Jude's Blog

Though my searches don’t always come up with useful information, my Google adsense continues to pay off.  I have made more this month than I ever have in the years I have used adsense.  If this keeps up, I will make payout in just a few months, something that usually takes well over a year.

For those who aren’t familiar with adsense, it is best to keep track of which pages payoff.  While there might be a better way to do it than I use, custom channels is an easy way to monitor which pages are the biggest cash cows.  Plus, it’s very easy to set up custom channels.

When you first log in to Google adsense, you’re taken to the home page and shown how much you’ve made in estimated and finalized earnings.  Estimated is the current days and month, before Google has the chance to look over your stats and determine if there was any click fraud going on.

What are custom channels?

A custom channel is a specific word you choose for all clicks to be directed to.  So when you create an ad, you select a unique code for that ad and put it on either one page or several pages with similar content.  So when that custom channel records income, you will know which pages received those clicks.  For instance if you have a site like mine, you could have channels like erotica, romance, samples, stories, and place those channels with ads that go on pages where erotica or romance or samples or stories are placed.  So if your custom channel for erotica has clicks and/or money, you know that the ad on the erotica pages produced income.

Custom channels are also a great way of determining what doesn’t produce income, so you don’t have to waste your time creating more content for those areas.  The reverse is true as well. If you have a channel that makes more money than any other channel, you should dedicate most of your writing to that area.  Make more pages with that type of content and place more ads with that channel, so you can make even more money.

How to create a custom channel

From the home page click on My Ads at the top menu bar.  From there, click Custom Channels just below that menu bar.  All your custom channels will appear to the right, and above them will be the button “New custom channel”. A pop up screen will appear where you type in the name of the new channel and then add which ad code you want associated with this new channel.  When creating ads, it’s important to give them names appropriate to where they will be placed.  Then it’s easy to select them when creating channels.

If you are creating the custom channel first, then merely click save after typing the new channel name. Then when creating the ad, you can select the channel.  If you’re doing that first, click Ad Units (above Custom Channels) on the upper left.  Then click “New ad unit”. Below the name, size and ad type is where you would select the custom channel you already created.  Simply click the “add” button to the right of the channel, and it will be moved to the box on the right.  It will then be associated with this new ad.

Now, whenever you visit the home page of adsense, you can click on custom channels for the day, week or month under Quick Reports near the bottom of the page.  This will show all your custom channels and how many clicks and/or earnings you have received for each.  Good luck!