Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I've been struggling with Ad Manager for a little while now. I like the idea of it, and it strikes me that Google has ahold of about half a good product there. So for those of you who have been working with it, if you have features you'd like to see, post them here, or if you know how to help out with other issues, you can post that too.
My first list:
- Respond to support issues in a timely manner. I have had an open issue about importing my AdSense channels for MONTHS. Every now and then I drop another email and they tell me engineering is still looking into it. If you can't figure it out, just say so.
- Why isn't Ad Manager more AdSense friendly yet? It doesn't cover placements for ad links? Why isn't there some kind of a built in rotator function to evenly serve differently styled AdSense blocks in the same placement? I have to do it myself with PHP.
- The download / upload system for ad slots is severely borked. First of all, if you put a few ad slots in by hand, and then download them in a CSV file, it would be natural to assume you could edit that file, add a bunch of new ad slots, and upload the same file back up - but you can't! it doesn't work. The BulkSampleAdSlots.csv file has an extra column for Placement Names. Why doesn't the download CSV have that column too?
- Along the same lines are the cryptic error messages when it doesn't want to accept your bulk upload file. Tells me parse errors on random lines. The only thing different is one word in the ad slot name. What parse error? Is there a limit to the length of the names? There's nothing in the doc for that. I created the file from scratch, I used the download file (after adding the Placement Names row) and I pasted my data directly into the Bulk sample file - still the same parse errors.
The worst thing about it is that if, at any point, you run into an error or stopping point with *one* thing, however small, it stops your whole program. For example, I was trying to upload hundreds of ad slots, but it didn't like eight. So it wouldn't upload ANY.
I tried to import my existing channels (I have a lot of those too) and it didn't like *one* (says it already existed in the account, when it didn't) so it wouldn't import any of them.
And that's just the AdSense portion of it. More later.
Why isn't there some kind of a built in rotator function to evenly serve differently styled AdSense blocks in the same placement?
I am trying to force the ad rotation by rotating the Ad Manager generated code with PHP; so far I have impressions in my account, but no clicks. And my traffic is way up. So I'm thinking maybe I'm doing it wrong, but hey, I can't check cause I can't click, can I?
They finally uploaded my bulk ad slot file for me - according to the support response I got, it was because my CSV file didn't have my pub ID - but guess what, the sample file I downloaded had no place for it!
Usability stuff like this just drives me nuts.
Also not clear on the reporting. I'm seeing impressions in one part, not seeing them in the AdSense impressions box on the Placement reports. Why not?
This whole thing smacks of yet another thing they buy, they don't really fix it up, but it doesn't really work, and you can't really get decent support. (Something like the current state of the Google Affiliate Network, but that's another post)
I'll let it go to the end of the day; if I still get no clicks, it goes back in the dustbin. It's more important for me to be able to rotate ad blocks (for testing AND to combat ad blindness) than it is to play with this thing.
It's too bad though, because on the face of it, it *sounds* like exactly what I need.
The Ad Manager team works closely with our team because of how many Ad Manager users are also AdSense publishers. :)
ASA
Another issue I haven't run into yet but I'm sure I will is channels. I don't see any way to apply one or more channels to an AdSense ad slot, which is how I usually track things for testing purposes. On the other hand, When I name my placements, it shows up in my AdSense account as a channel, but it's not part of my 200 channels. So I'm not entirely sure how this works? Would like to get some clarification on this.
I'd love to see Google ad manager but it is too complicated and confusing to use. I hope they will get it fixed it...
Yes, I know I should be able to keep track of this myself but it seems like something the software could do a lot more easily and accurately.
It's possible this capability already exists and I just haven't discovered it, in which case I will withdraw in stunned silence.
Yes, I know I should be able to keep track of this myself but it seems like something the software could do a lot more easily and accurately.
It's possible this capability already exists and I just haven't discovered it, in which case I will withdraw in stunned silence.
I've now confirmed that the 'one creative per page' instruction just isn't working.
That said - apparently you can only use the bulk upload to add new ad slots, you can't use it to make a change, even if it's just a description change. I understand why you wouldn't want to indiscriminately make changes to ad slots, but I think a confirming "are you sure you want to do this?" should be sufficient; after all you *can* make the changes manually. But once you get over a handful of ads, it's really a PITA.
I would like an Advertiser Payment system to be incorporated. As a small time publisher, I think a payment system hosted by Google will add more authenticity/transparency/convenience. Publishers like me would love to sell space but have been shying away just because of the logistics of managing money (which I think has been one of the reasons for the success behind AdSense.)
Thank you all.
I'd like to see it made self-service for advertisers.
Let the advertisers choose their own ad slots, upload their own creatives, schedule their own campaigns and pay for it with Google checkout or PayPal etc. All I want to do is approve or deny the ad. (I admit I am spoiled by the simplicity and ease of Adsense.)
For whatever reason, some advertisers want to advertise directly through me and not through Adwords and there no easy way to do it.
ASA
Hi All,Thanks for your great comments about Google Ad Manager. We truly appreciate and value your feedback since it directly influences Ad Manager improvements.
