I was excited to get access to the new Video Units in Google AdSense today, and went about the setup process.
After going into the Video Unit area and agreeing to the terms, I had to link up my AdSense account to my Google account.
Then, I was able to create my New AdSense Player from within YouTube. There are a handful of options to configure the player. I had to name and describe the player, select a color theme, and then a layout size (400 x 415, 500 x 510, and 780 x 560).
Next up, there are two options to determine the content displayed in the videos on your site: Automatic Content or Choose by Category / Provider.
If you go with Automatic Content, “YouTube will automatically target the most relevant videos for your website.” They give an option to refine the targeting by entering some keywords.
The alternative is to Choose by Category / Provider, where you can pick from one of the twelve categories on YouTube or specify a particular YouTube partner like AskTheBuilder or LisaNova.
Then, you get to generate code for the Google AdSense Video Unit.
This is where I hit a pothole. When I pasted the code provided to this blog (WordPress 2.2.2, theme: K2 0.9.6), there was no player to be seen.
Just the phrase, “Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com,” which was linked to http://www.youtube.com/browse. OK, so that’s lame.
So I went and created a new, static page with an article I wrote years ago on the history of affiliate marketing, and placed the AdSense video code in there.
I chose to have a video from LockerGnome, since I think Chris Pirillo’s content is pretty relevant to my visitors.
See http://www.affiliatetip.com/history-of-affiliate-marketing.php for a live example of Google AdSense Video Units.
Now I’ve got to start tinkering around to see if the upgraded version of WordPress will enable the video player to work. Maybe it’s my theme?
I don’t know. It’s annoying, since I’m able to embed regular YouTube videos and Google AdSense code on my blog without a problem. Mix them together and something funny happens.