Google are now communicating to Adsense publishers about the new changes to their contextual ad system that I’ve been writing about for the past 24 hours.
They are taking the line that it will bring more advertising dollars into the network which will of course benefit publishers.
CPM ads – One of the biggest changes for publishers will of course be the CPM (cost per impression) based bidding that advertisers will now be able to engage in which means we won’t just be paid on a per click basis but for some advertisers we’ll be paid whether clicks are registered or not.
Things could get a little complicated with this introduction as CPC (cost per click) ads and CPM ads will compete with each other – the highest value ad will be shown. So if a CPC ad worth 20 cents is available and a CPM ad worth 19 cents is available the CPC one will get served first.
Expanded text ads – another new feature is ads that can take over the full banner or skyscraper ad in an ad block. So instead of seeing 4 ads in an adblock you might start seeing 1 ad in it. Again these ads will only show if the value of that ad is worth more than the other 4 ads added together. The ads will fit with the color scheme that you’ve previously chosen for your text ads.
More Image ads – publishers will also see more image ads on Google (if you have enabled them in your Adsense code). You might also notice the introduction of a small number of flash and animated ads which are currently being tested.
Site targeted ads – as previously mentioned advertisers will soon be able to specifically target (and block) your blog for advertising.
All in all these changes are going to shake things up a little for advertisers and publishers alike. I’m sure we’ll see a short period with some fluctuating results for publishers as advertisers test the new features – hopefully things will settle and we’ll see the changes open up the market for advertisers even more. One would hope that Google’s spin on it is right and that we’ll see these new freedoms for advertisers increase the numbers of those willing to advertise (which in turn should build the competition for the ad space we have available). Time will tell.
Read more about Google’s Changes here. Scrivs posts about how this might impact Publishers.
Darren Rowse is the founder of ProBlogger.net, a blog about the many ways of adding an income stream to blogs.
Darren owns and writes a variety of blogs including Digital Photography Blog and Camera Phone
Zone. He is also a co-founder of the Breaking News Blog Collective.
