Get to know the Google AdSense home screen

The Google AdSense Home view, the one you see when you log in, is one of the simpler parts of the service, but there are still items that puzzle newcomers. Here is a guide to the Home view.

The Home view is a customisable page that is able to display a wide range of information. You can change what is displayed and either remove or add items, but the default settings are pretty good and you might not need to change anything.

Most of the information is obvious, but there are a few items that you might struggle to understand, such as the CPC and RPM figures. What do these represent and do you need to be concerned about them?

Home view explored

Today’s earnings so far. This figure will increase throughout the day. It isn’t important because you don’t know how much you will earn by the end of the day.
Yesterday’s earnings. This figure is much more interesting and it shows how much you earned yesterday. You will have good days and bad days, so don’t panic if it is low on occasions. Weekends are always poor as people do other activities instead of sitting in front of their computer. Below is a comparison with the same day last week and this is interesting.
Last seven days earnings. The figures become more interesting as the time period lengthens and there is less variation. In small print below is a comparison with the previous seven days. Some weeks you will earn more, sometimes less, but it should increase in the long term. Your earnings per week should be higher than six months ago or last year for example.
This month’s earnings. Bear in mind that this is only the earnings from the 1st of the month till today. If you log in to AdSense on the 5th of the month it will show earnings for five days. It is basically for tracking progress and below in small print is a comparison with the same period last year. You can see how much more you are earning.
Your account balance. This is how much you have earned from AdSense since you were last paid. Below is the previous payment. Payments are monthly and are at the end of the month, providing you have exceeded the minimum amount. The minimum needed to trigger payment varies from country to country. It may be £60, $50 or $100, or something similar.
Page RPM. This is the amount of money earned from AdSense per 1,000 page views. The higher the figure, the more you earn from your visitors. If the RPM is $5 for example, and your website or blog gets 12,000 page views, you will earn 12 x $5 = $60. Another way of looking at this is, suppose you earn $60 and you got 12,000 page views. $60/12 = $5. That’s your RPM (Revenue Per Mille).
CPC rate. CPC is the Cost Per Click, in other words it is the average amount you earn when someone clicks an advert on your website. Not all adverts earn the same amount and some ads earn a lot while others earn little. There are many factors affecting the amount an advert earns, such as the country, the niche your blog is in, seasonality, and more. Ads that sell high value products usually earn the most and have high CPC. Mortgages, loans, legal services, insurance, cars and so on, all have high CPC because the advertiser earns so much more from each sale.

Configure the earnings report

Click the three dots in the top right corner of the Estimated earnings section and click Configure. (View report takes you to a new page with very detailed earnings analysis.)

This displays a list of options that enable you to choose what information is displayed. All the options are recommended.

View your payments

Click the three dots in the Balance box and then select View payments to see when and how much you were paid by AdSense. You’ll know from your bank account of course, but you might find it easier to see previous payments here.

More ad statistics

The most important information is displayed at the top of the page. Scroll down and you will discover lots of useful pie, bar and line charts that dig into the advertising data and show which countries, devices, and ad types work the best.

Most of the charts are are easy to understand and make interesting reading. Scroll down, click the More button when you get to the bottom and keep scrolling. There is a ton of great stuff.