Good questions that I'd like to know the answers to also.

Good questions! Count me in as well.

I would like to setup some of my affiliate pay-per-action ads competing with AdSense, but have not quite understood the mechanics of AdManager with regards to CPM.

I'll follow up with the Ad Manager team. Any other questions/thoughts/feedback?

ASA

Thanks again ASA. My second question would be, if the CPM is a parameter that comes from the ad networks, then how is the Adsense CPM calculated? Most of the time on my sites I just have PPC ads, so the CPM varies sometimes hour by hour, if not, minute by minute, depending on what ads are clicked.

I'll follow up with the Ad Manager team. Any other questions/thoughts/feedback?

Yes ASA, please make it simpler, much simpler.

I joined AdManager, and wow it was confusing. I gave up and have not returned.

I did try to follow the help topics etc, but none of it seemed to click with what I thought I had understood or could see.

I would love to use AdManager, but please make it more transparent and easier to use.

make it simpler, much simpler.

Or at least explain things better. We aren't all ad geeks.

I joined AdManager, and wow it was confusing. I gave up and have not returned.

I've gone back a few times, but haven't adopted it yet. Still too confusing.

At least I am not alone. I thought I was becoming stupid.
Waaaay too complicated and confusing. Looks like it was made by geeks, to be used by geeks.

Looks like it was made by geeks, to be used by geeks.

It's made for advertising industry geeks. It's not made for computer geeks.

ASA will get a better answer but my understanding of it is that AdManager relies on you for CPM information about direct advertising and ad-network ads and then gives you the option of allowing AdSense to compete for space.

This works great with direct advertising and we have used it very successfully. Let's say you have sold an ad schedule to a widget manufacturer at a fixed-rate CPM of $5 in a given series of ad units on your site. You then have the option of letting AdSense compete for those units -- meaning that, on a case-by-case basis, AdManager will either run the $5 direct ad or an AdSense ad, depending on which one delivers the highest eCPM. Pretty simple.

But in the case of ad networks (which, after all, are really remnant networks), it gets a little more dicey. Let's say that AllAds.com pays you -- on average -- $1.04 and ManyAds.com pays an average $1.05.

First of all, these are averages so AdManager can't really make an accurate judgment on a case-by-case basis. Secondly, most ad networks don't have a 100% fill rate -- i.e., they may pay an average of $1.04 but may only fill an average of 47% of the space you make available each day. This would mean that AdManager might be defaulting to an ad network that did not have an ad ready for you at that moment.

In other words, AdManager is very good at enabling competition in the case of direct advertising that has a fixed-price CPM. There is no way at the moment for it to accurately juggle AdSense and competing ad networks, since no one knows from one second to the next what a given ad network is paying.

This may change, however. As part of its AdExchange program, the Big Goog says it will in fact be measuring the second-by-second yield of selected ad networks and letting them compete against AdSense. (My understanding of this is that this is not an AdManager function, however).

I think this is pretty simple but it is hard to say in a few words. Here's one last attempt: OK for AdSense-direct ad competition, no good for AdSense-Other Ad Network competition (yet).

A postscript: I have found that AdSense yield improves when we make it compete against fixed-price ads -- like making a dog jump higher for a biscuit -- so this is certainly worth doing if you sell ads directly.

I should point out that when I said it was complicated, I was not meaning in terms of what it is used for, I was meaning how one actually puts it to use.

It is the implementation that is so confusing, when as far as I can see it can be, and imho should be, so much simpler to use.

I am surprised we have not heard anything more from AS as he or she did ask for comments and feedback.

I've gone back a few times, but haven't adopted it yet. Still too confusing.

count me in. i am actually only interested to get ad manager going because as i see it the tool offers the option to let adsense ads open in a new window.
i'm convinced that this would be a quite useful setting for my websites, but you know, still not interesting enough that i've taken the hurdle of fiddling around through this confusing geeky user interface for hours.

by the way, what i'm asking myself for long, why does adsense only offer this feature in the ad manager tool and not in our conventional adsense interface? also i have read that google frowns upon the target_blank practice and it is actually forbidden by the tos - although it's an option in the ad manager. that doesn't make sense at all.

I may start a new thread on this but has anyone else noticed a significant increase in earnings by using Ad Manager and I believe the new google ad exchange?

I had never before in adsense defined placements on my website. I have a fairly large industry specific site. It seems the CPM ads targeting my site have always paid better than contextual CPC ads.

Anyway I tried out Ad Manager. It forces you to define placement which I think are then put into Adsense.

My revenue and eCPM are way up now. I have turned on adsense to compete with my remnant inventory and put in a cpm floor.

Is this a result of the new Google Ad Exchange or is this just from adsense alone? Does defining placements in adsense make that much a difference in revenue for placement targeted ads or am I getting new advertisers from the new Doubleclick Google Ad Exchange? The advertisers are different I'm just not sure where they are coming from.

None of this happened before I defined placements and started using ad manager.