AdSense Estimated Earnings Vs Finalized Earnings

Though the advertising industry is matured and use standard terminologies, individual advertising programs uses their own terminologies. It is necessary to understand these terms in order to use the program effectively. Google AdSense program also uses many terms like estimated earnings and finalized earnings. In this article we will attempt to explain the definition of these two earnings and practical example of how it is being calculated in AdSense account.

Related: 4 steps guide to make money from print on demand?

Estimated Vs Finalized Earnings

When you are reading your AdSense report, sometimes you will notice Google deducted some money at the end of month. This is due to any invalid traffic and the final settlement is done only after adjusting the earning at the month end. Considering this fact, you should not confuse with the earning you see in the report and the final payment you receive after the adjustments.

Estimated Earnings

Estimated earnings as the name indicate is an estimated amount of the revenue generated in an AdSense account for a specific period. As per the AdSense payment cycle Google will validate all the clicks that generated revenue for the publisher and adjust the amount for any invalid clicks. Thus the estimated earnings is the addition of the amount deducted for invalid clicks and the finalized earnings.

Estimated earnings = Finalized earnings + Amount adjusted for invalid traffic

Below is how the payment history will be showing in an AdSense account:

Date	Description	Debits ($)	Credits ($)	Balance ($)
Nov 1, 2015 – Nov 30, 2015	Invalid Traffic – AdSense for Content	2.00		198.00
Nov 1, 2015 – Nov 30, 2015	Earnings – AdSense for Content		200.00	200.00

$200 is the estimated earnings in the above example for the month of November 2015. Google did not disclose how the invalid clicks are calculated from the traffic. It is assumed that any traffic from social media, bots, traffic exchanges and improper ad placement is considered to be an invalid traffic.

Related: How to make money as a virtual assistant?

Finalized Earnings

Finalized earnings as the name indicate is the final amount an AdSense publisher will earn for a specific period. It is calculated as the deduction of revenue generated through invalid traffic from the estimated earnings.

Finalized earnings = Estimated earnings – Amount adjusted for invalid traffic

Generally it is referred as an unpaid finalized earnings in the reporting and paid finalized earnings in the payment history. Below is how the payment history will be showing on an AdSense account:

Date	Description	Debits ($)	Credits ($)	Balance ($)
Nov 1, 2015 – Nov 30, 2015	Invalid Traffic – AdSense for Content	2.00		198.00
Nov 1, 2015 – Nov 30, 2015	Earnings – AdSense for Content		200.00	200.00

$198 is the unpaid finalized earnings in the above example which will be paid during next December payment cycle.

Note: Unpaid finalized earnings will be the account current balance which is also referred as  payable earnings.