3. Navigating the New AdSense Interface
In This Chapter
• Considering the Allow & Block Ads Tab
• Pondering the Performance Reports Tab
Now that you know what’s new in AdSense, let’s check out how the new site looks and works. That’s right, it’s time to learn how to navigate Google AdSense, from the first tab to the last.
Getting Around the Site
You navigate the AdSense site via four tabs. Each tab takes you to a different part of the site, as follows:
• Home. For many users, this is the only tab you need to visit. The Overview view on this tab contains essential information about your AdSense performance; additional views let you read messages, view your payment history, edit your account settings, and view supplemental AdSense resources.
• My Ads. This tab is where you create and edit the codes for new AdSense for Content ad units, as well as ads for other AdSense services.
• Allow & Block Ads. This tab lets you control which types of ads can or cannot be displayed on your site.
• Performance Reports. This tab hosts all the built-in and custom reports that track your AdSense performance.
The four tabs are aligned across the top of every AdSense page, as shown in Figure 3.1. You select a tab by clicking it.
Figure 3.1. The navigation tabs on the AdSense site.
Navigation to subsidiary features and functions is accomplished via a navigation pane on the left side of every page. Obviously, this pane is different for each tab; Figure 3.2 shows the navigation pane for the Home tab. Click a link in the navigation pane to view that specific page.
Figure 3.2. The navigation pane for the Home tab.
When you need assistance, check out the Help section at the bottom of each left-hand sidebar. This section is customized for each page of the site, containing the most relevant questions pertaining to the activity at hand; click a link to view that particular help topic. To search all help topics, enter your query into the Help Center box and click the Go button. Additional help is located at support.google.com/adsense/.
And when you want to sign out of your AdSense account, all you have to do is click the Sign Out link at the top right of any page. You can then sign back in at a later time by going back to www.google.com/adsense.
Visiting the Home Tab
When you go to www.google.com/adsense/ and log in to your account, you’re taken to the Overview page of AdSense’s Home tab. The Home tab is where you’ll spend most of your time on AdSense; it contains a quick look at your AdSense performance, as well as links to the most used and useful AdSense activities.
As you can see in Figure 3.3, the Overview page displays key information about your account performance, including Estimated Earnings, Finalized Earnings, and other performance metrics. It’s a helpful glimpse into how much revenue your site’s ads are generating.
Figure 3.3. The Overview page of the AdSense Home tab.
The Overview page is just one of several views on the Home tab. You can also navigate to the following pages:
• Messages. This page is where you read any messages sent to you from Google AdSense.
• Payments. Display this page to view your AdSense earnings report—how much revenue your ads have generated in each successive time period.
• Account Settings. This page is where you can view and edit all your account information, including bank and payment settings.
• Resources. Want to learn more about AdSense? Display this page to view content from AdSense’s Twitter feed and YouTube channel, the Inside AdSense Blog, and other sources.
Viewing Your My Ads Tab
The My Ads tab is where you create new ad units, view your existing ad units, and modify those existing ad units, if necessary. As you can see in Figure 3.4, your ads are organized by AdSense product—Content, Domains, Feeds, Mobile Content, Search, Games, and Video. This tab also lets you create custom ad styles, which you can then apply to new ad units you create.
Figure 3.4. The AdSense My Ads tab.
Considering the Allow & Block Ads Tab
When you want to fine-tune the ad content that appears on your site, select the Allow & Block Ads tab. As you can see in Figure 3.5, the Overview page of this tab tells you at a glance the number of things you’ve blocked, by type. You determine just what is blocked by clicking the links in the Blocking Options section of the navigation pane; you can block ads by advertiser URL, category, or ad network. In addition, you can click the Advanced Settings link to access additional options, such as the ability to display social media features and whether third-party ad networks can use their customer data to deliver ads to your site.
Figure 3.5. The Overview page of the AdSense Allow & Block Ads tab.
Pondering the Performance Reports Tab
Then we come to the Performance Reports tab. This is where you can generate and view all manner of reports that detail the performance of ads on your site.
The new AdSense lets you slice and dice this performance data in any number of ways, all accessible from the left navigation pane:
• Entire account by day, week, or month (Figure 3.6 shows the performance by day report)
Figure 3.6. Viewing account performance by day on the Performance Reports tab.
• Products
• Custom channels
• URL channels
• Sites
• Countries
• Platforms
• Ad units
• Ad sizes
• Ad types
• Targeting types
• Bid types
In addition, you can customize any of these default reports and save your custom reports for future viewing. All reports can be viewed onscreen or downloaded to your computer in CSV format, for viewing/editing in Microsoft Excel.
Learn more about using the Performance Reports tab in Chapter 7, “Viewing AdSense’s New Performance Reports.”