Workaround to Add Custom Channels into Blogger AdSense Page Element Widget
Blogger.com allows authors and webmasters to easily add Google AdSense ad units to Blogger blog content pages to earn revenue by displaying relevant ads by using AdSense page element (commonly known as widge) in Blogger template. This feature allows many bloggers who are not familiar or not ready to modify HTML code programming to easily join and put up AdSense ad blocks to the web pages and blogs.
However, when configuring AdSense page element, after signing in and linked Blogger to user’s Google AdSense account, only AdSense publisher ID (e.g ca-pub-7042087181757148) is captured and placed into the ad code in blog’s template. Other settings that can be configured are ad unit format and colors, with no options to set the custom AdSense reporting channel for the ad unit. Custom channel is a feature in AdSense which used to keep track of ad performance by allowing users to view detailed reporting on performance and revenue statistics of specific pages and/or ad units. Armed with this data, bloggers can then optimize the ad units individually to improve the AdSense performance.
As seen in figure above, there are no direct field to enter a custom channel number using Blogger AdSense widget. You can switch to use URL Channel if you want, but it doesn’t produce data as detail as Custom Channel. To add custom channels to AdSense ad code automatically added to blog’s HTML source by Blogger template, use HTML/JavaScript widget instead.
Add HTML/JavaScript Page Element In Replacement of AdSense Widget
- Remove any AdSense page elements from the blog’s template. To do so, click on Edit link of AdSense element, and then click on Remove Page Element button.
- Add a new HTML/JavaScript widget by click on any Add a Page Element link, then click on ADD TO BLOG button under the HTML/JavaScript heading section. A “Configure HTML/JavaScript” page will be loaded.
- Login to Google AdSense account, and generate the ad code by using AdSense Setup for AdSense for Content product. Remember to select up to five custom channels to track the performance of this ad unit.
- Copy and paste the AdSense code generated into the Content text field of Configure HTML/JavaScript. Ignore the Title field.
- Click on SAVE CHANGES button. A corresponding HTML/JavaScript element will be added to the template.
- Click and drag to realign and rearrange the new page elements to the position you prefer on your blog.
- Click on SAVE button on top right corner if needed.
The advantage of using HTML/JavaScript widget instead of AdSense widget is greater control over appearance and settings on AdSense ad unit including ability to add not one, but up to 5 custom channels to an ad unit, and users, especially those without even basic HTML knowledge, still do not need to manually edit the HTML source except to generate the ad code manually from AdSense account. Avoiding editing HTML minimizes risk of mistake that will corrupt the HTML source code or blog template, distorting the blog layout and in worst case, causing users have to reset the page template to default to get start again, losing any changes to Fonts & Colors.
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Entries (RSS)
January 2nd, 2008 15:17
Thanks for the great tip. You are genius. Not only me but many webmaster will be thankful to you for sharing such a nice tip. Thanks again.
February 10th, 2008 23:27
Inserting Adsense ad code through blogger widgets is easy and even new publishers with no prior experience can do it with ease.
March 23rd, 2008 09:47
Hi,
I’ve tried this one before, the problem is, the ads that are showing are somewhat different from what I generated using Adsense Manager. It is showing a vertical ad with different colors and without the “Ads by Google” text. Any ideas?
April 10th, 2008 02:34
Just what I’ve been looking for. Thanks for this!
Dan
April 29th, 2008 02:17
Thanks for the tip. It was exactly what I was looking for.
Shane
May 11th, 2008 14:50
Tried it and it worked for one ad unit. Tried another and it displays an error message “Cannot display the page” instead of the add unit. Does anyone know what causes this?
May 11th, 2008 14:51
Answered my own question, it just took a while for the new add unit to register.
June 1st, 2008 23:41
Thank you for the tips on adsense channel creations using HTML/Javascript page element. This was really useful
June 8th, 2008 08:36
Man, this is some GREAT piece of advice. Thanks!
August 31st, 2008 05:55
I do not believe this
September 15th, 2008 08:47
I was wondering about this myself! I hate to have to go through the process of adding the ads so manually but I guess if I want to track it then that is what I am going to have to do?
I do have a question though. When someone clicks on your adsense ad (the ones that Blogger.com automatically add if you want them to) wouldn’t it show up when you look at your adsense numbers?
October 10th, 2008 19:10
Very good article for new blogger, this way we con do better.
October 11th, 2008 18:19
There is a problem with this approach, the design is not well integrated with the blog.
November 10th, 2008 20:41
[...] It’s not possible to track Adsense earnings using channels because of the way the ads are implemented in the Adsense gadget. (You can implement channel tracking by using HTML/Javascript Page Element.) [...]
November 20th, 2008 17:30
Thank you for the advise it helped me working around my adsense in obamath.blogspot.com