8.1 How To Track With Channels

Google has its own FREE tracking feature called "Channels". Channels remindme of spy movies, where a smart chip is planted in the arm of a supersleuth, making it easier to track his activities or whereabouts.

AdSense hands you 50 such chips. Use them to track ads on specific domainnames or to group ads according to specific ad formats, keywords, theirlocation on the page etc. You can use any other factor that might impacttheir effectiveness, based on the type of website you have.

Channel those clicks!

Google tells you many things about each Channel, such as the adimpressions, click-throughs and earnings data.You can use the channel reports to find out which channels are making youthe most money — and how to increase your earnings for other channels.

8.2 How To Create A Channel

You should create a channel for each one of your sites.

Within a site, you’ll still have the option of creating channels for individualpages if desired, and this can be useful if you want to check how well ads aredoing on a certain set of pages versus another set. But start by creating one URL channel for each site and you’ll have the general overview that you canuse as a starting point for your tracking.And it’s very easy to do.The first thing you’ll want to do is create URL channels.

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The original Channels required you to manually change AdSense tags foreach ad block you wanted to track. Many AdSense partners complained aboutthe pesky old channels, and at last, Google launched its URL Channels tomake life easier.

You can use URL Channels to track individual pages or just specify thedomain name to track all the pages in that website. The pages or websitesyou add will be automatically tracked — there's no need to manually changethe code on those pages. Neat!

If I need to track all the ad units appearing on my websitehttp://www.dealofday.com/, I just need to feed in the domain name and Google doesthe rest. The URL Channels are especially useful if you have several websites,and have a general idea of the formats, colors, alignment etc. that worksbest for you.

Remember though, you still need the original, Custom Channels if you wantto track ads across different domain names, based on ad sizes, formats,colors etc.For instance, if I want to track left-aligned ads across all my websites (siteswith different domain names), I need to group them together into a singlechannel and manually change the channel code for each page.First, I name the new channel:

Then I choose the Ad Type, Layout and Color of the ads I want to track:

Finally, it’s simply a matter of allocating an alternate URL if I don’t wantpublic service ads, selecting the channel and copying and pasting the codeonto each of the pages that contain the sort of ad I want to track:

Of course, I would then have to repeat the process if I wanted to track ads ofa particular color or size.

While Google can now track ad performance for your specified domain name,please don't expect URL or Custom Channels to give you data about yourvisitors, such as who referred them to your website or which web browserthey use. These are details only your server logs can tell you.

8.3 How to Read your Server Logs

Various AdSense Tracking programs are currently sold on the Internet. Thistype of software runs on your own server which means it has access to vitalvisitor information.

These packages are not affiliated with Google, but you can use most of themwithout violating the AdSense TOS.

External tracking software can tell you many things that the Channels don'treveal, such as:

- Where your visitors are coming from;

- Where the ad-clickers are coming from;

- What search keywords led them to your web page.

Your stats package should compile and interpret your log files. It will tell youhow many people visited your pages, how long they stayed, which are themost popular pages, what countries/domains they visit from, and how manybookmarked your site.

Just about all the information you need.

One thing that external Tracking software cannot do for you, is to tell youexactly how much MONEY a specific ad (or a group of ads) is making foryou. Only Google's Channels can tell you that.

External tracking software can tell you an ad's CTR, but your AdSenseincome also depends on factors such as the earnings per click, contentrelevance, your ranking on Google Search Results and many other factorsbesides.

That means that the same ad can produce different commissions ontwo different sites.

The better your site (the higher your ranking, the more links you have etc.)the higher your commissions will be.

I do recommend the use of external tracking software in addition to Google'sChannels.

Why? Because Channels can be quite confusing if you use them bythemselves. Consider this example:In this hypothetical case, Jim has a website about fast cars, where hediscusses his passion with thousands of like-minded visitors. He decides to find out which ads are doing better than the others.

Jim groups all ads with a blue border into a specific channel, which he called"Blue_Border". He finds that the blue-border ads generated a 5% CTR (clickthroughratio), while the rest of the ads generated around 2% CTR onaverage:

Clearly, there's something else that's making Jim's visitors click — and itprobably has nothing to do with the blue border.

What is that hidden ingredient that's jacking up those click-throughratios? The Channels won't tell.

Jim now decides to install an external tracking software on his website.After looking through his server logs, he finds that ads with the term "CarAccessories" are getting the maximum click-throughs. How does Jim know that?

Simple. His tracking software tells him which ads his visitors are clicking. Healso knows which sites his visitors are going to.

Jim found that of all his visitors, those who searched for the term "CarAccessories" were generating the maximum click-throughs on his web pages.Naturally, ads with the term "Car Accessories" were doing better than the others.

Should Jim now optimize his website for the search term "Car Accessories"?

For most web publishers, that's good enough to get down to work.But Jim is skeptical. Jim wants to know if his "Car Accessories" ads arealso his top income generators.To find out, he creates a Channel to track the earnings of all ads with theterm "Car Accessories" in it. He calls the new channel "Car_Accessories".

A few days later, Jim logs in to his AdSense account to check his earnings.He finds that about 30% of his income is drawn from visitors looking for car accessories.

