Evaluation of Google AdSense reports and how to create them

This page provides a detailed overview of the evaluation options for Google AdSense ads and a step-by-step guide for creating your own reports.

The most essential AdSense report breakdowns and metrics

Let’s start with theory—namely, with your AdSense account’s key figures and metrics. There are a variety of performance indicators that cater to almost any query. These metrics facilitate your website’s layout and content development as well as help you to identify weak points and effectively monitor advertising revenue.

Although Google AdSense can partially replace additional analysis tools such as Google Analytics or Matomo in theory, I would not advise it but to keep collecting as much data as possible.

Estimated earnings

Your estimated earnings represent the balance in your account for the selected period. Please note that this amount is an estimate and may change once your earnings are verified for accuracy at the end of each month.

Tip: If you connect your AdSense account with Advanced Ads, you will also see the estimated earnings in your WordPress backend. This means you always have an overview of your revenue when working on your site.

Page views

Each time a user views a page displaying Google ads, Google registers a page view. Regardless of the number of ads displayed, Google will count only one page view.

Page RPM (revenue per mille)

Page RPM indicates the average earnings per thousand page views.

Impressions

Google counts an impression for each ad request where at least one ad has started loading on the user’s device. Therefore, this metric represents the number of ad units for content ads—or search queries for search ads—that successfully loaded ads.

Impression RPM (revenue per mille)

Impression RPM shows your average earnings for every 1000 impressions.

Clicks

Clicks indicate the number of times a user clicked on an ad.

CTR (click-through rate)

The click-through rate (CTR) measures the average frequency of ad clicks per impression.

While a high CTR is desirable for increased earnings, excessively high CTRs may signal unnatural clicks, prompting AdSense to take protective measures.

Designing your site layout to distinguish content from advertisements is crucial to prevent unintended clicks and align with the AdSense ad placement policies.

Active View Viewable

The Active View Viewable represents the percentage of viewable impressions out of all impressions that were measurable with Active View. This metric covers impressions from AdSense for content, AdSense for video, and AdSense for games ad units, excluding data from link units or dynamic allocation in Google Ad Manager.

Google’s ad viewability calculation solution, Active View, tracks the viewability of AdSense ads. Viewability expresses how likely it is that a visitor truly saw an ad. A viewable ad had at least 50% of its area displayed for one second or more.

CPC (cost per click)

The cost per click (CPC) is the amount you earn each time a user clicks on your ad. You calculate it by dividing the estimated earnings by the number of clicks received.

While the term may be misleading since it doesn’t involve costs for you, it’s commonly used from the perspective of advertisers who want to understand their expenses per click. Additionally, the click costs the advertiser more than what you earn, as Google also takes a share of it.

CPC heavily depends on the importance of keywords on your site. Advertisers bid more for highly competitive “money keywords,” resulting in a higher CPC. Regional differences also play a significant role, e.g., with the CPC being much higher in the USA compared to India.

These regional and content-related factors are often beyond your control. However, you can still positively influence the CPC through a high Active View value, see above.

Coverage

Coverage shows what portion of ad requests resulted in at least one displayed ad. It’s like a ratio: ads shown versus ads requested. Lower coverage means fewer ads displayed compared to possible ads.

Why is coverage a vital metric? This value can alert you to issues on your site.

Here are some examples:

• A low coverage value could indicate that you display too many ads simultaneously on your site. AdSense might not have enough relevant ads to serve every ad request. This could be due to the website’s theme, among other factors.
• Another reason could be that users leave your site too quickly, resulting in an ad request but no ad being served.
• You might have blocked too many categories, resulting in a lack of suitable ads for your site.
• Sometimes, AdSense also reduces the number of ads because Google distrusts the traffic to your site. Traffic from social media or invalid traffic could be one reason for this. 

The coverage value should ideally be around 90%. Deviations below this threshold could indicate a problem.

Page views per ad session

This metric shows how many pages a user views during a visit. It can thus indicate your site’s attractiveness. However, you can also expect a high bounce rate if the user finds the information they’re looking for immediately. It also depends on the specific website and search intent. Therefore, you should interpret this value with respect to your site’s characteristics.

Note that there are typically multiple ad impressions per page load.

Ad session duration

Ad session duration represents the average duration of an ad session in seconds. Google AdSense provides this metric, eliminating the need for additional analytics tools. It measures how long visitors stay on a website before leaving.

A high session duration suggests the site is engaging, prompting visitors to stay longer. Conversely, a low session duration may indicate issues such as navigation difficulties or uninteresting content. However, it’s crucial to consider other metrics like bounce rate for a comprehensive understanding of the site’s performance. Additionally, the type of website and the target audience can influence session duration.

