How to Create Adsense Channels? A Complete Walk Through

One of the best ways to monetize your blog is by applying ads served by Google Adsense. Why use Google Adsense when you keep on hearing about their low cost per click (CPC) and strict Term of service (TOS)? What I have learnt from my one year experience of blogging is that Google Adsense is by far the best method to earn money online. Not because of their swift service, but also because of their certain features, including ‘Adding Channels‘ to track your Ads.

Another thing that I have observed in the past few months is that not every webmaster know about Channels. They do not realize how important it is to add channels to their blogs ads. Today, we’ll look into detail some of the advantages of Adding Channels, their types and later on how to add them. If you find this post beneficial please spread the word so that other can also benefit from it.

What are channels?

As already described above, Channels lets you track ad units. By tracking we mean that it will display key information about each ad unit, such as, number of impressions, clicks it received in a particular time frame, Click through rate (CTR), effective cost per thousand impressions (eCPM) and Earnings.

What are the benefits of Adding Channels?

With channels, you can track how well each ad unit is performing. This makes it easier for you to decide whether you want to retain that position or change places of the ads or the size of ad unit. For instance, you can monitor which ad units/sizes works well under ‘Post Title‘ or at the ‘Sidebar‘.

If you keep track of your ads performance for a period of time, you could easily figure out which ad units are performing well and which ones are not. This will boost up your earnings drastically.

Are there any types of Channels?

Yes, there are two types of Channels, namely;

1. Custom Channels
2. URL Channels

Custom Channels will only keep track of ads that are on your domain(s) and will not work for revenue sharing sites such as Hubpages, Squidoo etc. With custom channels you can monitor which ad units works best on your site, by changing their size, position and color.

URL Channels on the other hand will work for revenue sharing sites (listed above). For instance if you are hub user, you can set up whether you want one channel to track all your hubs or separate channels for each hub.

How to Create a Custom Channel?

Once you know what are channels, their types and advantages. We’ll help you set up channels in an easy, step by step procedure. Follow the procedure described below:

1. First up, sign-in to your Google Adsense account.

2. Inside your dashboard, click on ‘Adsense Setup‘, second option from the top.

3. On the page that opens, click on the ‘Channels‘ tab (Fourth option from the left, right below ‘My Account‘ tab),

4. This will bring you to a new page, where all your custom channels are displayed. If you haven’t created any channel yet or want to add another channel, click on ‘+ Add new custom channel‘ option.

5. The new page will display the total URL and Custom channels remaining. Please note that you have a total of 200 channels, so use them wisely! Now enter the name of the channel, for instance, name Under Title or Right Sidebar, for Ads displaying under title of post or/and at the right sidebar of your blog, respectively. Click on Add Channel button when your done.

How to Create a URL Channel?

Once you have followed your way till step #3. Instead of ‘Custom channel‘, click on URL Channels link, which is right next to Custom Channels link. Then follow the same procedure from step #4.

Congratulations! You have successfully created channels for tracking Adsense performance. Now if you want to add the channels to your existing ad units, follow the procedure describe below:

How to add channels to existing Ad units?

1. Go to Manage Ads, under Adsense Setup tab,

2. Here you’ll see a list of ad units that you have been using over time,

3. Select any ad unit that you want to track by clicking, Edit Ad Settings link at the right side of each ad unit,

4. Scroll down and under All channel, you’ll see either a list of channels or a single channel depending upon how many you have created. Simply choose one from the list by clicking on the Add link next to it, or you can create a new one from Add new channel, and follow the same procedure described above.

5. Once you have done, click on Save settings button at the bottom of the page.

And there you have it. You will now be able to track your ad units and will know how good or bad each ad unit is doing right from the Adsense dashboard. If you have any queries or if I have missed any point, let me know.

Tip: After tracking your ad(s) for several months, you can further get an insight of your ad performance by analyzing the data from the Advanced Report section under the Reports tab. Click on channels data, select the required channel and click on display report to analyze the performance and earnings of that ad unit.