Earning with AdSense for Mobile

The AdSense way of doing things is pretty much the same across all ad formats — visitor clicks ad, you get money. Mobile ads do have one wrinkle that you haven’t seen in other types of ads, though, and that’s the Click to Call link. This link allows visitors to click the link and place a call to the advertiser. It’s a cool feature, but one that might leave you wondering how you’ll get paid for that.

Truth is that this link works just like any other link in an ad. You get paid for mobile ads whenever your site visitors click the ad links. That includes the Click to Call link. Like other types of AdSense ads, the amount of payment is determined by the payments that advertisers make when their ads are displayed. It’s a formula that Google keeps closely guarded, but it works the same as AdSense for Content and other types of AdSense. Advertisers bid for the right to have their ads shown. Then, each time the ad is shown, Google gets paid whatever that winning bid amount is. In turn, Google then gives a percentage of what it is paid to you, the Web site owner who publishes the ad. But how much is the exact percentage? Google is pretty tight-lipped about it.

You can track your AdSense for Mobile earnings on the Reports page, which is the first page you encounter when you sign in to your AdSense account. Included here is a category for AdSense for Mobile Content that shows page impressions, clicks, click-through-rates, effective cost-per-thousand impressions, and earnings. Like other reports, you can show these numbers by day, week, month, or all the time.

Mobile Web sites, and by extension mobile ads, aren’t for everyone. You may not have a Web site that’s appropriate for (or is even of interest to) mobile surfers. That’s a call you have to make

If your site does lend itself to the mobile lifestyle, however, consider AdSense for Mobile. It’s one way to monetize your mobile efforts — and although the revenues that you generate for mobile ads might not be enough to pay the mortgage or the payment on that shiny new car you rushed out and bought when you were approved to display AdSense ads, it might add a little to the revenue streams that you’re building. In my book, every little bit helps.