You will succeed with Adsense when your visitors wilfully look to them as a source of supplemental information to what your webpage provides. Therefore, if there is such a thing as a trick to succeeding with Adsense it is not to see Adsense Ads as advertisements.
The reason for this is that no one likes ads. Why? Because we're surrounded by the buggers.
Advertisements are viewed as an intrusion, Adsense Ads should be seen and integrated as a further resource for your website visitors.
The reason this is achievable with Adsense is down to the very nature of the ads:
1. The Adsense Ads are related to the content of the page that you put them on
The reason that Adsense is so popular and so effective at monetizing traffic is that the ads that appear on your website will be related to the content of each individual webpage. If you build a website about home insurance, then the ads on it will be about home insurance, if you build a website about Nike shoes then that's what the ads will be about and so forth. If integrated into your website correctly they're actually useful to your visitor and if something is useful it gets paid much more attention.
2. Adsense Ads are customizable
To not just be an ad, real integration into your website is necessary. The different format sizes and the color palettes all facilitate the integration of the ads into the fabric of your website.
3. The quality of the Ads
In the internet world Google is on top. Consequently, Google's advertising program - Adwords is used by thousands and thousands of quality businesses to reach their intended audience. This means that every niche market has a good selection of advertisers all writing carefully scripted ads to relate to the people using your website.
4. Because the Ads automatically change
Not only is the ad pool very large, the advertisers and the ads keep on changing. This keeps all your ads abreast of market trends as the advertisers constantly strive to better each other and themselves. The ads appearing on your site will evolve as your market evolves. Secondly, and this is important for sites that receive repeat visitors - your ads will often be different. If the same person reads the samepage twice in a two week time period they're more likely to click on ad both times if they are different each visit.