AdSense is the most popular ad serving technology with 38.3 million websites connected in 2021. However, many AdSense users are missing out on extra revenue by not taking advantage of sizes, positions, and formats that can boost revenue. In this guide, we’ll show you how to make more money with AdSense.
Top 9 Tips To Make More Money With AdSense:
- Use AdSense with Header Bidding
- Optimize your Ad Placements
- Optimize your Ad Sizes
- Run A/B Tests
- Use Vignette and Anchor Ads
- Avoid AdSense Deductions
- Improve your Core WebVitals
Use our AdSense revenue calculator to get an idea of how much ad revenue your website could or should be earning.
Increasing your website traffic is one of the best ways to make more money with AdSense. In general, this should be done by creating better content and optimizing it for SEO. Below, we’ll assume you’re already working on this and look at how to maximize revenue from your existing traffic.
Use AdSense with Header Bidding
AdSense gives websites access to a sizable group of advertisers, but there are many more advertisers out there who are keen to pay for space on your website. Header Bidding lets websites connect to advertisers who use Google platforms and other platforms from Amazon, IndexExchange, and Xander. Connecting to more advertisers increases the competition for your ad inventory. As a result, websites have to pay more to get their ads displayed on your site. Over 65% of the top 10,000 sites use header bidding to increase their ad revenue. To learn more, see our what is header bidding guide.
In general, header bidding is best at monetizing units below the fold or units with a low CTR (click-through-rate). AdSense is best at monetizing units above the fold or units with a high CTR (greater than 1.5%). By splitting your units between header bidding and AdSense you can maximize your ad revenue. Websites using header bidding can expect an increase in revenue between 27% -73%. This is a great strategy to make more money with AdSense.
Contact our experts to find out how to set up AdSense with header bidding.
Optimize your Ad Placements
While AdSense no longer limits the number of ads per page, website owners should not allow ads to exceed the amount of content on the page or allow ads to become the focal point of the page. You can read more about Google’s valuable inventory policy here. Overall, to avoid running into trouble with Google, it’s best to use fewer ads in high viewability placements.
The Best AdSense Desktop Placements
On desktop, you should have a maximum of 4-5 ads on screen at any time for longer content pieces. For shorter content pieces like games, slideshows, or calculators, it’s best to stick to 3-4 ad units.
Below is the classic ad placement heatmap from Google. The hot areas indicate spaces that have a high CTR while the cool areas indicate spaces with a low CTR. Here are the top five placements in order of revenue-generating potential:
- In-content top
- Header below the navigation bar
- Sticky sidebar/sidebar top (left side)
- Footer
- Sticky sidebar/sidebar bottom (left side)
The Best AdSense Mobile Placements
On mobile, you can’t let two or more AdSense ad units appear on screen at the same time. As a result, you can only run:
- one ad unit above the fold
- 1 or 2 in-content units (depending on the length of your content)
- an anchor ad (more on this below)
Optimize your Ad Sizes
By optimizing your ad sizes you can achieve a higher CTR and therefore higher revenue. Here are some of the key ad sizes to use along with their position.
728×90 (1) below the main navigation (2) above the page footer
300×600 or 300×250 in the sidebar (A/B test to see which performs best)
336×280 in-content top
Make More Money with AdSense Experiments (A/B Tests)
Running an A/B test allows you to compare one of your settings against a variation to see which performs better. Google’s experiments feature enables you to set up these tests and uncover which settings perform best for your site. Experiments work by splitting your site’s traffic between the original ad setting and the variation so that their performance can be measured side by side.
To access this feature, sign in to your AdSense account, and click Optimization > Experiments.
Make More Money with AdSense Vignette and Anchor Ads
What are vignette ads?
Vignette ads are full-screen ads that appear between page loads. Users can exit the ad by clicking on the close button. Since vignette ads take up the whole screen, they have high viewability and CTR scores. As a result, these ads can provide a strong increase in revenue.
AdSense automatically limits the number of vignette ads per user to maintain a good user experience. As a result, this is a great way to make more money with AdSense while maintaining a good user experience.
What are anchor ads?
Anchor ads or sticky ads, stick to the edge of the user’s screen. Users can dismiss the ad by clicking on the close button. These ads mainly serve on mobile but can also appear on desktop.
Anchor ads appear at the top or bottom of the user’s screen depending on which position is best for the user experience. When shown at the top, anchor ads only appear after the user has scrolled down to prevent any site branding from being obscured.
Since anchor ads stick to the user’s screen, they have high viewability and CTR scores. As a result, these ads can provide a strong increase in revenue.
You can access vignette and anchor ads through Google’s AutoAds here.
Avoid AdSense Deductions
AdSense deductions are applied to your AdSense earnings when Google detects behavior that is not compliant with AdSense’s terms and conditions. Most deductions occur because of invalid clicks and invalid activity. See our full guide to avoiding AdSense deductions here to ensure Google doesn’t apply deductions to your earnings.
To prevent deductions, keep a close eye on your Google Analytics account. If you notice any suspicious activity, such as traffic from an unknown location, report it to Google here.
Reduce the number of invalid or accidental clicks by improving your ad layout and setup. For example, remove the following:
- Menu items overlapping with ad units
- Ad units close to click points like download buttons
- Sticky ad units that are difficult to minimize
- Ad units that are not properly labelled, leading users to mistake them for content
Improve your Core Web Vitals
Google’s Core Web Vitals will become a ranking signal in June 2021. While great content will continue to be crucial, Core Web Vitals will serve as a tiebreaker going forward. This provides an opportunity for you to outrank competitors with similar content.
Google’s Core Web Vitals (CWV) are:
- largest contentful paint (LCP) – page load speed
- first input delay (FID) – page interactivity
- cumulative layout shift (CLS) – visual stability
These factors are used to measure the user experience of a webpage. Ultimately, Google wants to send users to pages with a good user experience. Use our guide on how to improve your Core Web Vitals here.
Summary - How to Make More Money with AdSense
Making these changes to your site will significantly boost your AdSense revenue. If you’d like to get even more from your ad inventory by using native video, quiz units, SmartRefresh or anti-adblock, contact our experts here.
Ben is one of Snigel's Co-CEO. He works on business development and marketing - spreading the word about how Snigel can help publishers supercharge their ad revenue.
