Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Since there is a delay of up to 2 months before Publishers are paid, Euro publishers are forced to bear the losses as the dollar continues to tumble.
Is there a reason why we can't set our accounts to Euro instead of US$?
Especially for those of us who have predominantly European Advertisers and Visitors. The advertisers on my sites are nearly all Europeans with Adwords accounts in Euro.
The advertisers on my sites are nearly all Europeans with Adwords accounts in Euro.
Same here and I wish too that it was all in Euro.
[edited by: Jean at 9:51 pm (utc) on July 19, 2007]
Better yet, try to earn revenue in more than one currency. (Trust me--it's great for peace of mind!)
Stick around long enough, until the trend goes the other way, and you'll profit from the dollar's upswing.
Admire your optimism EFV, but I think it'll be a long time before that happens. ;)
Now why can't Google pay UK publishers in Pounds? My account balance always looks quite reasonable until I remember to halve it. :(
The problem is finding an alternative to Adsense at all, let alone one that pays in currencies other than dollars.
There is a workaround to get a similar effect, however.
If you can predict your monthly USD revenues to some degree, you can hedge your EUR earnings from currency fluctuations by going long euros against the dollar in the currency market for the same amount.
Nowadays, with Contracts For Difference and mini-forex accounts, you can hedge against currency fluctuations for even smaller amounts.
The problem is finding an alternative to Adsense at all, let alone one that pays in currencies other than dollars.
Affiliate programs can work well in some cases (depending on your topic, audience, and type of content).
I've found that affiliate links and AdSense ads can complement each other nicely: On a site devoted to antipodean travel, for example, an affiliate program could be used for products or services of broad interest such as hotels, while AdSense ads would generate additional revenue for highly focused subtopics such as kangaroo photo safaris, didgeridoo music camps, Peter Jackson film festivals, and ferry tours to Tasmania.
put your payments on hold until the $ recovers.
They could be on hold for many years to come!
gibbergibber - assuming you're in Europe or the UK, there are quite a few affiliate programs that pay in Euros or £ Sterling. Your favourite search engine should be able to come up with several suggestions. :)
I don't want affiliate programmes, I want pay-per-click advertising, and the only provider in Europe seems to be Adsense.
Obviously if you're a huge site you could probably shop around for other deals, but if you're just a small independent site there really is no alternative to Adsense.
Someone somewhere has to pay for something that would complicate their books or cause them to lose money on the exchange rate changes at the end of the month.
A very interesting point.
However, allowing publisher euro accounts can be a win-win situation.
This is because (I believe) G already takes in money in euros from adwords advertisers, and they have to exchange that currency into USD to repatriate the payments.
If, instead, they'd transfer those EUR revenues into adsense EUR account holder payments, that would reduce costs associated with either exchanging into USD or hedging their EUR revenues each month.
If the balance is in favor of EUR account holders receiving more than G takes in EUR revenues, G can still do the exchanging of currencies (in very large amounts) more economically than each publisher can alone.
This means that the fees associated should be more in the range of less than 1% of total, even if the EUR account balancing is done on a rolling basis.
Payments through bank transfers come to European adsense publishers directly from a European bank, so the exchange USD/Euro takes place only on a "virtual" level and there is no exchange cost.
So, at the moment, Google only pays us Europeans in dollars because it lets them pay us less?
Presumably if the dollar started getting really strong and the euro really weak, Google would suddenly decide that Euro payments are a really good idea after all. ;-)
The problem for me is that the revenue stream coming from the US has been steadily devalueing. The US advertisers live in a large competitive market and may be bidding the same in dollars as they did previously, but to me the revenue from these ads are worth a lot less.
But the European market is fragmentalised into many different languages, and I suspect that European advertisers do not have to bid as much to get an ad placed. So the downturn in revenue from the US is not being offset by an increase in revenue from Europe and the UK.
A couple of years ago I received my first $100 from Adsense, and it was worth GBP 85 - Wow! I was over the moon! But today its worth less than GBP 50 - Yuk!
I can't see any improvement coming. The dollar has fallen because of the US economic situation and that will probably never return to where it was. The dollar zone is now in competion with China and the Euro zone.
Google Adsense doesn't pay at the month end, and accounts are almost always closed on the month end. This means that you have to account for funds in US$ as an asset, funds which you cannot convert until they are released by Google at some future exchange rate.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I could be paying corporation tax based on assets which may turn out to be overvalued.
