After months of testing, we’ve just updated our text ad format to include ‘next’ and ‘previous’ arrow buttons for cost-per-click (CPC) ads. When a user clicks on the ‘next’ button, an entirely new group of ads will appear in the ad unit, giving your users greater control over the ads they see and click.

While the ads the user initially sees may be relevant to a publisher’s content, they may not be precisely what the user is seeking — for example, a user may see ads about cheddar and brie cheese but would prefer more information about Swiss cheese. With the ‘next’ and ‘previous’ buttons, users can view more cheese ads until a Swiss cheese ad appears.

You won’t generate earnings for clicks on the ‘next’ and ‘previous’ buttons, but these buttons will help improve both advertiser value and your potential revenue. When users click on the buttons, they begin interacting with the ads and are more likely to find the specific offering they’re looking for, which can lead to higher earnings for you.

 As you may remember, we started enabling the Ad Review Center for publishers back in December to let you review ads placement-targeted to your site. We’ve recently enabled the Ad Review Center for more accounts and will continue rolling it out over the upcoming weeks. To get a publisher’s perspective on the new feature, we chatted with Richard Tribe, Director of ski.com.au.

Australian snow enthusiasts can visit ski.com.au to learn about resorts and travel deals, as well as news and photos of conditions. The site also serves as a skier community, with videos, forums, wikis, and several blogs. Richard has been using the Ad Review Center to ensure relevant, high-quality ads appear alongside his content. He explains that “the Ad Review Center allowed me to see who was targeting my site, and I saw a wonderful array of high-quality advertisers in there… The Ad Review Center is a great way of managing the quality and style of advertiser you would like to have associated with your publication.”

To highlight specific inventory, Richard has turned his custom channels into ad placements. For instance, he found that his live camera feeds of snow conditions drove significant advertiser interest, so he created specific snow camera ad placements. He elaborates, “That extra choice helps make my site look more attractive and allows advertisers to place their ads exactly where they want to place them.” With targetable custom channels, Richard has given advertisers more control over where their placement-targeted ads can appear, and using the Ad Review Center, he ensures those ads are relevant to his site’s audience.

To check if the Ad Review Center has been enabled for your account, visit the ‘Competitive Ad Filter’ page under the AdSense Setup tab and look for a green notification box.

When setting up the Ad Review Center in your account, we strongly recommend you keep your review preference set to the default of ‘Run ads immediately’, and review placement-targeted ads after they have run. Ads don’t participate in the auction while they are awaiting review, and ads that you have blocked can’t compete in the auction either. We ask that you consider the revenue implications before blocking ads or switching from the ‘Run immediately’ setting.

Happy skiing (and reviewing)!

Posted by Katie Mandel - AdSense Product Marketing

Are you currently displaying a referral unit for AdSense on your website? Then read on, because there are some upcoming changes to the referral program that you should be aware of. But first let me clarify that only referral units promoting AdSense will be affected by this change; referrals to other products and services remain unaffected at this time. This change to referrals promoting AdSense will differ depending on your location, regardless of where your users are located.

- If you’re in North America, Latin America, or Japan, the pricing structure for AdSense referrals is changing.

About a year ago, as an experiment, we changed the pricing structure for AdSense referrals so that when a user you referred to the program earned $5 within 180 days of sign-up, you would also earn $5. When that publisher earned $100 within 180 days and removed all payment holds, you’d receive $250. We have decided to conclude this experiment and return to the original pricing structure. As a result, we’ll soon no longer be offering the $5 bonus or $2000 bonus, and the payout for referring a user who generates $100 with AdSense in the first 180 days will return to $100.

These pricing changes will take place during the last week of January. A referred user who reaches $100 within 180 days of signing up and who removes all payments holds before the change occurs will generate earnings of $250 for the referring publisher. Any referred user who meets this conversion criteria after the change occurs will only generate $100 in earnings for the referring publisher. In addition, the $5 bonus will be removed at that time. Please note that the date a user was referred will only affect where the 180-day window is set but not necessarily the payout the referring publisher receives. For example, it’s possible that a user referred in early January will meet the conversion criteria before a user referred in early November, and so the resulting payout may differ.

- If you’re outside of North America, Latin America, and Japan, AdSense referrals will be retired.

For publishers not located in any of the three regions detailed above, we’ll soon be retiring referrals promoting AdSense. We’ve found that this referral product has not performed as well as we had hoped in these regions. Again, please keep in mind that you can still generate referrals for the other products listed under the ‘Referrals’ section of your AdSense Setup tab.

Soon, you’ll no longer see the option to create a referral button for AdSense in your account, although existing buttons will display as normal. This specific referral type will then be retired during the last week of January - any users who meet the conversion criteria (reaching $100 in earnings within 180 days of sign-up and removing all payment holds) before the change will generate earnings of $250 for the referring publishers. Any conversions which occur after this change is made will not be recorded in your account. You may wish to begin replacing any existing referrals promoting AdSense with referrals for another product or an AdSense for content unit.

We appreciate your support of this referral product, and hope it won’t cause you any inconvenience.

Posted by Talia Brodecki - AdSense Product Marketing

We’ve been listening to your comments on our new ad management feature, and so we’re excited to tell you about a few updates that stem directly from your requests:

• You can now view the ID number associated with a specific custom channel by visiting the ‘Channels’ link under the ‘AdSense Setup’ tab. Many of you told us that you needed these channel ID numbers for ad management programs you’re using. We’ve added this information to your account since it no longer appears in your ad code.

• Any ad units generated within the last 7 days that haven’t yet received any impressions will now be listed as ‘New’, rather than ‘Active’, in your status column. This should help avoid confusion about your newest ad units and those already appearing on your pages.
• You can now view the most recent date when each of your ad units was updated. Please note that these dates aren’t retroactive, so any ad units you generated or edited before this display change will show a last-edited date of November 1st, 2007.
• We’re starting to slowly roll out the manage ads feature for your referral units. Just as with AdSense for content units, you’ll soon be prompted to enter names for your newly generated referral units. If you’d like to make changes to your referral units at a later time, you can visit the ‘Manage Ads’ page. In the ‘Content’ column of this page, your referral units will display ‘Referrals:’ followed by the products or category of products being referred.

It doesn’t end here, though — we’ve got a few more enhancements planned for the Manage Ads feature in the next few weeks, so keep checking back for more updates. In the meantime, please continue sending your suggestions our way.

We have high standards for the services we offer, which means we constantly reevaluate existing features to ensure they are effective as the AdSense product continues to expand.

Our recent findings indicate that the Onsite Advertiser Sign-up feature, which allowed advertisers to sign up for AdWords campaigns on your site, hasn’t been performing as well as we had hoped. We’ve elected to gracefully retire this feature and focus our efforts on developing and supporting features that drive better monetization results for you. Call it time management, call it ROI, call it our unwavering commitment to our publishers. We want you to earn more revenue, and sometimes that means “sunsetting” certain features we created.

Please be aware that any links you’ve created that lead to a customizable Onsite Advertiser Sign-up page will soon re-direct to the main AdWords sign-up page. Of course, AdWords advertisers will still be able to target your individual sites by using placement targeting. Thanks for your support of this feature in the past. We hope its departure won’t cause you any inconvenience.