There are some AdMob and AdSense publishers that began receiving invitations to Google Adsense’s User First beta program this week.
At this stage, the goal is to test new and different ways to publishers to make more revenue with fewer, and possibly more effective, ads and reward publishers who prioritize the user experience. The idea behind the program is to reward publishers that provide a good user experience (which is measured by site speed, ad layouts that generate high quality-clicks and low rates of users muting ads on the site) with priority access to new features.
From the program page:
You were invited to this beta program because you offer your visitors a good web experience, e.g., your pages are fast-loading or your users are happy with the ad layout on your site. With this beta, by meeting certain requirements, you’ll get early access to new features designed to help boost your revenue and provide your visitors with better ad experiences.
The testing of the feature will focus on the goal of helping AdSense and AdMob publishers generate more revenue from fewer ads.
The idea behind the experiments is to go beyond the ad relevancy and personalization already aimed at signed-in users on the Google Display Network. “Your visitors who are signed into Google will see ads that they’ll want to engage with more.”
In order to participate in the program, publishers must run *only* AdSense ads on their sites: “In addition, in order to adequately optimize the ad load on your site, we’re only able to provide the benefits on sites that serve only AdSense ads.”
Publishers can’t plug into any other ad network or exchange to fulfill inventory while part of the beta program. The reason behind the exclusivity is to give Google control to adjust ad load with this test group, so they can better understand the impact on the user experience and publisher revenue.
As the beta continues to go forward, early access will be granted to additional features and new ad formats to participants.
Those in the program will get access to a scorecard on the AdSense home page showing how they stack up against the qualifying criteria. Participants can opt out of the beta at any time.