Google AdSense report types

Besides the foundational report “Total Account by Day,” AdSense provides additional reports accessible via AdSense dashboard > Reports. Allow me to highlight a few that are pivotal for analyzing AdSense data.

Sites

This report is significant if you manage multiple websites with AdSense integration. It allows you to comfortably compare key metrics across your sites. To further refine your analysis, you can utilize “URL Channels.” 

This feature enables you to assess specific directories or sections of your website identified by URL prefixes. I’ll explain more about URL channels later.

Platforms

This AdSense report is exceptionally vital. It presents the distribution of your page views and earnings across various devices like:

• High-end mobile device (smartphone/mobile)
• Desktop
• Tablet
• Other (e.g., Smart TV)

The sequence is deliberate, reflecting the prevalence of mobile traffic in most domains. Analyzing the “page views to earnings” ratio provides valuable insights for optimizing your website design and ad positioning.

Countries

This analysis benefits publishers with international websites, enabling them to gauge success country-by-country. Moreover, it aids in enhancing site security. For instance, noticing substantial traffic or revenue from non-target countries may indicate invalid traffic from bots or similar sources. 

Given the risk this poses to your AdSense account, you can implement measures like IP blocking to mitigate such traffic.  

An even more elegant and profitable solution would be to set up Advanced Ads’ Geo-targeting so as not to load your AdSense ads for visitors from these countries and integrate other ads instead.

Ad units

This comprehensive report conveniently showcases all your ad units, providing ample comparative data across your AdSense-enabled websites.

If you manage multiple manual ads, these performance metrics can provide valuable insights for informed decision-making. The AdSense report allows you to explore different ad types and placements, especially when split-testing multiple ad unit variations. 

Ad sizes

This analysis gives you information about the performance of different AdSense ad sizes and the Responsive format.

Custom channels

If you find that the ad unit reports lack the granularity you need, you have another option for refining your analysis by utilizing Custom Channels. This feature allows you to categorize and analyze ad units based on your defined evaluation criteria.

Accessing Custom Channels isn’t immediately apparent: You’ll find it above the reports, on the right side, represented by the gear icon > Manage Custom Channels. Select the AdSense product from there, typically “Content”, but “Search” might also be available.

Once you’ve assigned a name to your channel, you can designate which ad units should be linked to it from your created list. Note that this analysis function won’t be available if you exclusively use automatic ads.

URL channels

Like custom channels, these allow you to group specific domains or subdomains for analysis.

Let’s take a closer look at how they function. For instance, if you set up the URL channel https://example.com, it will monitor the overall performance of your website.

If your post URLs include categories, such as “reviews”, then the URL channel https://example.com/reviews will monitor the performance of all posts within this category.

Moreover, you can monitor the performance of individual posts or pages by creating a URL channel for a specific URL, such as https://example.com/reviews/iphone-12.

However, keep in mind that you’re limited to setting up a maximum of 500 URL channels per AdSense account, which means you may not be able to monitor every single post

Served creatives

This AdSense report provides insights into the performance of various ad types, such as text, HTML5, image, video, native image, animated image, and others.

More AdSense report types

Here are several other standard AdSense reports that you might find useful. Take a look and consider which ones align with your interests and goals:

• Entire account by week/month: This report mirrors the daily report structure but with different time frames.
• Targeting types: This report summarizes ad targeting types such as personalized, contextual, placement, run of network, and other types of ads as a percentage including more metrics.
• Bid types: Typically, most earnings come from CPC (cost-per-click) ads, with a small portion from CPM (cost-per-mille) ads, which are billed based on visibility rather than clicks.
• Ad networks: This report primarily displays ads from ad networks like Google AdWords, Criteo, or Amazon.
• Top pages: If a URL generates exceptionally high earnings, you will find listed pages here. The timeframe of this analysis is limited to the last 30 days.

The reporting dashboard offers comprehensive analysis capabilities for smaller and medium-sized publishers, leaving almost nothing to be desired.

Timeframe

Choose the timeframe for your analysis. In addition to the predefined periods, you can create your own date range by selecting the “Custom” option. The maximum timeframe allowed is three years, starting from today’s date.

Comparisons

You can compare values over different time periods. Select a suitable comparison period for your chosen timeframe or manually mark the start and end dates of the periods you want to compare.

