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So you just created a blog or website and want to add Google Adsense ads. Obviously the purpose of this is to generate some extra revenue. Because I have a full time job, I tend to look at it as extra pocket money (if you actually make any money )

Now, most people tend to just add the special Javascript code that Google Adsense gives you to their pages after choosing the ad format, colors, and size they want. Many blogs have a homepage, then a set of internal pages. In my case at LifeHut, I have a homepage and then the pages where individual postings occur. My original format was placing Google Adsense code in certain places (i.e.; on the homepage, I have 1 ad on the left column and an ad on the right. The internal pages have an ad at the top and an ad at the bottom of each posting). None of these were setup as custom channels, so when I viewed my results in the Google Adsense summary, it merely told me what I made for the day and what domain it came from. In my case, www.lifehut.org because I setup that account previously.

What if?

What if you want to find out how each individual ad spot is doing? Maybe you make $50/day with your ads (oh I wish one day) and you have 5 ads total spread across your site. There is a good chance 1 or 2 of them is generating that $50 and the other 3-4 generate 0 clicks. It’s possible. By adding custom channels, you are allowing yourself to track how each individual ad placements are doing so you can then alter their placement at later dates.

I am going to use LifeHut as an example of how to create custom channels. In my opinion, Google doesn’t do a great job of explaining how to create them or what to look for, and I want to cover one important mistake I made early on in trying custom channels.

First, make an account

If you haven’t already, Sign up for a Google Adsense account. It’s been a long time, but I think there is a waiting period to make sure your website and your information is legit

Ad Placement

Determine where you would like to place ads on your website. There are restrictions, such as a single page can only have a total of 3 regular ads and 1 set of ad links, like you see at the bottom of each of my individual postings.

Making Channels

First, you need to generate a URL channel. As you can tell from the photo below, I currently have 3 URL channels to 3 of the sites I run. Majorchampionships.com - A golf blog, Lifehut.org, and JuicedThoughts.com.

Add Custom Channels

In my case, I have 2 Google Ads on the homepage and a possible 3 that appear on the individual postings. By default, one appears at the top and one set of ad links appears at the bottom however I have the ability to add 1 more Google ad inside my actual posting. Each one of my ads has a specific name associated with it, i.e; I have setup a custom Channel for each ad.

Note the image below as my naming conventions such as lf_index_main_left. Because I have multiple URL’s with my Adsense account, I start off my using the initials of LifeHut (lf, then the page it appears on, INDEX, the column and side MAIN_LEFT. lf_index_right is…(you guessed it), the right side on my homepage.

By setting up these channels, I am telling Google what to look out for when tracking my clicks. If somebody clicks the left ad on the homepage, when I review my stats it will tell me that this particular channel had activity and how much.

The Newbie Mistake

When you create your google Ad, Adsense automatically generates some Javascript code you have to place on your website. When I first started using custom channels, I thought I was taking a shortcut by mimicking the same code across my pages but just changing the Custom Channel name. Boy was I wrong. I was noticing none of my stats were coming up right. The problem I had was that Google Adsense generates a series of numbers to associate with the naming convention you came up with.

For example. lf_index_main_left translates into this: google_ad_channel =”9249065953″;

Originally, I was saying: google_ad_channel =”lf_index_main_left”;

So it is IMPORTANT to pay attention to the number system associated with your custom channel.

Below is similar code Google will generate for you. In my case, this is the code generated for lf_index_main_left:

The following is a screenshot of my Stats Summary screen with the channels viewable. Note, I have hidden the values as to not break Google Adsense’s TOS (Terms of Service)

I hope this is useful to those of you who want to start using Custom Channels to track your ads with much greater detail.

Technorati Tags: Google Adsense, Google, Javascript, Blog