Google AdSense, Study notes of Statistics

Download Google AdSense and more Study notes Statistics in PDF only on Docsity! Google AdSense User Modeling and Recommender Systems − Case exercise Authors:Marin Desnica  Marie Sayadchi  Khawja Umair  Peter Szabó    The most of the internet users are probably familiar with the ads appearing widely all over the                                  internet with a little triangle in the top or bottom­right corner − that is AdSense, a service from                                    Google which together with AdWords makes a significant income of this company [3].  Google AdSense is an advertising platform using various information about the user viewing                          the ads, to show him the most relevant ones and by that maximize it’s own income. The most                                    common information about the user is his geolocation, the languages he speak, his interests and                              the content of the website he is browsing right now.  1 The users of AdSense AdSense and AdWords are closely related. While AdWords is a service helping to create ads for                                companies and individuals who wants to promote their products, AdSense, on the other hand, is                              used by online publishers (owners of websites) to deliver these ads to the end users (visitors of                                  their website) and earning money for it. [8]    Connection between Google’s AdWords and AdSense [9]    Ads generated in AdWords can be displayed as “google search ads”, which are shown on                              Google’s homepage along with the generic search results. They can also appear in Google                            Display Network, which is actually the Google’s AdSense service (see the image above).  Google AdSense is currently available on around 4 million websites [10] (see Figure 3)                            maintained by more than 2 million publishers [11]. Unfortunately there are no official statistics                            how many users might get in touch with AdSense per day, month or a year, but a rough                                    1  estimation using YouTube’s usage statistics can be easily made.  Considering the following facts:  ● YouTube has the second highest number of unique visitors − over 187,000,000 visitors                          per month (the first place belongs to Google which does not use AdSense) [10],  ● an ad through AdSense is displayed under almost every popular video on YouTube,  ● the majority of the youtube users definitely must watch at least one popular video with an                                ad during a month,  we can definitely say, that there are at least 187,000,000 users of AdSense per month. If we also                                    consider, that there are almost 3 billion Internet users all over the World [12], we can see, that                                    94% of all the users of Internet, does not use YouTube (for example, it is not too much popular in                                        the Asian countries). But they must visit other websites, and around 6% of the top 1 million                                  websites (the ones with the most visitors per month) has Google AdSense placed on it [10]. So                                  even if we do not count the 15,000,000 people using AdBlock (see chapter 5.1), the total number                                  of users might be still several times larger.  2 Ad targeting in AdSense Google AdSense is a great example of a recommender system serving content tailored for every                              user separately. It recommends advertisements by taking into account the users age, gender,                          language, location, and interests. AdSense displays various types of ads − they can be basic                              text ads, images or even video and much more (See chapter 3.2). [2]  When searching for goods or services, the displayed ad may be the exact solution that user                                is looking for. Even in contextual targeting in blogs/websites relevant ads can add to the depth of                                  information user gets from visiting the page. For example, user is reading a blog post on “how to                                    fix your bike’s dynamo”, in addition to the tips on the actual process, by looking into ads, user can                                      have some estimation on the prices and availability of necessary parts and tools, or he might at                                  the end prefer to use a service.  2.1 Targeting by language The advertiser using Google AdWords has an option to specify the language settings for his                              advertisements. AdSense determines the primary language of the website showing the ads, and                          displays there those ads, which intended for the given language. [1]  To make language targeting even more efficient, AdSense does not look only at the language                              of the current website where the advertisement is served, but it takes in mind also the languages                                  of the users recently visited websites as well. Then it is usual that an English website might                                  contain for example Estonian ads if the user was previously browsing websites with content in                              Estonian language. [1]  2.2 Targeting by geolocation The geographical location of the user is determined by his IP address. The precision of the                                location detection varies and it depends mostly from how much information does the Internet                            service provider (ISP) share about his clients. For some users AdSense knows only the country,                              2  Here the advertiser is the bidder. The bidding process is not done manually for each plot, but                                  the advertiser (using AdWords) defines a set of limits on how much he is willing to spend for his                                      ad and based on those numbers, Google determines the outcome of the bidding.  