Charts

Click on the chart icon to select the type of chart for visualization. You have three options:

• Bar charts
• Pie charts
• Line charts (Day, Week, or Month)

The availability of specific chart types depends on the data. In analyses involving earnings, the most common choice is a line chart.

Google AdSense report list

You can rearrange reports in the list using “Drag and Drop”. The top report will be opened by default when you access the AdSense reports.

Exporting and scheduling AdSense reports

You are able to export reports or schedule them to be sent via email at specified times. To access these options, click on the three-dot symbol.

Export

You have three export format options for your AdSense report:

• Google Sheets
• Excel spreadsheet
• CSV file

You can then process the exported files further as needed.

Scheduling

You can also schedule AdSense reports by clicking on the three dots. Set the frequency to daily, weekly, or monthly, choose the timeframe for the analysis, and specify the recipient’s email address. Afterwards, Google will email you this AdSense report as a report.zip file.

Creating a custom AdSense report in five steps

While the report dashboard offers standard evaluations that provide a comprehensive overview of various areas, there may be instances where you require more precise insights. You can create custom reports tailored to your specific needs for such cases.

By following these steps, you’ll have the tools to address your inquiries about AdSense performance accurately.

What’s your goal?

Before creating an AdSense report, it’s crucial to define the objective you want to achieve with it. The more precise your goal, the more accurate and insightful your report will be.

For instance, you aim to evaluate the performance of the In-article and In-page ads on different devices by analyzing their view frequency and impact on your earnings. You’ve implemented the ads on one of your websites to conduct this assessment.

Where to begin?

To kick off the report creation process, select a timeframe during which you’ve already collected impressions of the new ad type. You can create the AdSense report once you’ve gathered the necessary data at least once.

Next, create a new report by clicking on the plus sign above the report selection.

At this point, the headline will display “Unsaved Report”. Don’t worry about naming it just yet; you can do that later when saving. By default, the report properties are derived from the basic daily report.

Determining the metrics

Now, let’s refine the metrics for our report. Begin by selecting metrics like 

• Estimated earnings
• Active View Viewable
• Clicks
• CTR
• Impression RPM
• Coverage 

Configure breakdown and filters

When choosing breakdowns, I use “Content platforms” as the primary option. Next, set up filters by clicking on the filter icon. I choose the Ad format filters and select In-article and In-page ads for my custom AdSense report.

I advise exploring breakdown options to understand evaluation choices better. In my case, I focus on analyzing the ad performance for traffic from Germany of specific ad formats on particular devices.

You can utilize the report scheduling function to receive the report via email regularly for review and analysis.

Save your custom AdSense report

Finally, save the report with a name that suits your purpose.

With these five steps, you can generate reports covering almost all crucial aspects of your AdSense account. Receive regular email notifications to stay informed about your performance.

Connect Google AdSense with Google Analytics

Integrating Google AdSense with Google Analytics unlocks deep insights into your revenue streams and user engagement that you won’t find on the AdSense report dashboard alone. By linking your AdSense and Analytics accounts, you gain access to a range of benefits:

• Understand which pages, links, or content are generating the most revenue. This insight allows you to focus on high-performing areas to maximize earnings.
• Discover how user behaviors, such as average session duration or bounce rate, correlate with ad earnings. This knowledge helps you tailor your content strategy to engage your audience better and increase ad revenue.
• Create custom reports that blend AdSense and user metrics for a holistic view of performance. Identify underperforming content and pinpoint optimization opportunities.

The integration process is straightforward. You’ll need to ensure administrative access to both accounts, then link AdSense to Analytics through the settings. Once you have that done, you’ll enable AdSense reporting within Analytics. 

After integration, your AdSense data will be conveniently located in the Behavior section of Google Analytics. From there, you can examine metrics like publisher page performance and revenue trends to better understand how your content impacts your earnings.

Conclusion about Google Adsense reports

By understanding the essential metrics like estimated earnings, page views, click-through rates, and more, you’ve equipped yourself with the tools to navigate the complexities of online monetization. Each metric offers a window into different aspects of your website’s performance, empowering you to make informed decisions that drive growth and success.

Moreover, integrating Google AdSense with Google Analytics amplifies your analytical capabilities, providing deeper insights into user behavior and content performance. With granular revenue tracking, valuable user behavior insights, and customized AdSense reporting options, you comprehensively understand your audience and how to optimize your content for maximum impact.

As you move forward, remember that knowledge is your greatest asset. By continually analyzing your AdSense report data and refining your strategies, you’re not just adapting to changes—you’re shaping the future of your online presence. So, embrace the insights you’ve gained, stay curious, and keep exploring new opportunities.