AdSense Competitive Ad Filters Can Reduce Income

The post Preventing leaky filters on the Adsense blog brought something to my attention about the effect of using Competitive Ad Filters that I hadn’t considered.

It may be just because I don’t use the feature myself, but I’m betting more than a few users are unaware that filtering out ads from being displayed on their site can potentially reduce their Adsense income:

Tip 2: Don’t believe the myth about blocking ‘low-paying advertisers’

Our auction system automatically selects the best performing ads for each page to help you earn the most possible money. This is especially true with our new expanded text ads. By filtering ads you think are low paying, you could actually be cutting out the most optimized ads and decreasing your revenue potential. Each ad that is filtered is one less bid in the auction, lowering the price for the winning ad on your site. You benefit most when there is a larger pool of advertisers competing for a place on your site. Additionally, when we calculate the auction, we take ad clickthrough rates (CTR) into account - an ad with a $0.25 cost-per-click (CPC) with a 5% CTR is more valuable than an ad with a $1.00 CPC but a 0.1% CTR.

Learn more about how the auction works.