Google AdSense for Mobile

Recently I wrote that Google Mobile was starting to run AdWords ads. This initiative has been expanded to now include Google Adsense(TM) for mobile. This program contextually targets ads to mobile website content.

The program is targeted at people who have created websites targeted at mobile browsers, allowing them to make money on contextual advertising using the same model used by Google on the traditional web. The program is available in the following countries: US, Australia, China, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and will soon also be available in Japan.

For AdWords advertisers that currently do contetual advertising with Google, this will expand the reach of that advertising further onto the mobile platform.

A word of caution is in order for all Google AdWords advertisers. Participation in this program defaults to opt-in. If your content is not appropriate for a mobile environment, you need to go into your AdWords account and manually opt-out.

I have heard some criticism of this policy, as many AdWords account holders will not know that they need to do this, and their ads will be running in a mobile environment, even if that is not what they want. This will result in added expenditure that they will not have anticipated.

The Google FAQ page for the AdWords for Google Mobile initiative states that the procedure to opt out is:

You can opt out your eligible search ads from running on Google Mobile Search pages at any time. On the Campaign Summary page, select the link that says ‘View performance data for these ads’ from within the alert message or below the table that contains your campaigns. On the bottom of the page that reads “Performance Data: Search Ads on Google Mobile Search,” click on the link that says ‘Yes, opt me out’ to stop running your search ads.

It appears that the procedure is a bit different than that. I went into an AdWords account this morning, and could not find the link Google refers to on the Campaign Summary tab. After about 10 minutes, I finally found the following text: “There are 61 days left before we will begin charging for search ads on Google Mobile Search. View details”. The View details text was a link to a page where I could opt out of the program.

For the client whose account I was using to research this, my opinion was that the mobile platform was not a fit, so I opted out of the service. Note that Google does say that they try to algorithmically determine the fit of content and landing pages for the mobile platform, but my opinions is that it’s better to be safe than sorry.