[Long Read] Why You Fail with AdSense and How to Make Money With AdSense

[TheBoss]

Why You Fail with AdSense

Many publishers fail with AdSense because they expect a lot from AdSense and think that AdSense is the best and highest paying ad network available.

A lot of those who just starting, think that it's enough to put ads on the site to start making money. Unfortunately, that is not so, and there're many things to understand about AdSense first.

There're many 'technical' reasons for a monetization failure: bot or low-quality traffic, bad ad placement, low-quality content, however, it's relatively easy to take care of the technical issues. The most important reason for a failure is that AdSense is the only ad network that is used for monetization on the site.

Another reason for a failure is a misconception that you can still build a site around specific keyword with high CPC or niche, rank it and start making money from it. It doesn't work that way, and microniche websites won't work. These days personalized targeting is one of the main points of how Google decides what ads to display, therefore if your site built around 'birds' user can see ads about 'kayaking'.

Why AdSense is so attractive to newbies
AdSense is the #1 ad network in the world, it's made by Google - the most popular search engine in the world. Couple months ago I did a research on the ad networks and publishers, and I was able to list over 1 million publishers that use AdSense according to IAB rules. (Not every site follows IAB, or even knows about it so there are much more sites of a lower quality).

It is hard to provide support for that many publishers, therefore AdSense creates universal rules that affect big and small, and this also affects revenue.

AdSense Revenue vs AdNetworks
In comparison to most other networks, AdSense - has a 100% fill rate, every visitor of your site will see specific ads. AdSense doesn't care about your location - there're plenty of advertisers from every continent. This also means that some of your visitors AdSense will define as prime visitors and will give a higher rate (more expensive ads), but the rest have an average or low rate. Comparing with other networks AdSense rates are pretty low and this simply because of fill.

The other Ad networks may not always provide 100% fill, however, they provide better rates, and where AdSense pays $0.12 you can get $0.50 with other ad networks. Those a sample rates and they can be as high as $20 or even more, depending on your site. Some networks may only buy 20,000 impressions or only Canadian traffic, but those 20k impressions or specific Geo traffic will be more profitable to monetize with the other ad network rather than AdSense. 

How to be successful with AdSense?
Don't put all eggs in one basket, don't use AdSense as your only ad network, try to mix it with the other ad networks. There're over 5,000 ad networks in the world and while doing my research I have created a list of Top 100 Ad Networks AdSense Alternatives
http://bestblackhatforum.eu/showthread.php?tid=237441
 in the world by publisher count 
Note, there're no such crap networks like propeller ads, exoclicks, etc. on the list.

The best solution is to run multiple ad networks to monetize your traffic. You literally can have couple dozen networks and customize and optimize it for maximum revenue by showing each user a specific ad from a specific ad network. 

How do I run a dozen ad networks on my site?
You can setup Header Bidding on your site, this means that all the networks you have accounts with will compete for every impression and the highest bid wins. Bidding happens programmatically in less than half a second. 

The other option is to set up a waterfall where you set networks one-by-one from top to bottom (you can also apply additional rules, e.g. specific network only is shown to a specific geo). On my own experience - AdSense is the bottom of the list and only used to buy the impressions all other networks refused buying. If a network has lower rates than AdSense - I take them off the ad stack.

Both processes are done through an ad server, but if you don't know how to manage an ad server, and have no money to hire an expert - don't worry. Networks allow to set passback, this means you provide them with an ad code they have to fire if they have no fill for this specific impression. 

So, for example, you have an account with Sovrn, Criteo, and Adsense - you set up a floor $5 with Criteo, $3 with Sovrn and set Sovrn passback with Criteo and AdSense with Sovrn. If Criteo doesn't have an ad for this specific user - it will pull the Sovrn ad, and if the Sovrn has no ad it will pull AdSense that will always have an ad.

Based on the example above you have an opportunity to make more money from the same exact user just by showing a different ad, because the price per that impression will be higher.

What to do if AdSense earnings drop?
Nothing, if you're using just AdSense, however, if rates dropped among all the networks something bad is going on, but most of the time it's technical issues.