Google AdSense CPM Rates 2018

Google AdSense is one of the oldest and largest running advertising networks still in existence. The performance and eCPMs of AdSense ads are tough to beat and the initial setup is also quite simple. With a lot of changes happening in the ad tech world, AdSense continues to maintain its pace and innovate at the same time. In this article, we look at the Google AdSense CPM Rates for 2018 along with the average CPM rates and earning model of the network. Over the years, we have seen many ad units coming up like in-article ads, in-feed ads, auto ads, and more. Here, we tried to discuss the CPM rates for these units to see if they are a right fit for your website or not.

Brief of the Company Adsense is a program run by Google which allows publishers in the Google Network to display automatic text, image, video, or interactive media advertisements. These are targeted according to the site content and audience. All the ads are administered by Google. Revenues get generated on a per-click or per-impression basis. The platform is popular with both advertisers and publishers because of its performance. Over 14 million websites use AdSense. AdSense has a number of ad types and formats, and an extensive reporting to help publishers increase their overall ad revenue from their existing ad inventory. AdSense Ad Unit Types Google uses its technology to serve advertisements based on the content of the website, the user’s geographical location, and a few other factors. There is no minimum traffic required to become a publisher. The network supports the display and video advertising types. Display ad units of the following sizes are available: 300×250, 250×250, 336×280, 120×600, 160×600, 300×600. Additional to display ad units, AdSense has link ad units, matched content ad units, in-article ad units, and in-feed ad units.

Average Display CPM Rates 2018

CPM stands for “cost per 1000 impressions”. Advertisers who run CPM ads set their desired prices per 1000 ads served and pay each time their ad appears. Publishers earn revenue each time a CPM ad gets served on their page and viewed by a user. CPM advertisements compete against CPC ads in the AdSense ad auction. The network displays whichever ad is expected to earn more revenue for the publisher. The fill rate is 100%.

AdSense offers high CPM rates which are in the range of USD 1 to 3. For specific niches, the average RPM lies in between USD 5 to 10. For competitive niches which have a higher CPC, overall page RPM can go as high as USD 50 and more. Now, let us take a look at Google AdSense CPM rates for 2017. 

Google AdSense CPM Rates for 2018: Overview

If a publisher is running a forum, social network or directory of non-business information, chances are that the AdSense income, in all probability, will not be more than USD 3 for 1000 page impressions. This is usually due to either ad blindness of returning visitors or the information isn’t connected with products and won’t attract visitors. The average Google AdSense RPM rate for unspecific and generic content is the range of 25 cents to USD 3. Content rich sites like blogs perform much better with AdSense. A high frequency of new visitors and ad placement close to the main content leads to decent RPM of USD 5 to 10. However, if the website is product related, like a blog about products and services, review products, or a business directory, the RPM is much more than USD 10. Also, the overall CPM of AdSense depends on the traffic geography along with the niche of the website. If your visitors are coming from the desktop, chances are higher that you are going to make more money. If they are coming from mobile, the revenue can drop a little. Let us now take a look at AdSense CPM rates for various ad formats.

AdSense CPM Rates for Display Ads 2018

AdSense display ads are the ones that will make you maximum revenue. The CPM rates can vary based on your site’s traffic and the click-throughs. However, the impression CPM ranges from $0.30 to $3. The ad sizes which generates the maximum CPMs are 300×600, 336×280, 300×250 and 160×600. Make sure you’re using these ad formats. We suggest publishers to using 300×250 ad units on mobile devices. Publishers can also use 300×600 ad size on mobile. If you’re looking for a premium plugin with great customization, I would suggest you try WP Advanced Ads WordPress plugin.

Here in the screenshot attached, you can see the impression CPM is around $0.20 due to the fact that majority of the traffic is from India and it served as a fallback network.

AdSense CPM Rates for Link Ads

AdSense link ads are those which are displayed as text links. They should not be confused with display-text ads. They are a separate ad unit type and works well for specific niches like APK, Andriod, Shopping niches and others.

We have seen link units to perform quite well in certain niches. Some of the niches like Andriod can give you as high as $10 CPM from link units if you’ve US traffic. However, a lot depends on your user type for link units. They don’t perform well for all niches and websites but if you’re not using them I would highly recommend you to test them out.

AdSense CPM Rates for Matched Content Ads

Matched content ads are the ones which are shown along with related articles widget. The matched content widget can increase your website traffic and additionally boost your overall revenue. While, this unit can’t help you increase your revenue a lot, but still works for high CPC based sites. Matched content widget especially increases the engagement rate on your website and is aimed at increasing your earnings per visitor.

AdSense CPM Rates for In-Article Ads

In-article ads are additional ad unit formats which are responsive in nature and blend with the website look to provide a native experience to the users. These ads are directly served through Adwords and Doubleclick and come as a part of the growing family of native ad formats. Publishers can use these ad formats, in addition, to display banner ads to further increase their ad revenue. If you’re not using these ad formats, I highly recommend you to it.

In-article ads are known to increase overall revenue of your site by more than 30%. The responsive and native nature of the in-article ad can further increase your overall revenue potential. Using a mix of display and in-article ads is the way to go forward for maximizing your ad revenue from Google AdSense in 2018.

AdSense CPM Rates for Page-Level Ads

There is two type of page-level ads- Anchor ads and Vignetter ads. Overall, the revenue from page-level ads won’t be that much, however, still they can be an additional component of your overall revenue from AdSense. The CPM rates for page-level ads vary based on the click-through rates. The AdSense CPM rates for page level ads also vary based on the niche of the website. Here, take a look at the page-level ad reporting. As you can see, the overall revenue is extremely low in comparison to the monthly revenue of the website. However, the CPM rate is around $0.71 majorly because vignette ads tend to have higher CPC.