In-Content Auto Ads from AdSense

Why I Stopped Using In-Content Auto Ads for AdSense

Auto Ads for AdSense makes monetizing your blog or website easy. You don’t have to worry about sticking code in your content as Google will do it all for you. But is it worthwhile to use AdSense Auto Ads in-content?

Although it might boost your monthly income a bit, I find it to be more trouble than it’s worth. While it may work brilliantly for some, it’s just not something I find of value for my blogs.

I just don’t like how the Auto Ads platform injects into the blog content.

What Are Auto Ads in AdSense?

Auto Ads is a system Google provides for AdSense users. This allows AdSense to automatically inject advertisements into sections it thinks will be the most profitable.

That way, you don’t have to add the code snippet yourself, which can be a time-saving feature.

Not to mention that AdSense will determine where to place the ads instead of you guessing where an effective location may be.

There are several elements to using the Auto Ads function, such as:

  • Anchor ads – These are “anchored” to the top or bottom of your pages.
  • Side rails ads – Ads that are displayed on the left and right of your site are considered “side rails.”
  • Vignette ads – This ad is a full-screen display when someone goes from one page to another on your site.
  • Banner ads – These show in-content from AdSense on your pages.
  • Multiplex ads – These are in-content ads that appear in a grid format.

Then, you have the option of controlling just how many ads are displayed on your pages.

Increasing the RPM of My Content

The RPM for AdSense is the average amount you’re sites will generate for every 1000 page views. If you have an RPM of $3.57, that means you’ll need roughly 28,011 visitors to earn $100.

After enabling Auto Ads, the average RPM of this site increased by 270%. Of course, some of this growth also comes from Google’s ability to better serve advertisements.

To put that into perspective, that’s the difference between an RPM of $3.57 and $13.21. It was quite an impressive growth just from enabling the automatic system.

To make that same $100, I would only need 7,570 page views. That’s a significant difference in terms of traffic!

However, all of this awesomeness comes at a heavy price, and it’s one that I just don’t want to bear.

The Problem with AdSense In-Content Auto Ads

While AdSense might know best where to place certain advertisements, my blog posts were looking pretty janky. Not only did Google overload each page with ads, even on mobile devices, but the placement of those ads was also questionable.

For example, it would be common that I would have an image, a single sentence, and then an advertisement. That means it was creating orphaned sentences creating a separation from the other content that just read extremely poorly.

No matter how low I moved the slider for in-content Auto Ads, AdSense still created a bad experience from a visitor’s perspective.

It’s no wonder that ad blockers are so popular among many. When you flood a blog post with nothing but ads, it just looks terrible.

Plus, I know that I never go back to sites that are inundated with ads. The entire process could turn away a lot of potential fans and followers of the blog.

So, I disabled in-content Auto Ads from the AdSense dashboard. I still run side rails, anchors, and vignettes. But I decided to place in-content ads myself.

That way, I can choose the best location to improve the reading experience.

Focusing More on the User Experience

The entire purpose of a blog is to attract an audience and hopefully turn them into followers, subscribers, or consumers. If the page they’re reading looks terrible and is flooded with ads, the chances are great those visitors won’t come back.

To build a successful website, you need to focus more on the user experience rather than the RPM of your AdSense account.

Things that you can do to improve the experience while running ads include:

  • Making sure the content is easy to read.
  • Making sure the website is easy to use.
  • Reducing how long pages take to load.
  • Providing what visitors want most…information.

Visitors don’t tend to look for a website and hope to be bombarded by advertisements. They want to be entertained, learn something new, or otherwise find an answer to a question.

This means that despite in-content Auto Ads greatly boosting my monthly income from AdSense, I reeled back on many of them to provide a better experience.

In fact, I’m debating on doing a case study to see if removing vignette ads improves pages per visitor.

That’s because vignettes appear between page loads. And I wonder how many visitors I lose because of those in-between-pages ads.

In the end, I’d rather my posts be easy to read instead of being saturated wall-to-wall with advertisements.

WPForms

Using Advanced Ads Instead of Auto Ads

As you might have noticed, I still have AdSense running in-content ads. The difference is that I disabled the Auto Ads feature and place them manually in WordPress.

To do this, I use the Advanced Ads plugin.

With Advanced Ads, I can paste the code snippet from AdSense and then use the blocks in WordPress to place the advertisement anywhere I wish.

Usually, I select a location that is away from other imagery or at the end of a subheading topic. That way, you can read the topic without being interrupted by an advertisement.

Another aspect of using Advanced Ads is that I can also include affiliate links and banners. Advanced Ads will then select a random ad to display based on the rank I give it in the plugin.

AdSense Rank for Blog Category

For instance, there is a 77% chance that an AdSense ad will show for the “Blogging Content” category I’ve created in Advanced Ads. This is measured by the priority number I gave the ad when adding it to WordPress.

Otherwise, one of my affiliate banners or links will show in its place.

How Have Auto Ads Worked for You?

Although Auto Ads is a profitable tool, I just didn’t like how it takes away from the user experience. That’s actually kind of funny considering Google pushes hard for improving the user experience when ranking content in search.

I guess they don’t care so much when they’re making money from advertisements.

In any case, I have no interest in using in-content Auto Ads from AdSense. I’d rather have the option to place them myself. Nonetheless, you may have a much better experience.

You’ll never know until you try.

What has been your experience with AdSense Auto Ads?

Michael Brockbank
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