPC is going
down, then it is possible that you are getting more traffic for the low CPC
content and it reduced your average CPC. But as long as your overall revenue
increases, you don't need to worry about the changes in cost per click.
1. Enable placement
targeted ads
Placement targeted ads always give higher CPC compared to
the regular ads. One of the most effective ways to increase your AdSense CPC
is, encourage AdWords advertisers to consider your site for placement targeted
ads. Losing a targeted advertiser for a site is one of the main reasons for the
CPC to go down suddenly in many sites.
2. Enable interest
based ads
Interest based ads are the second highest paid ad types in
Google AdSense, which come just after the placement targeted ads. Make sure
interest based ads are enabled on your AdSense account.
Look at the following image, which shows different ad types
and their CPC, with the highest CPC ad types in the top.
Tips to Increase
Adense CPC
This image is artificially generated to give you an idea of
the CPC for various ad types and is not real data. We are not allowed to share
any AdSense performance reports, according to Google policies. Read more on AdSense
program policies.
How to enable
interest based ads
To enable or disable interest based ads, go to the "Ad
serving" tab under "Allow & block ads" in your AdSense
account. Check or uncheck the appropriate box in the page.
Increase AdSense CPC
3. Target countries
like USA, Canada and UK, if it makes sense for your blog
One of the most important factors that influence AdSense CPC
is the country your visitors are from. Advertisers spend a lot in developed
countries like USA, Canada, UK etc and pay too low in countries like India,
China, Pakistan etc. The CPC of your Ads depends on how much the advertisers
bid for the ads. Since the advertisers have higher budget in developed
countries, a click from those countries could give significantly high CPC. For
example, many clicks from countries like USA or UK could get you anywhere
between $1 to $5 but majority of the clicks from India, China etc would get you
less than 10 cents. One of the best ways to improve your AdSense earnings is to
get more traffic and visitors from countries like USA, Canada, UK etc. Try
writing content on topics that target the countries which offer higher click
rates. For example, if you write about 'Best smartphones in USA', you have
higher chances of getting visitors from USA than writing on the topic 'Best
smartphones in India'. Identify topics that interest visitors from developed
countries and publish great articles on those topics and your CPC is sure to go
high.
Here is a list of countries I found to be giving the best
click rates in some of my websites:
New Zealand
Norway
Australia
Canada
United Kingdom
United States
Singapore
Ireland
Netherlands
Germany
Finland
France
Italy
Switzerland
I made up this list by looking at various stats and reports,
however, it can vary by the niche, authority of the site and so many other
parameters. In general, the countries listed above come in the top paying countries
for most niche and sites.
4. Niche of your blog
As you are aware, the cost for each click is determined by
the advertiser. If there is more competition, then it goes into a bidding
system where advertisers offer more and more money per click to get their Ads
appear in relevant sites. Some type of content like healthcare products,
automobiles, gadgets etc have very high competition among advertisers on the
web. This naturally increases results in higher bid by everyone in the auction
system, resulting in high CPC. If your blog belongs to a high competition
niche, you will get higher rates. If your focus is to improve the cost per
click, then it is a good idea to focus on keywords, topics and niche that has
high competition and high demand on the web. However, please be aware that just
having high competition alone will not result in high CPC. Think about the
money the advertisers are willing to pay. If there is more money involved, then
there will be higher cost per click. Automobiles, health products, gadgets,
insurance etc are typical examples of high paid ads. But topics like job
search, people search etc may have high demand but have very low CPC since the
readers of such topics are not really potential customers of any major products
and so the money spent by advertisers in those niche are not too high.
5. Section Targeting
Section Targeting allows you to indicate to Google about
which part of your page is to be considered for contextual targeting of Ads.
For example, if you have sidebars and menu that has completely irrelevant
content, you may want to exclude those parts by using section targeting so that
your AdSense ads will be more relevant to the primary content of the page
rather than matching the content with the text in sidebars. By using section
targeting, you can get more relevant Ads for your content, which in turn will
give higher CPC.
Section targeting is now obsolete and Google no longer
supports this.
