How to Create an AdSense Ad Unit?

Getting approved for Google AdSense program does not mean that you have succeeded with starting an online income from your content. The success of your online presence depends on patiently understanding things and following appropriate guidelines. With AdSense the major factor of the revenue is the click through rate which directly depends on where and how your ads are displayed. Creating a correct ad suitable for your site’s layout and look ensures the higher revenue besides an appropriate placement. In this article we will discuss how to create an AdSense ad unit and the various possibilities of customizing it to suit your site’s design.

How to Create an AdSense Ad Unit?

Step 1 – Creating Ad Unit

Login to your AdSense account and navigate to “My Ads” tab. Click on “Ad units” option available under “Content” section and then click on the “+ New ad unit” button to create a new AdSense ad unit.

Step 2 – Choosing Ad Size

Choose the size of your AdSense ad based on your available ad space size. There are recommended ads by default showing for you to choose, if you are not happy with those sizes then choose it from the dropdown. Read our article on how to choose better ad size for your AdSense ads.

Step 3 – Choosing Ad Type

AdSense has two types of ads – Text and Display (image) ads. You can select one of the ad types or choose to show both types. It is recommended to choose both ad types (Text & display ads option) to cover the higher bid ad and improve the revenue.

The default option is selected from the list based on your account settings under “Settings > Ad display”.

Step 4 – Choose Text Ad Style

This is the most important part in AdSense ad creation process where you can actually influence without any base recommendation from Google. This essentially means individual publishers need to customize the ad style based on their site design. Choose the style which you think is more suitable for your site.

If the default available styles are not suiting your need then creates a new ad style and customize it for your need.

Step 5 – Adding Custom Channel

Channels are used to track the performance of an individual or group of ads. For example, if you have two ad units placed on top and bottom of the page, it is easy to get the performance report of each individual ad. But if you want to check the performance of two ads together in a single report then create a custom channel and this channel to both the ads.

Other scenario could be using ads on multiple sites. When you have two different ads on two different sites then channel will help to track the performance of those two ads together in a single report.

Besides tracking your own ads performance the major purpose of channels is for advertisers who are looking for targetable ad placements. For example, assume an advertiser is looking for an ad placement at a sidebar with an ad size of 300×600 large skyscraper. If you have a custom channel with the name as “large skyscraper ads on sidebar” with ads of 300×600 in the channel then the possibility of the advertiser choosing your site is more.

Select the “Targeting” checkbox if you want the advertisers to view your custom channels for targeted ad placements.

Step 6 – Choose Backup Ads

It is not necessarily Google should always show an AdSense ad whenever a page with an ad code is loaded. There are lots of possibilities for not displaying ad on a page. One reason could be your ad blocking settings where you don’t allow many networks and categories resulting in no ad inventory at that point of request. This factor is indicated as “Coverage” and low coverage indicates that ads not displayed on your site on all the time. Besides working on improving your coverage it is important to choose what to display on the ad space if Google can’t find ads at any point of time. You have three options to choose here:

• Show empty blank space of that ad size.
• Show a solid space of that ad size.
• Alternate ad to show. Here you can choose your alternate URL for example an affiliate image link URL from your own site or from any external sites.

Step 7 – Getting AdSense Ad Code

The final step in creating AdSense ad unit is to get the JavaScript code for the ad you created. Just click on “Save and get code” to see the code and ensure the “Asynchronous” code type is selected by default.

Copy the ad code and paste on your site to start making money from your online content. Most of the time ads will start displaying immediately, if not the backup ad (based on your customization in step 6) will be displayed till the time AdSensebot grasp your content and the actual ads can be auctioned for the keywords on your page.

All available ad units under your account can be viewed under “My ads > Content > Ad units” and edited later at any point of time.

Any changes done on the ad unit will be automatically reflected on all the placed where the code was placed on your site automatically. You need not to go and replace or edit the ad code on your code after initial placement.

Once an AdSense ad unit is created there is no possibility of deleting it from your account. It can only be hidden from the listed display.

Ad units received impressions within last 7 days will be shown with the “Active” status.

Ad units that did not received any impression for the past 7 days will be shown with “Idle” status.

Hidden are displayed with the status as “Hidden”.

Same ad unit code can be placed multiple places on a same or different pages of a site and also on different sites.