Using Google AdSense channels

Unlike other advertisers and affiliate programs, Google AdSense provides you with an extremely valuable tool. Channels.

Channels let you know, for certain, which positions, colors and ad types perform best. If you're into AdSense, spending the extra 15 minutes to take advantage of channels is well worth the effort (in my experience, I'm over 150% better after having used channels). Getting to know the best performing ad types for your site, as well as knowing the right colors to use and where to locate the ads, is gold.

So, keep reading to discover the most effective way of using channels.

Want to learn how to exploit AdSense channels? Simple.

Channels can be used to know which pages are doing better than others, and (through the ads you see on each page) infer which keywords pay more. Creating channels for your pages or site sections will let you know this. In your reports, you'll see a break-down of impressions and profits for each channel.

Channels can also be useful to determine which type of ad is more suited to your Web site, and the best positions for them. In order to do this, create a few channels, named after the types of ads you're choosing, or after the positions they're going to be in.

For example, this site uses ads classified in channels named "aftertitle", "aftercontent", "sidebar", and "intermixed". After creating these channels, I re-created the ads, selecting the corresponding channel. Taking this site as an example, I have a link unit ad after the title of each story, a big ad after the content section on each page, an ad in my sidebar, and an ad above the fold. Plus, I have ads intermixed in search results and in the front page.

Now, on my AdSense reports, I can tell which ads get more impressions, and which ones generate more clicks (important fact, considering that clicks are the bread and butter of AdSense participants). Just by doing this, in a few hours I determined that the ads right below the title (channeled "aftertitle") are the ones that generate the most clicks.