Google Advertisements

When I was looking for travel related information on Google, I found several links. While checking those links I got the required information but along with information, I observed some advertisements related to those information. Check below screenshot where ads are marked in red along with travel information.

As a common  man, when you search any information or product/services on net, you come across many informative sites or blogs. Most of these sites contain advertisements; have you ever wonder how all these millions of sites manage to get advertisement on their page. These ads are nothing but result of AdWords and Ad Sense. Lot of people tend to get confused with AdWords and Ad Sense and often use the words interchangeably. But they are actually opposite and are two different sides of the same coin. AdWords refers to the ad-selling system and Ad Sense is ad-publishing program and both are run by Google. Let’s see in detail what are these above terms and how they work.

What is Ad Sense ?

Ad Sense is a CPC (cost-per-click) advertising program that allows anyone who wants to put ads on their websites by inserting a small amount of HTML into their sites. It refers to the ad-publishing system that displays Google Ad words (ads by google) in websites which are not owned by Google. It is the system where website owners sign up to get those advertisements placed on their site. With Google Ad Sense, website owners who wish to place ads on their site, have to first set up an account with Google. Once the site is approved, Google Ad Sense program will display advertisements from the enormous database of Google AdWords. Google then pays the owner of the site displaying the ads. Google pays Ad Sense publishers based on a per click model - the percentage paid per click is secret, but high traffic websites can create a sizable revenue from Google Ad Sense. This service is free and you earn money every time when someone clicks on ads.

How Ad Sense works ?

Though you can't decide which ads appear on your site, Google does a very nice job of assessing your pages and supplying ads that might interest your visitors. The ads that appear on your site are targeted and relevant to the content your site. When you install the ad code in your site,

Ad Sense spiders will crawl your site to see what your entire page is about. They then check their inventory of ads and put related ads next to each of your articles. This works out well for everyone as someone reading an article on car is much more likely to buy car accessories. Remember that Google doesn't pay you when somebody sees an ad on your site; it pays you only when somebody clicks an ad. For those who are thinking to click their own ads, such people should know that Google Ad sense is capable enough to detect the invalid click activities on ads. If they notice any invalid click activity on your website then they will straight away deactivate your account without giving you any notice.

Now knowing this, if you want to insert ads in your website, you have to sign up on Google ad sense, select some space on your page for the ads, paste a few lines of code (Ad Sense Html Code) from Google into the HTML for your site and let Google fill in your pages with colour-coordinated ads. When somebody clicks one of the ads, Google pays you a fee (the amount varies). This is how ad Sense works. This is easiest way for bloggers or webmasters to start making money with their sites.

Now you might be thinking how much you can earn with Ad Sense if you sign up for it? Ad Sense is purely commission based program. It depend how many valid clicks you have in a month. Some people are earning monthly revenue of around $25,000 or more. You can earn from 1 cent to $15 for a valid click depending on ads served on your site. Generally getting above $1 per click is very rare. No one can predict the exact income with current traffic to your website. But we can say more traffic more money. In short, if you have a good website having a high organic traffic then you can earn a handsome income from Ad Sense program.

What is AdWords ?

Google AdWords is the system where people pay money to place their advertisements on Google or on any individual website registered with Google Ad Sense. AdWords is the name for Google’s pay-per-click (PPC) advertising program. It creates a way for companies to post their web site’s link along with a short pitch on the search engine’s results page.

What advertiser needs to do is to create an AdWord account, insert the desired advertisement and from several available plans, choose the maximum amount so as he willing to pay per click on the inserted ad. After the advertiser's credit card is approved, the advertisement goes out live on the web and every time when any internet surfer clicks on the advertisement, Google records it. Over a period of time, when the amount reaches a certain specified level, Google will then charge your credit card.

How does AdWords Work ?

Let’s understand the process before you use Google AdWords. The first step is to sign up for an AdWords account. It starts with the advertisers who create ads. They can create any ad format (text, image and video) to communicate message. Then user has to choose which keywords they would like to advertise on. Let’s suppose I want to advertise my new line of gardening tools that I just created then I would bid on certain keywords like “gardening, gardening tools, tillers, pulling weeds, etc”. When someone visits Google to do a search and enters the above keywords, your ad will be displayed in the far right column of the search engine (see above image) or in the results pages (with no guaranteed position) or in sites running the Google Ad Sense campaign. With thousands of high-quality websites, news pages, and blogs that partner with Google Display Network, AdWords ads can reach users all over the web to help you drive conversions. When a user clicks your advertisement and goes to your web site, you are charged a pre-determined amount for that click. The biggest advantage of AdWords is, you are advertising to an audience that are already interested in you. People will simply click your ad to make a purchase or learn more about you.

Next question might come to your mind that how do you choose your keywords and how much you have to pay? Well Google provides a free keyword tool where you either enter the URL to your web page containing your product or you enter a phrase with your keywords. When you submit the information, the keyword tool returns a listing of keyword and phrase suggestions that you can use in AdWord campaign. If you are a user to AdWords, you are going to pay an initial one-time $5.00 USD signup fee. Actually Google AdWords uses a bidding system in determining how much you will be charged when a user clicks on one of your ads. You have to bid on what you think your ad is worth per click (say 1 rupee per click) and your competitors will place their bids as well. Google uses other factors such as the quality of ads to determine the weight of your bid price. Users can also use AdWords Budget Optimizer to set their bids in a way to optimize for getting the most clicks as determined by the user budget. Whatever method you use, you never pay more than your budgeted amount per day. For Eg if you set a budget of 10 Rs for day with 1 rupee per click, it will display your ads 10 times a day only. Keep in mind that if you set a low budget for a highly-competitive keyword (a high-priced keyword) then there are fewer chances that your ad will display as often. The thing to remember is that when a keyword is popular and competitive, it will naturally command higher PPC rates.
Using your keywords, Google's contextual targeting technology can automatically match your ads to web pages in Google Ad Sense Display Network and display your ads on those website that are most relevant to your business. For example, an ad for a digital camera may show up next to an article reviewing the latest digital cameras. If you want greater control, use placement targeting to hand-pick specific sites or sections of sites you want your ads to appear on. AdWords also offer various reporting to advertiser like Placement Performance Report. You have visibility into where all your ads appear. Review your ad's performance on a site-by-site basis to see impression, click, cost, and conversion data, and use this data to identify well-performing sites to target more aggressively and low-value placements that require content optimization or exclusion.

In the end I would say that you are basically allocating funds dedicated to specific keywords which suits to your business. The more funds you put into it, the more your ad can appear per month all over the net. What I would suggest is to head over to Google website and learn in detail how this works. READ RE-READ grasp the concepts and guidelines and make an informed decision on how to integrate this into your marketing plan for the short and long run. Hope I have given sufficient information on Google AdWords and Ad Sense.

About Author:

Manish Chandak is social media enthusiast and works as business analysts with Systems Plus. He in free time reads and write on various technologies and process around social media, analysis and testing. He can be contacted at: manish.c@spluspl.com