An example of such setting is shown below:  ● Advertiser’s daily budget: $10  ● Advertiser’s maximum cost­per­click bid: $0.50  ● Advertiser’s average actual cost­per­click: $0.40  ● Approximate number of clicks per day: 25  Based on the maximum CPC (cost per click), the set of potential plots that Google has                                already narrowed down, quality of the ad itself, its clickability… and the page’s traffic and                              popularity; bidding process matches ads to plots trying to optimize the ad­plot pair’s relevancy.                            Good ad­plot pair will guarantee good click rate leading to increase in Google’s and publishers                              income while giving the advertiser more visibility and marketing chances. [13]  3.2 Types of ads shown in AdSense AdSense can display ads of various types. The most often used are basic text ads, images,                                videos or flash banners.  There are several types of video advertisements:  ● Pre Roll ads appear on the screen before the video playback starts;  ● Mid Roll ads appear in the middle of the video − e.g. the playback of the video can stop in                                        the middle, and an ad starts to play, also ads played between videos in a playlist are                                  considered as mid roll ads;  ● Post Roll ads appear after the whole video ended − these type of ads are usually not                                  used (at least not by AdSense).  Text banners might appear on the websites and on the bottom of a video player. They can be                                    positioned horizontally or vertically. They are usually very small in size and they can have                              different background colors.    Example of text banners      5  Image banners are cheap and effective. Users can create them by using the AdSense                            application or upload their own images. These ads appear on special places on the websites or                                in videos (like bottom or some selected places).    Example of image banners  4 Earning money with AdSense Google AdSense is specifically designed for advertising. There is no other main objective to this                              service. Unlike Facebook or YouTube which have their recommender systems as an additional                          service, AdSense is a recommender system by its nature. The goal of the service is to link                                  advertisers to the online publishers while keeping the final displayed ad, as relevant and helpful to                                the end user as possible. Even in the case of ads shown in Google’s search page, Google is                                    using its popularity as a source of income by selling its ad spots to advertisers.  4.1 Calculation of the price for the advertizer Basically, there is no fixed price for a publishing spot. The advertiser decides how much is he                                  willing to spend per day, maximum amount he wants to pay per click (or per visit, …). Based on                                      these settings and the competition at a given time, the price for a spot is determined. As a result                                      of this system, price of the same spot for the same ad, may change largely.  4.2 Calculation of the payment for the publisher At the beginning, there was just one way of getting paid with AdSense, and this was on a per                                      click basis. This means, that you earn money each time a visitor of your website clicks on an ad.                                      It does not matter what he did afterwards on the target website − if he bought a product, or left                                        immediately.  68 percent of the amount an advertiser pays per click on their ads on your website is your                                    income. The rest is Google’s commission fee. [25]  In addition to the cost­per­click (CPC) model, there are two other bid types:  ● Cost­per­thousand­impressions (CPM) is an income model where advertisers pay you a                      fixed price per thousand ad impressions (the ad appears on a website). No click on them                                is necessary for you to earn something from AdSense.   ● Cost­per­engagement (CPE) − in this case the advertiser is defining an action which the                            visitor needs to fulfill (expanding the ad, watch a video ad, finishing a poll, etc.)  For each of these ad types, Google calculates which may work best in your website,                              maximizing your earning and Google’s revenue. [25]  6  Income of different websites can be very diverse due to their content and type, according to                                Thomas Maier [25], the general content websites may earn even less than 3$ per 1000                              impressions, around 10$ for content­rich sites, e.g. blogs and even more for product­related                          pages.  