Unbillable Impressions with clicks?

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Unbillable Impressions with clicks?

JS_Harris

11:29 pm on Feb 15, 2019 (gmt 0)

I understand that unbillable impressions are common with link units, they happen when the second click doesn't happen.

What I don't understand is what the adsense dashboard is telling me, example of what I see....

- CPC Bids , Impressions = 10,000, Clicks = 1,000, Estimated Earnings = $XYZ.00

- Unbillable , Impressions = 100,000, Clicks = 10,000, Estimated Earnings = $0.00

I highlighted what I don't get. To me unbillable impressions is ads that got seen but not clicked after someone opened a link unit, which is fine. What in the world is the clicks number representing? People that clicked on an ad but I'm not getting paid? If so, why not?

I would expect zero clicks to be reported where/when they didn't click through(making the impression unbillable). What am I missing? Those numbers are made up but my dashboard shows that I am paid for 10% of clicks when those are combined.

What exactly is generating the number of clicks in the unbillable column?

JS_Harris

3:48 pm on Feb 16, 2019 (gmt 0)

Now this is interesting

TL:DR version - unbillable clicks are from clicks back to my site from the ad page

If this was posted somewhere already I missed it in my searches. If you open up a link unit to see what ad and landing page is displayed you will notice something new, search result. Not just any search results but results, complete with titles and snippets, of pages on your site related to the keyword linking to the ad page.

RESULTS FOR *Insert Keyword* is prominently displayed above all of the entries for your site that might please the visitor.In doing some digging the pages chosen are the same as you will see if you perform a site:example.com + keyword search in Google.

After a second an ad pops above the results, delay being due to load time apparently, that says SPONSORED RESULTS FOR *insert keyword*. a single text ad appears with a large clickable arrow.

Since my page is triggering the link unit's link text I see a search result entry back to the same page 100% of the time. On keywords that I have covered extensively on multiple pages they each seem to appear. The list of search results is minimized, a clickable arrow opens up the entire collapsed list of related pages I have.

It looks like for every 1 person I send outbound on an ad(and get paid) I am retaining 9 visitors through clicks on links back to my own site(unbillable clicks). To be honest I like the addition of search results within link units. If I have what the visitor wants this helps me retain them, but if I can't provide what they want at least I get paid a little AND the advertiser isn't getting someone who isn't sure they wanted to leave. It's good for both of us.

My opinion: Link units are a good user experience in comparison to other ad types. Maybe not as profitable depending on site, but it's a good tradeoff. The visitor has to click on a link unit, ignore pages that might have an answer for them, and decide to click on the clearly labeled ad for me to earn. Not easy but still, good user and advertiser experience so...

Was this posted elsewhere officially to make sure I have it right?

Observation: If a page doesn't rank for many keywords the text chosen as links is fairly poor targeting-wise, which impacts what is shown inside as well. Improving earnings with link units would thus be an exercise in creating awesome content that ranks for many keywords per page. Mind you that these are keywords you need to RANK for, not just have on the page! This will also increase the keyword options for the keywords in the link unit and open you up to more advertiser competition. This is true of any ad but with link units it may be more critical given the multiple jumps needed to earn from them(and the initial keyword chosen for them to click through).