Monitoring is an important part of increasing your Adsense revenue. It's the only way that you can tell whether a change in format, placement or color has had an effect on your click through rate.

The best way to monitor your ads performance is to set up several channels inside your Adsense account. By setting up a channel for a particular set or type of ad you can monitor their performance and compare them to other ads.

For example, on this website I have four channels operating:

1. One channel for the whole website - UnderstandingAdsense.com,

2. One channel for the 336 x 280 rectangle inside the page content,

3. One channel for the 160 x 600 skyscraper in the right navigation,

4. One channel for the Adlinks in the left navigation.

When I make changes to these ads I'll be able to see what effect this has on my click through rate and it is through these methods that we work out many of our best practices.

The standard channels I always set up on any Adsense monetized website include:

1. One for the whole website,

2. One for each type of ad used,

3. I may also set up channels on different groups of pages or even individual pages to compare performance across different topics.

For how to set up channels on your own Adsense campaigns I recommend reading Googles guide.