5 Problems and negatives of AdSense AdSense and AdWords are in contact with three different group of people: advertisers,                          publishers and viewers. Each of these audience groups may face many difficulties and problems                            in interaction with it, but they are greatly interconnected and a problem for one of the partners                                  can affect the others.  5.1 Fluctuation in ad prices Many publishers use ads as their main source of income, spending a significant amount of time                                on updating and editing their websites. The biggest challenge for this group of people is that                                since there is no minimal price for an ad spot. It is dependent only on the competition between                                    the advertisers and that makes AdSense a highly fluctuating source of income for the publishers.                              Considering being a publisher as a time consuming job, they generally complain that “one has so                                little influence over anything Google does”. Reports on the prices and statistics of one’s page is                                done by Google and Google’s transparency on its income statistics is not acceptable to many.  5.2 Irrelevant ads or same ads shown repeatedly Reading the forums of Adsense, it seems that it is common to get unrelated ads or repeating                                  same ad on a particular website. This can be annoying for the publishers visitors, causing                              decrease in his page traffic and leading to low income for several months. The problem comes                                from the fact, that the publisher has no direct control on the ads shown on his website. In case of                                        an irrelevant ad showing up, there is no way for the publisher to rate it , change it or influence its                                          presence in any way. [26, 27]  5.3 Avoiding advertisements on the user side Google announced on Dec. 8 2009. that the Chrome would accept extensions (little programs                            that improve or customize the browser’s performance) as a way of harnessing the creativity of                              an outside community of programmers who would work free and agree to share what they make                                with others. [17]  This decision made it possible for programmers all around the world to fight against                            advertisement targeting by making extension which allow blocking of all sorts of ads, but also                              Google ads on a Google product − Chrome.  With AdBlock, most ads are not even downloaded at all, so users can focus on enjoying the                                  content they want, and spend less time waiting for it. [18] AdBlock is the most popular Google                                  Chrome extension (with over 15,000,000 users [19]), and also the most popular Safari extension                            [20]. There is an even older extension called AdBlock Plus which is primarily used on Firefox and                                  is also among the most popular extensions for this browser. [21]  7  6500000 5000000 4500000 ‘° 4000000 3600000 2013-11-01 2014-02-01 2014-05-01 2014-08-01 Fig. 3: Amount of websites using Google AdSense for the past year (Image source: [10]) [Choose your locations Search | Radius targeting | Location groups | Fulk locations © Enieraplace name, asiess orcoordnaes | 20 | hmv |Search Click the blue map marker above and selec: a point on the map. [El Targeted locations Reach Remove all 30.0 km around Tallinn, EE - custom ~ Remove| Nearby Fig. 4: User targeting by geolocation 10  Choose how to target your ads Display keywords — show ads on sites related to your keywords, © Interests & remarketing — show ads to people based on their interests, Use a different targeting method Interests & remarketing El Interests | Remarketing lists EJ] Custom combinations [El st )__ liemarket audiences (ROl) > Travel Categorias: 1 Hotels & Accommodation Affinity audiences (reach) «© | Rc-market audiences (RO!) > Travel Ei Travel Butts > Ai Travel In-market audiences (ROI) > Travel Luxury Travellers >» © Cartlire E In-market audiences (RO!) Ei Chthing & Accessories Luggage > © Travel > Air Travel Car Hire Cruises > Hotels & Accommodation Potential reach per week on the Display Network 10B+ Impressions ‘Your potential reach may be different than shown because certain information, like your bids, certa i isn't included in these estimates. Leam more Fig. 5: User targeting by the user's interests 11 Bibliography 1. Google Inc. "Ad Targeting by Language". AdSense Help. Accessed September 25, 2014.  https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/2753586?hl=en.    2. Google Inc. "Ad Type". AdSense Help. Accessed September 25, 2014.  https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/164735?hl=en.    3. Google Inc. "Google Inc. Announces Second Quarter 2014 Results and Management  Change ­ Investor Relations ­​ Google". Accessed September 25, 2014.  http://investor.google.com/earnings/2014/Q2_google_earnings.html.    4. Google Inc. "How Google Infers Interest and Demographic Categories". AdSense Help.  Accessed September 25, 2014.  https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/140378?hl=en&ref_topic=23402.    5. Google Inc. "How Ads Are Targeted to Your Site". AdSense Help. Accessed September  25, 2014. https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/9713?hl=en&ref_topic=1628432.    6. 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