Google AdSense is by far one of the best ad programs on the planet. Despite multiple alternatives, none has thus far consistently outperformed AdSense in terms of innovation, user-friendliness and overall experience.
On February 21, 2018 the AdSense team launched Google Auto ads for everyone. This is one of the biggest innovation from the AdSense team in the recent time. In fact, Auto ads are expected to change the way you have been using AdSense all this while.
One of the biggest concerns of most AdSense publishers is the ad placement, ad optimization and maintaining a pleasant user experience.
Google Auto ads are utilizing artificial intelligence to automatically manage ad placements and ad optimization for the publishers. However, as a publisher, you can manage:
- Global settings: What ads should be shown
- Domain-based setting: Configure what ads should be shown on specific domain or sub-domain
- Directory settings: Configure the kind of ads to be shown on the particular directory. For example, on pagination pages or archive pages, you might not want to show matched content ads, and you can configure the same from the AdSense settings panel. This feature is called Advanced URL settings. You can read more about it here.
So far we have got mixed reviews from users about Auto ads. However, I’m optimistic about the future of AdSense auto ads as it will take away the pain of ad optimization and a blogger can focus on building content while the AdSense takes care of everything else. Google AdSense was always a plug and play ad program, but now it’s completely automatic. Thanks to artificial intelligence.
Important things to know about AdSense Auto ads
Auto-ads is not going to be a problem for anyone who has used Google AdSense. However, before you start setting up Auto-ads, here are few things you should know. This will also answer your questions before you start integrating it.
- If you already have AdSense ads placed on your blog, you can decide not to remove it. AdSense auto ads will automatically detect those ads and place more ads accordingly.
- Already using Anchor or Vignette ads? Auto ads include Anchor and Vignette ads and many more additional formats such as Text and display, In-feed and Matched content ads. Note that all users that use Page-level ads will automatically be migrated to Auto ads without any need to add a code to their page. However, logging in to your AdSense account and setting up Global settings for auto-ads for the first time is a good idea.
How to Enable Google AdSense Auto ads (Complete Guide)
If you would like to learn by watching a video, there is a detailed Google AdSense Auto ad video guide at the end of this tutorial. Here is a quick walkthrough of the steps:
- Login to your Google AdSense account
- Go to my Ads > Auto Ads
- Click on ‘Setup Auto Ads’
- Configure your Global settings
- ‘Enabling’ automatically get new formats at the bottom.
- Click on Save.
- Now place the ad codes on every page of your blog/website. I use Google tag manager for the same. You can use any technique suitable for you. If you are already using Page level ads, you don’t need to do anything.
- You can always check the performance of Google Auto ads by going to My Ads > Auto ads and clicking on Statistics.
Overall, it will be exciting to see how Google Auto ads work in the future. So far, we are getting mixed reviews. One user from the ShoutMeLoud forum complained of seven ads on one of his articles!
But as I said earlier, over time this would be something everyone will adapt to, and since it uses machine learning (artificial intelligence), it will only get better with time.
For now, here is the video tutorial to set up Google AdSense auto-ads
Let us know of your experience with AdSense auto-ads. Have you implemented it already? If not, when do you plan to implement it? Feel free to ask questions and share your experience. You can also interact with other users on the ShoutMeLoud forum.
Also see: Official AdSense help page on Auto-ads
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