AdSense Reports

To keep many Webmasters happy, especially those that like to keep close track of how their sites are performing, there is Google’s AdSense reports. This is available to all Webmasters that have been accepted into the AdSense scheme.
Basically AdSense reports is used by Webmasters to optimize the various ads on their sites. The level of detail of AdSense reports is very good and it gives you enough information to be able to tweak your site to its optimal money making best.

But don't over-use AdSense reports

AdSense fever is quite real. AdSense publishers have been known to over-analyze their statistics to the point of breakdown. By all means tweak your site, but remember the key to real AdSense success comes from good content and good levels of traffic. Focus on these two factors first, tweak and perfect later.

AdSense reports in detail
Included in AdSense reports is an overview section. This gives you an at-a-glance look at your best performing AdSense channels for the day. It also gives you the option to view all the AdSense activity on your site for the previous seven days, the current month and the month before.

The advanced reports section goes into a bit more detail. It enables you to choose how you decide to view the information that has been collated so far. For example you can decide to view how much you have earned for a particular period of time. This is done by selecting the aggregate data option of the advanced report section. A ‘total’ for a selected period of time will then be displayed which is also displayed as an averages column. The information shows succinctly how well your ads are performing for the chosen period of time. It also gives you enough information to be able to extrapolate and work out how much will earn over the same period of time in the future.

 

Other options available in AdSense reports include:

• Channel reporting. This enables you to focus specifically on the performance of single ads or groups of ads. The system is so flexible that the ads can be given specific designations to differentiate them. This is often used to fine tune the performance of specific ads so that they are optimized on every page of the website for maximum performance.
• CTR and page impressions reports. This part of AdSense reports gives you an idea of how effective your pages are as a whole by giving you a click-through-rate (CTR) value. This value is calculated by dividing the number of clicks per page by the number of impressions and multiplying the result by 100.*
• Page CPM (Cost per 1000 impressions). This is how much money you’re making per 1000 impressions. Basically its another way for you to view your statistics and it is a useful standard.
• Earnings report. This gives you information on how much your site is earning. Like the other options this can be tweaked in a variety of ways to enable to better grasp how well the ads are doing on your site.
• Custom reports. Due to the multitude of options available, Google created a section that enables its users to customize how the information is displayed. Any information that is compiled can be saved as a custom report and subsequent reports can be viewed in the same format. This is a useful way to keep track of certain channels or earnings over specific periods of time.

*In online marketing an average click-thru-rate of about 2% is normally seen as been average. But dedicated and focused content rich AdSense sites have been known to record click-through-rates of 10% (however this is extremely rare).

 

Watch out for invalid clicks

• Be vigilant of invalid clicks. This can be seen when there is a disproportionate relationship between the amount of impressions and the number of clicks.
• Keep an eye on your CTR. A good AdSense optimized site will get a high CTR (~5%). But anything over 10% is highly suspicious.
• Impressions are always more than clicks to a ratio of least 50 to 1.
• If you get values where there are 20 clicks to only 6 impressions, something is wrong.
• Google will also get suspicious if this happens and they will only credit you with the amount of actual clicks on the ads on your site. 
• You will be warned by Google about the suspicious activity taking place on your site and if it persists you will be kicked off the AdSense program... so be warned.