We all like to think that our sites are running at their full potentials, but the truth is, there is always room for improvement. And it’s amazing what a little tweak here and little tweak there can have on overall income.
One of the most important questions you need to answer about your site is your revenue mix. For many small sites, this mix consists of Google and nothing else. However, as the site gets bigger, other sources of revenue comes into the picture and it’s up to you to decide what should go where.
While it would be nice to put every single money making banners on a site, it’s simply not possible, unless you want to completely piss off your readership and have them leave. So now comes the questions; do I put a Google on this spot or something else? How about my forums? Do I use CPC, CPM or CPA banners? And on it goes.
I like to do my tweaking process once per week. Normally on a Friday – we call it the Friday Night Tweak Session (FNTS). Tweaks are made based on the effective CPM of each ad units. If one ad unit is under performing we try to figure out why. Then we try to figure how to get eCPM back up. Sometimes it means completely removing the ad unit. It all blows down to effective CPM per ad unit. I know what rate I need to get in order to be profitable. Only you can figure out what eCPM you need for your site.
Tweaking is all about information. To me, there is no such thing as information overload. I track my sites using no less than three stats engines. I have Google channel information on every ad unit and every part of the sites. If you don’t have any channels set up for your AdSense, do it. The information it provides you is invaluable.