If Google can bill Adwords in pounds sterling (as they do when I set bids and get invoices from them) then they can most certainly both display day-to-day income and monthly remittance for Adsense in pounds sterling.
Are you sure that's right? It's not like you have those funds until Google sends you the cheque, you don't even get any interest on them.
Surely those funds are more like an unpaid bill: Google owes you that money for services rendered, and they haven't paid you yet.
I'm not an accountant either! :-)
BUT... Commission Junction has had no trouble paying me in Euros for the last couple of years, so I don't see why Google should have any trouble either.
As far as I can tell, Google either can't be bothered to provide euro payments, or they're deliberately avoiding it in order to profit from the incredibly weak dollar.
As far as I can tell, Google either can't be bothered to provide euro payments, or they're deliberately avoiding it in order to profit from the incredibly weak dollar.
This forum had a lot of posts questioning Google's motives before AdSense offered EFT. But EFT was (and is) offered--it just took time. So I'd suggest choosing between (a) being patient and (b) handing over your AdSense screen real estate to Commission Junction until Google is ready to pay in euros. :-)
Are you sure that's right? It's not like you have those funds until Google sends you the cheque, you don't even get any interest on them.
It's not just about the weakness, it's about not knowing how much you're actually going to get. Even though I can see a dollar amount due to me right now, I have absolutely no idea what that will translate to by the time it's been converted into euros.
Would Google's American members stand for it if Google sent them payments that didn't match the amount they'd earned? That happens to european members all the time as the dollar fluctuates wildly.
--handing over your AdSense screen real estate to Commission Junction until Google is ready to pay in euros--
I don't want to put affiliate links instead of pay-per-click, they do not generate that much money on my site.
For my site (and I'm sure for many others in Europe too) there really isn't any alternative to Adsense, which is part of the reason this is all so frustrating. Google can do what they like, and we have to obey.
Even though I can see a dollar amount due to me right now, I have absolutely no idea what that will translate to by the time it's been converted into euros.
Welcome to the global economy!
Also, "AdSense uncertainty" is much less than with other revenue streams such as:
- Display advertising, where large agencies and their clients pay after the fact, resulting in much longer delays than you get with AdSense.
- Affiliate commissions from hotel bookings, car rentals, etc., where it may be months until the sale is fulfilled and cancellations can (and will) occur during the waiting period.
I'm not familiar with your country's accounting regulations, but do you have to treat reported but unpaid AdSense earnings as assets, or is that just the accounting method you've chosen? You might want to ask your accountant how other businesses in your country (such as import-export businesses) deal with the uncertainties of exchange rates when tracking or reporting revenues.
What is shown on your Reports page is not what you made. It is only once your earnings are finalized and posted to "Payment History" are they finalized. They certainly would not count as accounts receivable before that point.
The amount you have earned *does not* fluctuate on a daily basis. What you have earned is in USD as per your agreement with Google. The value in USD remains constant.
What you are asking is for them to do something that is convenient for you, simply for your convenience. The problem is that it is incredibly inconvenient for Google. How do you make it worth google's time, effort and money to do this for you?
You are dealing with a US company that does it's accounting in Dollars. You want their money? Then you have to make concessions to their policies and the exchange rate. It is nothing unique to AdSense, it is the way global business works. I got nailed big time when the Mexican Peso got devalued by about 50% in a week back around 1980.
If you don't like it, you could always push your government to adopt the US dollar as your official currency, so your AdSense income won't be fluctuating compared to your local currency. It works for Panamanian AdSensers.
You are dealing with a US company that does it's accounting in Dollars. You want their money? Then you have to make concessions to their policies and the exchange rate. It is nothing unique to AdSense, it is the way global business works.
This is very true and I agree wholeheartedly.
If Google were a company based in a European nation and dealt exclusively in Euros, I would understand and accept that the global exchange implications would influence (either positively or negatively) my revenues while participating in their advertising program.
As for not knowing what you are going to receive until it has been exchanged has always been the same, the poor value of the USD has nothing to do with this.
There are many banks in the UK where you can open a USD account and I am sure the rest of europe has similar accounts available. You could open one and have adsense earnings paid into that in USD, and then exchange it as and when you need it, or if you can wait, when the exchange rate improves but I bet you would pay more in bank charges for this.
Don't get me wrong, I am in the UK and I don't like seeing the USD weaken each and every day but I chose adsense, adsense didn't choose me. I decided to work with a program that pays in USD and I have to accept the concequences of that.
