Google has launched a new service called Google AdSense Certified Partners. Google have partnered with a select group of Internet marketing firms who specialise in helping publishers monetise their websites with Adsense.
Adsense is Google’s advertising network. How does it work? Businesses buy advertising space via the Adwords system. Google places these adverts in search results and on publisher websites. Google shares some of the earnings with the publishers (around 68% goes to the publisher, the rest to Google).
It is very easy to set it up for your blog or website and then leave it. So why the need for Certified Partners?
Like all things these days it can be optimised. Pasting the code into a template and then forgetting about it will earn a publisher some money, but the clickthrough rates and CPC’s will probably be low. It takes a lot of experimentation to get it right.
More importantly, Adsense Partners can offer their publishing clients a more targeted form of advertising which can attract higher paying advertisers. This is a bit complex (OK, what I really mean is that I don’t know how it is done) but it has something to do with utilising different networks within the Google advertising system.
What do AdSense certified partners do?
Currently the Google AdSense Certified Partners are dominated by overseas marketing firms, however, what is exciting for us (maybe just me?) is that there is now a UK company on the list: OKO Digital.
I asked Mat Bennett from OKO what it means to be an Adsense certified partner.
“AdSense certified partners don’t just deal with AdSense for content, but have to train and be certified in the whole range of AdSense products. This allows certified partners to highlight other products, such as custom search ads, AdSense for video and even AdMob mobile advertising that might benefit publishers, then assist with application, implementation and optimisation of those ads.
Partners can apply lessons learned from a wider range of sites, helping publishers “short-cut” that learning and see the benefit quicker.
The methods that partners use are so effective that many of them will work on a performance only basis. We are trained by Google, so publishers can be confident that they won’t be putting their account at risk with their attempts to optimise.”
They are down there at the bottom of the Google AdSense Certified Partners page, look!
At the moment this is probably a service for medium to larger publishers only. Small blogs probably will not benefit, but I guess (and I really am guessing now) that a website with at least 1000 unique visitors a day might benefit from this.
