Google Analytics & AdSense Integration

Posted by jonathan at 8:43am EST on 05/07/2009

Late last week, the Google Analytics team announced that they would be pushing out the AdSense+Analytics integration to all publishers. This was previously a feature that was still in a private beta, which I was involved with.

I’m mostly happy with the integration, but I’m still not completely happy. It’s can be slightly flakey from time to time to which revenue gets picked up and which doesn’t, even though I’ve tried to “re-do” the integration a number of times.

There are three key highlights which Arlene Lee, of the AdSense Team, pointed out.

• The Top AdSense Content report allows you to see more details about specific pages on your site and analyze ad performance. For instance, if you find that some of your pages generate a high number of pageviews but aren’t monetizing as well as other pages, you can focus your optimization efforts on improving these pages.
• The Top AdSense Referrers report can help you see how different incoming traffic sources contribute to your revenue.
• Last, the AdSense Trending report lets you analyze how your site generates revenue during different times of the day and different days of the week.

These are some major elements which I noticed as well, as to see how well AdSense was really performing my site. I think the second point she made was critical for me, to see where my revenue was being generated based on referrals. The question, “Who’s actually helping me generate the most amount of money?”

This integration was long over-due and the hacks out there just weren’t cutting it anymore. This seamless integration is amazing, critical, and much-needed for the people that depend so heavily on AdSense.