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Link your AdSense and Google Analytics Accounts for some Profitable Analysis

Posted By Darren Rowse 8th of December 2011 Adsense 0 Comments
  • Are you an AdSense publisher?
  • Do you use Google Analytics?
  • Have you linked them together?

If your answers are yes, yes, and no, you’re missing out on some interesting stats.

It’s been possible to link Analytics and AdSense for a while now, but I come across plenty of publishers who are either yet to do so or who are not actually doing anything with this information. To get them linked, check out this page on Google.

Once they’re linked up, over time as the data begins to collate, you’ll have at your fingertips some interesting information that will hopefully enable you to increase your AdSense earnings further.

There are a heap of stats that you’re given in the AdSense section of Google Analytics, and as a result, there are plenty of ways to dig in. But a simple starting point is to do some analysis of which content is generating the biggest income for you.

I’m not sure that I’m able to show my stats for AdSense earnings, so I won’t show any screen grabs, but here’s what I do:

  • Once I’m in Analytics, I head to the Content section, under which there’s an AdSense section.
  • I click on the AdSense Pages menu item, which opens up a report of the pages on the blog that earned money in the last month, and ranks them by earnings.

By analyzing the posts listed there, you’ll hopefully begin to see the reasons why certain pages earn more than others. For example I did some analysis today of my last month’s earnings and found:

  • My post on ISO Settings did well. It had a higher than average CPM, a pretty good CTR, and decent traffic—an all-round good performer.
  • My post on Wedding Photography Tips, on the other hand had a much higher CPM, and higher CTR, but less traffic than the ISO page.
  • My photography tips for beginners page again did well mainly because of traffic but less so on a CPM and CTR basis (it has less ads on the page),
  • My how to buy a DSLR guide has particularly good CPM—for a topic on which advertisers are obviously bidding against each other.

With some basic analysis, you can start to see a number of things:

  • which types of posts attract higher paying ads (higher CPM)
  • which topics seem to be performing best
  • which post lengths seem to convert best
  • which posts you should try to direct more traffic to, because they’re well optimized
  • which pages on your site might be good candidates for an extra ad.

Out of the analysis, you might want to tweak some pages to see if you can add more ads, position them better, and so on.

You might also want to think about replicating some of them—taking a popular topic and writing followup posts.

You might also want to find ways to promote some of them more. For example, if you have a really hot page, why not link to it more prominently from your navigation bar and try to get more people to it?

I can’t tell you exactly what you’ll find when you do this exercise, but it’s rare that I do it and don’t get something out of it! Give it a go!

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. I’ve decided to not host advertising this time around, for better or worse. I do use it to track my adWords, but that’s another beast altogether…

  2. This is great advice. I had no idea. Thank you!
    http://www.thegirlieblog.com

  3. which reminds me…

    I have to link my accounts together also, because I rarely use Google analytics.

  4. I like the content of best practice in your article.. Really nice way to keep the audience connected!!! I also try to focus in my contents to share best practices and corporate solutions.

    Regards,
    @Nazhina

  5. Darren, this is good advice for some, but I’ve heard a lot of people say their traffic dropped after installing Analytics. Personally I’m too paranoid of Big Brother – I mean, Big G – to install Analytics and use Piwik instead. Which means it’s hard for me to understand which posts are doing well. Any way around the use of Analytics?

  6. Oh that’s a good idea. I think it would be interesting if a number of different bloggers did this and compared results on what types of pages converted the best. That would help everyone get a better idea of what techniques worked in general to create the best converting pages. I’ve already read plenty of stats on the “sweet spots” for placing ads, but would love to see how that data compares with what bloggers would actually find using their Adsense and Analytics data.

  7. It sounds like a good idea, Darren.

    The level of Analysis would be quite helpful, for those that have a clear understanding of how to make the most of it, anyway.

    And like you say, the option has been around for some time now. At present I am not displaying any Adsense Ads, as my current interest, is in building up site traffic.

    Adwords on the other hand, looks like it may be worth having a look at.

  8. I will be honest. I am one of those person who didnt link my accounts together. You gave me an idea.

    I will post on the site bar the blogs which generated more in hopes of getting more clicks. You can even call it popular post or something like that.

  9. I like using adsense. but I dont know how to make blog to promote amazon product. Can some one help me? thanks

  10. Hm, I haven’t linked my posts together. Perhaps I should.
    It just look slike so many digits though! I don’t like digits..

    Yet, I can see the merit in this. Especially the follow – up post tactic. Oh, and the promotion thing sounds good too! Hmm, I will have to ponder. AdSense is AdSense after all.

  11. It’s been a long time from my last visit. Thanks for the consistent correct and real lessons.

  12. I have been using this trick for quite sometime and already reaping quite good results. Will give it another shot today ;) Thanks Darren for reminding.

  13. Some great tips there! Small business owners looking to make sense out of their digital marketing campaigns must make sure that their blog or their website attracts the right kind of attention. With the above-mentioned tips, this will definitely help them !

  14. I use the two as separate entities. Never thought to link them together. This is a new idea and I will test it to see the results.

  15. Darren
    Do you advocate Adsense on blogs? I don’t see any on yours and it has always seemed “spammy” to me. Independent of this analysis, is it something you feel is beneficial?
    Thanks
    Mark

  16. Here’s why I refuse to link my Adsense and Analytics accounts. A few months ago, I read a rumor that linking Analytics to your Adsense account significantly lowered the CPM. I was already on the fence about using Analytics, so I went ahead and removed Analytics tracking from my website. Sure enough, the CPM rose practically overnight by a noticeable amount. I have not gone back to Analytics, and the new, higher CPM has remained steady.

    I know that this is only one personal case study, but it was enough to convince me to avoid linking accounts in the future. I suggest other people do their own tests and draw their own conclusions.

  17. I like this idea of linking adsense and analytics. Will consider giving it a try.

  18. Okay, I am finding that if someone is using Google adsense (say for some months no problem and money increases double month over month) and then they sign up with advertising on Bing – even though Unique visits continues to climb, the adsense clicks suddenly drop by more then 60%!!! Nothing anyone can do I’m sure, which is why and how Google can do this crap, but I wanted to at least let people know what is happening. Its more then scammy its fraudulent! At least one website this is happening too is http://www.BridgeToRussian.com -FYI

  19. I have always been paranoid about giving Google to much power over my sites, they already know to much about my sites already. I have even heard of people with Adsense accounts for 5 years and after inserting Google Analytics their Adsense accounts were banned.

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