That's significant, but it raises another question in Jim's mind.

Where is the remaining 70% of his income coming from?

He looks through his tracking reports once again and finds that ads with theterm "Car Parts" are also doing well. He found that while "Car Accessories"took the lead with 5% CTR, the "Car Parts" ads were generating a healthy 3% CTR.

Jim is excited. He knows he's on to something big!Jim's tracking software has helped him uncover two great "leads". Which ofthese will lead him to his top income generator?

The plot thickens…To find out, Jim now creates another channel called "Car_Parts".A week later, he logs in to compare his earnings for each channel.Here are Jim's results:

Total AdSense income for one week = $1666.67

"Car_Accessories" Channel = $500 (30% of total AdSense earnings)

"Car_Parts" Channel = $1000 (60% of total AdSense earnings)

Remaining Ads = $166.67 (10% of total AdSense earnings)

Incredible! Jim now knows that his "Car_Accessories" ads might be gettinghim the most clicks, but his "Car_Parts" ads are making him the mostmoney!

Google won't tell you all reasons why the "Car_Parts" ads are making Jimmore money. But Jim knows that the keyword "Car Parts" is probably moreexpensive, and that his website ranks better for that term.

FINALLY--Jim is ready to act on this information. Let's take a look at his variousoptions:

1. He can use it to optimize his page for the search term "Car Parts", so thathis content is more relevant. Jim knows from experience that when hisranking for the search term "Car Parts" goes up, so will his earnings perclick.But it does have a downside. It might LOSE him his "Car Accessories"traffic! Jim knows that the price of keywords keeps fluctuating with thebids placed by AdSense advertisers. A keyword that's not so hot todaycan trigger a frenzied bidding war tomorrow!Jim doesn't want to lose his most responsive visitors, earning him adecent $500 per week.

2. Jim can optimize his page for "Car Accessories". But that comes with thehuge risk of losing a whopping 60% of his earnings.

3. Jim can launch dedicated web pages for "Car Parts" and "CarAccessories".

4. Jim can optimize his page for BOTH search terms.Jim decides to go with option 4 — optimize for BOTH search terms!Jim knows the old saying that if you try to please everyone, you end up

8.4 Tracking Tools

There’s a whole range of different tracking tools available to fill the gaps leftby Google’s Channels. Here is a quick run-down of the main ones with twoMUST-HAVE titles at the end:

AdSense Log

http://www.adsense-secrets.com/adsenselog.html

your account as frequently as you wantand the log will even you give you a sound, an email ora pop-up window when new data is available.Price $50. Free 30-day trial.

AsRep

http://www.asrep.comAsRep lets you track all of your stats in real time. Thatincludes each of your three regular ad units, an AdLinkunit and up to two search boxes on each page.The program also captures colors, format and channels,and whether the units are showing ads or alternates.Price $50. Unlimited evaluation version available.

CSV AdStats

http://www.nix.fr/en/csvadstats.aspxCSV AdStats is less of a tracker and more of anumber-cruncher. You can download Google’s CSVdata file and conduct a full stats analysis to checkaverages and create charts.A useful way to squeeze more sense out of yourstats. FREE Google

AdSense Tracking Script

http://www.biz-directory.org/AdSense/The Google AdSense Tracking Script lets you see the domains and files whereclicks occurred, hourly and daily stats and who clicked what, where andwhen. Price $100.

If you are serious about making money with Google AdSense, there are twotools that I use regularly and wholeheartedly endorse above all others. Theinvestment in these tools will pay for itself again and again.

AdSense Tracker

AdSense Tracker does thefollowing:

1. Track clicks, page views and CTRby referrer.

2. Track clicks, page views and CTRfor each search engine and allsearch keywords.

3. Real-Time tracking of yourAdSense channels and your owncustom channels.

4. Track clicks, page views and CTRby domain, page, directory,advertiser url, IP and ad format

5. List all clicks (IP, ad url, originating page, referrer and date/time).

6. Track WebSearches by domain, page and referrer

7. Track WebSearches by search engine and all search keywords, as wellas by channel, hour and IP address

8. List all WebSearches (IP, search terms, originating page, referrer anddate/time) and run reports on any date range.

The developer of this package offers a 30-day FREE TRIAL, so you can’t gowrong with giving it a spin.Click the link below to try AdSense Tracker for free:

http://www.adsense-secrets.com/tracker.html

AdSenseDesktop — Instant Stat Analysis

And once you’ve got your stats, Irecommend reading them withAdSenseDesktop. This is a greatprogram that lets you downloadyour stats, turn them into graphsand analyze them to identify trendsand work out what works best.You’ll also be access your datafaster and easier — there’s no needto log in through the GoogleAdSense website each time youwant to see how you’re doing —and all the changes you make arekept in a centralized log! Thatmakes it easy to remember thechanges you made and see whichones increased — or decreased — your earnings!And as I discuss in a later chapter, it is critical that you keep an AdSensejournal, making note of the changes you make to your AdSense as you go.AdSense Desktop includes a “Notes” page that allows you to do this.