This month I’m looking at some of Google’s best webmaster tools. Today: Maximize your revenue with AdSense Channels. Using channels with your AdSense account will give you detailed reports about the performance of specific ad units. I was able to double my earnings on one of my content site by simply testing different channels.

AdSense channels simply give you statistics for a specific ad unit or group of ad units. You could use channels to find the most effective color scheme, or most profitable ad format. Most importantly, channels allow you to track your earnings for different URLs.

URL Channels allow you to track an entire domain (eg ontora.com), a single page on a domain (eg ontora.com/about), or a subdomain (eg blog.ontora.com).

Custom Channels must be included in your AdSense code and allow you to target the performance of a single ad.

For example, for my PSP website I have a URL Channel for the domain to keep track of the website’s overall earnings. Then I have a Custom Channel for every type of ad unit on the site (link unit below menu, squares on front page, banner in articles). With this setup I can see exactly where people are clicking. Taking a quick glance I see that the link unit below the menu has the highest CTR (click through rate).

Learning to use AdSense channels is an important for maximizing revenue. If you use AdSense, you need to use channels.

Also see: Using Google Sitemaps