If you didn't already know, you can now integrate your Adsense data with your Google Analytics data. This presents us with delicious opportunities for maximising our Adsense revenue.

Assumin that you have already integrated Adsense and Analytics, in your Google Analytics account, if you click on Content > Adsense, you will see site level statistics. Ignore average values. These are no good, as they hide both the diabolically performing pages and also the real glitzy stars. Averages, schmaverages!

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The first thing to do is look at your top Adsense performing pages. On your Google Adsense dashboard, click Content > Adsense > Top Adsense Content. You now have a bunch of dazzlingly useful data right there. All your pages are listed in descending order of how much they earned you using Adsense. The best pages are at the top, and these are the ones we need.

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But what do we do with our top performing pages?

We try to make them better! There is no point in investing oodles of time trying to better optimise a page that only makes a trickle of revenue. You want to focus your energies first on those pages that are already bringing in substantial Adsense earnings. A 1% increase in CTR due to your optimisation efforts represents a much greater financial gain on a page raking in $200 / month than on one bringing in $10. Start with the high earners first!

So we have a selection of high earning pages. How do we make them earn more?

A/B test their Adsense! Now that Adsense is integrated with Analytics, you can see CTR at page level. This is so exciting I'm going to faint! Our goal is to bump up the CTR for our already high performing pages by trialing different variations of our ad blocks. You might try altering the colours used and the positioning etc.

You will, of course, need to create new channels for your new ad variations so that you can keep track of what setup led to the highest CTR. As the only changes you make are regarding cosmetic properties, the advertisers will remain the same and so the test is a valid one: determining which ad setup leads to the highest CTR. As we are not affecting which advertisers advertise (we might if we were fiddling with out content), we can assume that a higher CTR on the same advertisers' bids will generate more revenue.

Adsense Earnings Per Keyword

I like search engine traffic, so I like to know how much money particular keywords make when people search for them, arrive at my site and then degenerate into an ad-clicking rampage. We can find out our most profitable keywords by clicking on a particular URL in the Top Adsense Content section. Once you're there, click on the right hand drop down list and select Keyword.

All those who've wet their pants over the power of this data, raise their hand. Just me, then? Just look at this:

Note the order that the keywords are displayed in. The highest paying keywords are at the top, working down to the lowest ones. But "highest paying" just means the keywords that made the most money in the selected period. What we are looking for now is potential. In the above image, most of the Adsense Revenue / 1000 Visits is under $20. Look at the bottom keyword though. $157 / 1000 visits! Eggbox shite O'Reilly! The only reason this keyword doesn't appear higher in the report is that it didn't get enough visits. If we can get more traffic from people searching for this phrase, the (dangerous) assumption is that we can get the site to generate more revenue. So what actionable insight have we gained from this analysis?

We need to optimise our site for "big hairy bums"!