6. Image Ads could
give higher cost per click on certain topics
Are you using text only or image/rich media only ads? Even
though rich media ads have relatively higher CPC, your average CTR could be
much higher if you select for both. I have personally observed that Text &
Image/rich media ads give better revenue than using either one type of ads in
technology related niche since many advertisers prefer to showcase their
products through rich media ads. However, in case of education related topics,
I have observed text ad units bring higher revenue because of the higher
click-through-rate, even though the CPC is lower. It is hard to generalize
which ad types would be beneficial for you in your niche. The best approach is,
try text only, image only and text/image combination for few days and see which
one brings you higher overall revenue.
NOTE: Do not go by just higher cost per click. Instead, look
at the overall revenue. Even if certain experiments show higher CPC, if the CTR
is low in those cases, your overall revenue will be lower.
7. Placement/location
of AdSense ads
Placement can significantly affect the CTR and CPC. If your
ads are placed above the fold and in important places, chances of getting
placement targeted ads are relatively high, which will in turn increase your
CPC.
Placement of Ads can impact the CPC in other ways too. The
ads shown in your site may change according to the text near which the ad units
are placed. If you placed your ads near high paid keywords, your CPC could go
up since the ads appearing there will be higher paid ads because of their proximity
to high paying keywords.
8. Enable highly paid
ad types
Rich media ads like expandable ads, animated ads, video ads
etc are usually higher paid than basic ads. Go to your "Allow & block
ads" section in your account and click on the "Ad serving" tab.
Make sure all ad types are selected, at least the high CPC types like enhanced
text ads, enhanced display ads, expandable ads, VPAID video ads etc.
Increase AdSense CPC
9. Choose third party
ad networks
Google integrated third party ad serving in to AdSense
several months ago. This means, third party ads will compete with AdSense ads
and will show higher paying ads in your site. Make sure you have enabled third
party ad serving and also select all ad networks which pay good CPC. You can do
this from "Allow & block ads"; "Ad networks". You can
also select the option "Automatically allow new Google certified ad
networks", so that when a new third party ad network is introduced to
AdSense, it will automatically be selected for you.
After you select the third party ad networks, you must
review the performance of those networks periodically. Go to your performance
reports and see the report of "Ad networks". Look for networks that
served a lot of impressions on your site but give very low CPC or low Page RPM.
You may want to disable such networks to make sure your ad impressions are not
filled with such low paid ads.
10. Write on hot topics
and newly launched products
When a new product is launched, there are online shops and
other advertisers which target more on those products. For example, when
Samsung Galaxy S4 is launched and is available in the market, many online shops
may want to promote that product and so they will be targeting related
keywords. If you have a lot of content related to such topics, during that
time, you may fetch a high CPC from the Ads in those pages.
11. Impact of ad
sizes
Try different ad sizes. If you are using rectangle ad units,
you can try sizes like 336x280, 300x250 etc, which will fit in to the same
layout. Typically, the ad sizes will not affect the CPC by themselves. However,
there are certain sizes which are favorites of many advertisers and such units
will have higher CPC because of the higher competition.
In my case, the following sizes give higher CPC, in the
given order:
300x600 (image ads)
300x250 (text and image ads)
336x280 (text ads)
728x90 (text and image ads)
Try different ad sizes in your site. Try both 336x280 and
300x250 for few days and see which one gives better CPC and higher CTR.
12. Number of ad
units
The number of ad units used per page has no direct impact
but there are various ways it could indirectly influence the CPC. If you have
too many ad blocks in your site, advertisers may want to avoid your site and so
you will lose the chances of getting placement targeted ads. Placement targeted
ads always give higher rates and losing them would result in lower rates from
your ads.
Experiment with
different options
I shared several tips that work for most AdSense publishers,
but not every blog is the same. Some tips that worked for my blog may not work
for you. You must keep experimenting different options, placements, ad sizes
etc and figure out which one works best for you.
Did I miss any important tip here? Do you have any other
suggestion that could help AdSense publishers? Share your ideas.
