A massive change has just happened in the way your site presents ads from Google. You might not have noticed that change or noticed how important it is. Google turned on their Advertise on this site feature. Its just a small line that appears at the bottom of your ad unit. It doesnt look like much -- and the line itself isnt much. What really makes the difference though is where it takes the advertiser... and where it can take your income. When the advertiser clicks on that link, theyre taken to a landing page at Google from where they can open an AdWords account. And heres the thing: you can customize that page. Now, Im not just talking about the colors. You should certainly match the colors on this page to the colors of your site so that it looks like the advertiser is talking to you -- the publisher of a site he trusts -- rather than Google, a site he might not care a fig about. But you can also add a message, describing your site to encourage advertisers to sign up. That opens up a whole new world. You, the advertiser and Google all want the same thing: you want your users to click the ads. I can see no reason then why you shouldnt use the space on the landing page to offer advice to the advertiser about what he should put in the ad. You could mention terms that you know attract the eyes of your users or recommend that he list products that you think your users would be looking for. If you were planning to spend some time discussing the new Xbox for example, you could tell advertisers that for maximum clicks they should make sure that their ad mentions Xbox games or accessories. When you move onto a different subject, you could change the message. Do you see what this means? Until now, AdSense publishers have had two choices when it came to the ads served on their sites: take it or leave it. Now we have the power to talk directly to at least some of our advertisers and influence the ads we serve. Were going to have to think not only about what we put on the site but also what advertisers should put in the ads. Thats a huge change. |
