But what if you see a dollar amount on your AdSence report, but can't figure out which blog it came from, or which ad someone clicked on? You can look on google analytics if you have it installed on your blogs, but if you have several blogs and don't even know which blog to start with, you'll still have to do some super-sleuthing.
I have each of my blogs listed as URL channels on AdSense, so if someone clicks an advertisement, it's usually right there on the AdSense home page and I don't have to dig for the information I need. Every so often, though, I'll see the monetary value earned, but none of my URL channels show a click. Huh? How can that be? I've checked and double-checked to make sure that I didn't forget to add a URL channel for a blog, but nope, they're all accounted for. I won't tell you how much this has bothered me, not knowing where those pennies came from, but suffice it to say that I spent way more time that I should have trying to figure it out, before getting frustrated and moving on to something else.
This morning I noticed that I had a click worth more than my average earnings, but again, none of my blogs was listed as having a click. I really wanted to find where that one came from and started clicking around the various tabs on AdSense and bingo, I found the solution.
From the main AdSense page, I clicked on full report, and from there, clicked the drop-down menu for add dimension, then chose sites. Well whatdya know, there it was. One of my blogs was listed, but with a .co.uk extension, which I'm assuming is the United Kingdom version of blogger. Apparently when someone outside of the U.S. views a blogger-hosted blog, they will see it with the extension that is appropriate for their neck of the woods, and not simply the blogger.com that we would see here in the states.
You can add other dimensions to that report such as ad types, ad size, etc, which will give you more information about which ads have been clicked, helping you determine future strategy.
I hope this information will be useful to at least one poor soul out there who has been tearing his or her hair out like I have.
~ Marie Anne
Wow, my ads on the side of the pages got almost all my clicks whereas my banner withing the individual posts got hardly any clicks. I never knew how to look for this - Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, MA! I'll have to keep this in mind when I finally get AdSense. I know I love to track any changes on my blogs, and this will come in handy.
ReplyDeleteYes it's true, you end up viewing the local version of Blogger depending on where you are. I set my blog up while in the USA, but now I am in the UK whenever I try to access it I am taken in via .co.uk, which you rightly pointed out is the UK extension.
ReplyDeleteUseful tips, I use URL Channels as well, it's the easiest way to identify domains and the sites where your earnings come from. In fact use it for every domain where you have Adsense ads, even if it's shared earnings.