Google announced updates to Adsense Auto ads Tuesday designed to make them easier to implement and customize. AdSense publishers will be notified via email when the updates, which will be rolling out over the next several weeks, are live in
No code needed to turn on Auto ads in any AdSense account. Auto ads, introduced last year, use machine learning to determine where and when to place ads on publishers’ pages. Originally, to use Auto ads, publishers had to place a code on their sites. Now, Auto ads will work via any AdSense ad unit code, so any AdSense publishers can now turn on Auto ads in their accounts without having to add any code to their sites. You can see your Auto ads settings in the new Ads > Overview page in AdSense.
More controls and reporting. To turn Auto ads off on specific pages or sections of your site, you can now add the URLs to the Page Exclusions list.
Google has also added a preview tool to see how the Auto ads will look before going live. Inside the preview, you’ll be able to delete specific ad placements. Auto ads will then automatically create a new placement somewhere else on the page for you to review.
An ad load slider allows you to control the number of Auto ads to show on your pages, and you can specify the types of ad formats that can get placed by Auto ads, including Matched content.
The reporting dashboard will now show manual ad and Auto ads performance comparisons.
Google also teased a new experiment type for Auto ads that it’s working on to see how Auto ads will look on your site and trial them on a segment of your traffic.
Why we should care. Google is building on its machine learning capabilities for ad placement optimization. While keeping user experience in mind, the combination of Auto ads and manual controls should result in more revenue for publishers. With the new side-by-side reporting on manual and Auto ads, publishers will be able to see if these new tools deliver on that goal.
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Google is making system updates to fight invalid traffic and suspicious activity on its ad networks, the company announced Wednesday. It will also give AdSense and AdMob publishers more information when ad serving is restricted as a result of these new measures.
New risk prediction models. Google said this launch incorporates new machine learning models to predict high-risk ad traffic and block ad requests before they serve. The aim is to “identify potentially invalid traffic or
“These defenses allow us to limit ad serving as needed to further protect our advertisers and
Site verification paying off. This builds on Google’s existing detection and filtering systems as well as its move last year to require new sites to go through a process to verify domain ownership or authorization to modify a site’s content before being approved to serve ads. Prior to that change, site owners could simply reuse (and misuse) ad code from another site without adding the new sites to their AdSense accounts. Google said Wednesday it now blocks more than 120 million ad requests with this feature.
Publisher notifications. Google says most publishers won’t notice the change, but those who are impacted will be notified about ad traffic restrictions in the AdSense or AdMob Policy Center. In the UI, they’ll see that the number of ads they can show has been limited and recommendations to address the restriction. “This will allow them to understand why they may be experiencing reduced ad serving, and what steps they can take to resolve any issues and continue partnering with us,” said Ferrate.
Publishers that notice declines in ad traffic should check the Policy Center for any notifications related to ad restrictions.
Why we should care. For advertisers, the system updates should provide additional protections against paying to show your ads to bots rather than real people. Advertisers won’t have visibility into which domains are impacted since the blocking happens before ads can serve. Google also isn’t disclosing any specifics about what its systems are designed to detect in order to keep bad actors from potentially reverse engineering its efforts.
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