In addition to this forum which our product team keeps a close eye on, the Google Ad Manager Help Forum has a section for Ad Manager Features and Product feedback which our product team reads on a regular basis. I recommend posting your questions in this forum in addition to Webmaster World for the greatest visibility. You can access the Ad Manager Help Forum here: [google.com...]
To address the specific questions in this thread I have provided answers below:
Bulk Upload:
The bulk upload tool in Ad Manager is a powerful time saving tool for creating your Ad Manager inventory. However, we're aware that working with CSV files can cause formatting issues which lead to errors. Our team is working to make bulk uploads easier to use, and to eliminate the guesswork when troubleshooting errors.
As you mentioned, at this time you cannot currently bulk edit your ad slots, and this is an area our team is concurrently working on. In the meantime, if you need to make bulk changes to multiple ad slots, please contact the Google Ad Manager team who can assist you with bulk changes: [google.com...]
AdSense Link Units:
AdSense is seamlessly integrated in Ad Manager to serve text/image-ads in order to help users maximize the revenue of their unsold and remant inventory. In order to take advantage of this feature, you must design your ad slot sizes according to AdSense standards: [google.com...]
Since link units are non-standard sizes, they're not eligible to be integrated with Ad Manager at this time. If you would like to serve your AdSense link units in Ad Manager, you can do so by pasting the link unit tag into Ad Manager as a rich media creative. However, please note that click data will not be reported in Ad Manager if you do this, and you will have to track this data in your AdSense account.
AdSense Rotator:
This is a great idea, and we understand the need for publishers to do A/B testing with their AdSense ads. We'll take this feature into consideration as we continue to make improvements to Ad Manager.
At this time, this is a manual process and you will need to edit your AdSense settings on a slot-by-slot basis to test the performance of different color palettes. You can edit your AdSense settings by following these instructions: [google.com...]
Step-by-Step Help:
I recommend clicking the 'Getting Started' link in the top of your account. This will take you through an overview of how Ad Manager works, allow you to click-through interactive tutorials, and provide you with additional resources to help you get started.
Channels:
The placements you create in Ad Manager will show up in your AdSense channels for reporting purposes. You can report off of these placements in AdSense, but they can only be modified in your Ad Manager account.
One Creative Per Page:
The one creative per page feature only applies to line items that contain multiple creatives. If multiple line items are targeting a single page, more than one creative may appear.
Keeping track of what is pointed at each ad slot:
I recommend trying our competing line item reports. You can access this reports from any line item, ad slot, or placement. This will provide you with a table of all line items that are competing in a particular slot. For more information, please visit: [google.com...]
Advertiser Payment System / Self-Service:
These are great feature requests, and I agree integrating a payment system into Ad Manager would be very useful to help publishers with the invoicing and billing aspects of their ad operations. Additionally, advertiser self-service would help publishers scale their ad sales. As we continue to make improvements to Ad Manager, we hope to offer options like this in the future.
Keep the great ideas and comments coming. Your feedback helps us shape and design Ad Manager around your needs.
Thanks to ASA and the Ad Manager team for the feedback. I realize they're always trying to get us into the Google forums (having that issue with AdWords too) but it's all I can do to make it here, let alone yet more forums.
Still would like to see them work the link units in - I realize they are a non standard format, but there are plenty of sites, large and small, that *only* run AdSense for advertising, and there's just as much call (and need) to A/B test link units as there is for ad units.
Maybe the next version will work out better.
Seems to be a similar problem with Gmail, which you can fix by switching to http rather than https. Doesn't seem to be an option with Ad Manager though. Doesn't seem to be a browser / cache issue.
One thing I really wish we had in Ad Manager is the ability to assign more than one channel to an ad slot.
On the face of it, it shouldn't matter; I'm making more money. Except I don't know what decisions may be made on the Google side based on my seemingly disastrous CTR and eCPM. Like as in which ads to show where, or how I get smart priced.
I think I'm going to take a couple of pages out of ad manager and put regular AdSense code on them, to see what happens.
However, I seem to have a TON more impressions and much lower CTR and eCPM. I put some regular AdSense ads in today and saw an immediate jump in both. That doesn't mean that Ad Manager caused it - it's also one of my busiest days of the year, and the stats aren't real time, and there are a hundred other factors that could be causing the difference. Too soon to tell if that's really causation.
I'd love to have the ability that ad manager is supposed to add over anything else: minimum CPC for adsense.
And the other illusive is geotargeting based on where the visitor is coming from (the affiliate ads could really use that: they only work in certain countries), and some of my advertisers would love it too.
But I've never ever seen anything from GOOG this hard to use, or even just understand what it can and can't do.
My first suggestions:
- a FEATURE list with a few words of explanation what the terminology you use means
- a proper MANUAL
- a TUTORIAL showing how to get the different features it's supposed to have to work for a *simple* setup
Might be a good idea to grab somebody who' never played with the thing and let the developers observe (not help) what makes the users struggle, then go back to the drawing board.
