Get started with AdSense (5)

The AdSense basic report - Entire account by day

The Key Performance Indicators (KPI) can be used as a basis for the further development of the website and its monetisation. The basic report 'Entire account by day' has all the important data to evaluate the success of the account for the first time.

Estimated earnings

First, a simple value. The amount of money you earn depends on the period you choose. In addition to standard periods such as 'Today', 'Last 7 days' or 'This month', you can also define your own periods and compare them with other periods. This gives you a good insight into the evolution of the values.



But why 'estimated earnings'? The earnings credited to your account by automatic systems are always verified and corrected in case of invalid clicks*. There are usually three situations:

1. Sometimes a site visitor clicks on an ad more than once. Or an ad may be clicked more than once due to bots or technical errors. Or a visitor may click the wrong way and go right back, never seeing the ad at all. When this happens, AdSense often corrects the value very quickly. You won't usually notice this unless you check your reports very often.
   
   
2. At the beginning of the month, AdSense checks all revenues of the previous month for invalid clicks. The checked value is then credited in the payment information as 'Earnings - AdSense for content pages' in the previous month. Any 'Invalid traffic' found will then also be shown there.
   
   
3. A relatively rare case of correction: An advertiser does not pay for their ads. In this case, the revenue is corrected even after a longer period of time. This is also shown in the payment section.
   
   

In this respect, the 'Estimated Earnings' shown in the 'Entire account by day' report are provisional. In my experience, small deductions are more common. If they are larger deductions, one should definitely deal with the issue of 'Invalid Clicks'*.


* Invalid traffic are a highly emotional issue for AdSense users, especially since they can also lead to account suspension or deactivation.You can find a separate article on this here: AdSense: Invalid traffic

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Page views and Page RPM

Let's start with page views: In fact, not all page views of the site are counted.



Not counted are, for example:

• Pages with ad blockers
• Pages where javascript is deactivated
• Pages where no AdSense code is integrated

So the values are for AdSense only. If you want more precise values, there are other tools such as Google Analytics or Matomo Analytics. (However, there is a different privacy issue to consider there).

Page views alone are not very interesting, but they are part of a very important metric: Page RPM*. The definition is:

These values are a comparative measure for the evaluation of different web sites and industries.

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Impressions and Impression RPM

The number of impressions is the number of ads served. It does not matter whether the ad is visible or not, as it is counted as soon as it is downloaded from the ad server. What is important, especially for advertisers, is how often and for how long an ad is seen. More on this when I come to 'active view'.

Another interesting metric is the ratio of impressions to page views. This gives you an idea of how many ads are being served per page view. Especially if you also use automated ads, you can see if your site is overloaded or if AdSense is finding enough suitable ads for the page. If necessary, you can take action. You can reduce the number of automated ads or, in the latter case, remove the ad block. The change in this value can also be a warning signal for website errors.

Now for the second impression value: Impression RPM*.

This is obviously lower than the page RPM, as there are usually several ads on a web page. It is also important as a benchmark for the site or the industry. The change in the value can also be an important signal.



*RPM: Revenue Per Mille

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Active View Viewable

First of all, this value is my favourite! And why is that? Because, in my experience, you have a high potential to optimise your returns by controlling it.

The definition:

As with impressions, these are counted as soon as an ad is retrieved by the web server. However, it is far from visible to the user. The website user may have already scrolled down by the time the ad is loaded on the website, or the user may not scroll down far enough to see a loaded ad. Such ads are then useless to advertisers.

For Active View, a standard has been developed to count an ad if at least 50 per cent of the pixels on the screen or display are visible for one second. This makes it possible to assess how ads are viewed.

Examples:

• Ads placed at the bottom of the page are less likely to be counted as visible, as not all users scroll all the way down.
• Ads that are placed 'above the fold', i.e. in the same visible area, tend to have high active views.
• Vignette ads and anchor ads usually have a high visibility value.

As advertisers have a strong interest in the visibility of their ads, and are able to set a value at which they are willing to place an ad, this value is also very important to the publisher. If the active view value is low, fewer and less valuable ads can be delivered.

The type of ads and their positioning can have a direct impact on Active View. You can also remove less visible ads to improve this value. Less is sometimes more...

In my experience it should be over 50%. 60% or 70% is certainly even better. The effects can be measured with Page RPM and Impression RPM.

Clicks

This metric counts the number of clicks on the ads. On its own, this value has little meaning for me. Only in combination with other values does it make sense.

For example, the development of CPC (cost per click) is important. This can also be increased through the optimisation possibilities mentioned in Active View.

Another value is the click-through rate (CTR), which shows the percentage of clicks in relation to impressions. Again, only the comparison and evolution of the value is of interest for monitoring.

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