In past few years, Google ramped up the AdSense ad formats to skyrocket the revenue for publishers. Though many people think AdSense ads are of low quality compared AdX ad exchange, it is no more the case. You can enable auto ads and use anchor, vignette and in-page ads. Multiplex ads format is the latest addition to AdSense auto ads. In this article, we will explain how to create multiplex ads in AdSense account and setup properly.
From Matched Content Ads to Multiplex Ads
Multiplex ads are not completely new, they are modification of previously known matched content ad unit. Few years back, Google AdSense entered into content discovery area by introducing matched content ads. It was looking like below showing blocks mixed with ads and related articles from your site.
The objective was to increase the scope of AdSense and grow in content discovery area like Outbrain or Taboola feeds. However, it does not work and Google decided to retire matched content ads and convert them to multiplex ad format.
Matched content ad unit was available only for eligible publishers based on the traffic as the site needs large amount of content for this ad unit to work. However, new multiplex ad format is available for all AdSense publishers without any restriction. If you already placed matched content ad units on your site, it will be automatically converted into multiplex ads from March 2022 without any code update.
Multiplex Ad Format
Multiplex ads look similar to matched content ads as a block containing multiple ads in a single block. However, there will be no content included from your site and all blocks will be of individual ad units. You can enable multiplex ads either as an independent ad unit or as part of AdSense auto ads setup.
Creating Multiples Ad as Individual Ad Unit
We recommend using this way as you can place the code exactly below the content or on the sidebar manually. Login to your AdSense account and navigate to “Ads > Overview” section. Go to “By ad unit” section to view all ad formats available for you. Click on “Multiple ads” which is part of native AdSense ads.
On the next screen, you will see the preview of multiplex ads with few customization options.
- Name of your ad unit – enter a name for your multiple ads
- Preview – toggle the horizontal and vertical preview to check how the format will look like. Vertical format will look like below aligning nicely on mobile devices or on your sidebar area.
- On the right side pane, choose “Responsive” option for “Ad size”. This will help you to adjust the ad width and height as per the container size on your site. If you are only planning to show multiplex ads in sidebar, then you can choose fixed ad size as sidebar container size will not change on desktop and mobile devices.
- Under “Ad style” section, you can select the font, text color and background for your ad. You can leave all these options as they are to create ad with default style.
Click on “Create” button to generate code for your ad unit. When you see the ad code, copy the snippet under “HTML” tab. You can insert this code on your pages similar to any other ad units and start showing multiplex ads. Multiplex ad is an AMP compatible ad unit and hence you will see the ad code for HTML and AMP pages. If you want to insert multiplex ads on AMP pages, make sure to copy the code under “AMP” tab and insert it on your site.
Note: On the customization section, you will see a notification showing more customization options are available for multiplex ad unit. However, those customization options are for old matched content ads and may not work with multiplex ads. Since this is a new format, you can expect Google to update their support pages in coming days.
Create Multiplex Ads from Auto Ads
As mentioned, you can use auto ads setup to enable multiplex ads. When you are in “Ads > Overview” section, go to “By site” tab and click on the site where you want to enable multiplex ads. This will open auto ads setup screen and enable “Multiplex ads” option under “Ad formats” section.
Note, if you are not using auto ads, first make sure you enable it under “Auto ads” option showing as a first option in the sidebar pane. Click “Apply to site” button and Google will ask you to confirm whether you want to run an experiment or apply the changes immediately. Apply the changes without any experiment and check your site. Sometimes, you may need to wait few hours for the auto ads to show up on your site. we do not recommend using multiplex ads through auto ads as it can create two issues.
- You may not see the ads if Google’s AI system do not detect sufficient large space in your site’s layout.
- Ads will show below the footer with very low visibility.
The best option to find suitable placement area on your layout and manually place the multiplex ads code.
Frequently Asked Questions on Multiplex Ads
There are not separate criteria and all Google AdSense publishers are eligible.
You have two options – create native ad unit and place the ad code manually or enable multiplex ads in auto ads to automatically show it on your site.
Matched content ad will automatically start showing multiplex ad from March 2022 and you need not to do any change. If you do not like the new format, remove the code from your site or disable it from auto ads setup.
Historically, block ads like link unit and matched content ads performed poorly due to low CPC rate. However, the situation could be different when you see a single video block in multiplex ad.
Final Remarks
Multiplex ads is a new format in Google AdSense and hence you need to wait sometime for the advertisers to fill the inventory. We noticed it simply shows a large video ad block instead of multiple blocks as seen in the preview. Because of the larger size, it can increase click through rate and the overall revenue. However, be aware that enabling auto ads will significantly impact the page speed which is the trade-off you need to pay for the revenue.
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