UK Publishers can now benefit more from Adsense

google adsense partners badgeGoogle has launched a new service called Google AdSense Certified Partners. Google have partnered with a select group of Internet marketing firms who specialise in helping publishers monetise their websites with Adsense.

Adsense is Google’s advertising network. How does it work? Businesses buy advertising space via the Adwords system. Google places these adverts in search results and on publisher websites. Google shares some of the earnings with the publishers (around 68% goes to the publisher, the rest to Google).

It is very easy to set it up for your blog or website and then leave it. So why the need for Certified Partners?

Like all things these days it can be optimised. Pasting the code into a template and then forgetting about it will earn a publisher some money, but the clickthrough rates and CPC’s will probably be low. It takes a lot of experimentation to get it right.

More importantly, Adsense Partners can offer their publishing clients a more targeted form of advertising which can attract higher paying advertisers. This is a bit complex (OK, what I really mean is that I don’t know how it is done) but it has something to do with utilising different networks within the Google advertising system.

What do AdSense certified partners do?

Currently the Google AdSense Certified Partners are dominated by overseas marketing firms, however, what is exciting for us (maybe just me?) is that there is now a UK company on the list: OKO Digital.

I asked Mat Bennett from OKO what it means to be an Adsense certified partner.

“AdSense certified partners don’t just deal with AdSense for content, but have to train and be certified in the whole range of AdSense products. This allows certified partners to highlight other products, such as custom search ads, AdSense for video and even AdMob mobile advertising that might benefit publishers, then assist with application, implementation and optimisation of those ads.

Partners can apply lessons learned from a wider range of sites, helping publishers “short-cut” that learning and see the benefit quicker.

The methods that partners use are so effective that many of them will work on a performance only basis. We are trained by Google, so publishers can be confident that they won’t be putting their account at risk with their attempts to optimise.”

They are down there at the bottom of the Google AdSense Certified Partners page, look!

At the moment this is probably a service for medium to larger publishers only. Small blogs probably will not benefit, but I guess (and I really am guessing now) that a website with at least 1000 unique visitors a day might benefit from this.

3 Comments on “UK Publishers can now benefit more from Adsense”

  1. There’s always room for optimisation, even for those making less than 1k unique visits a day: the new free A/B tool by Google really helps a lot making it easier for smaller publisher with not so many available resources to experiment and find the best match, and there’s really so much more to be done. Sometimes the case for optimisation ( to a trained eye ) is really evident and a few tweaks here and there end up into dramatic changes. For those who haven’t yet looked into it, it’s a good advise to devote at least a few minutes: at worse, some new useful info learnt, at best, well … 🙂

  2. That is certainly true. What I was getting at is that certified partners are generally agencies which do not take on small clients. They wuil likely work on a flat rate or a commission basis. A flat rate would be more than a small blog earns and commission is only worthwhile to agencies if it is bringing in enough to cover their costs and make a bit of profit. So that is why I guessed at about 1000 uniques a day.

    You are right, all sites can benefit from optimisation.

  3. I get you: 1000 uniques a day is a good attempt at finding a “threshold”. I would shift it more towards something having an economical basis ( 1000 uniques a day might turn in lots for someone, very little for others ), but you are right on spot. It’s not common for smaller publishers to request a consultancy, as they see the fees associated with as too steep. Here we’re talking about consultancy that could turn into extra revenue ( in some cases more, in some less ) and sharing of knowledge by credited experts, who could point out and help to fix other issues in the process . The price might seem a bit steep at the beginning, but it might turn out into a better investment than initially thought 😉

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