I Switched to One AdSense Block

And Almost Doubled My Adsense Income

[spaceylacie]

Drastic times call for drastic measures, that's what "they" say. So, when my income dropped, almost in half, I had to take action.

"Don't fix what isn't broken", that's what "they" also say, and that is why I didn't make the changes sooner.

With Adsense, I started with 3 units per page and dropped down to 2 units when I learnt that the 3rd was performing very poorly. This left me with 2 units almost neck-in-neck for bottom line earnings. Well, I decided to risk 1/2 my earnings from this site by dropping to one ad unit and it worked. I didn't lose half my income, instead, I almost doubled my income.

The new unit is directly where Google's heat map says it should be. You could say that I replaced 2 oranges with an bright red apple. It looks good with my layout, blended, but with the new "Advertise on This Site", they are very clearly advertisements. My site content is now wrapped around this single ad unit per page. I like it.

[itloc]

Hi spaceylacie

Might sharing what format you are using?

Thanks

itloc

[spaceylacie]

I switched to the large rectangle... from a leader board and banner-sized.

[Visit Thailand]

congrats. This is why I hope that one day we will be allowed to have Y and G ads on the same page, one ad each should get the top earners from each.

[Ivan_Bajlo]

Thanks for the tip, I'm desperate so I'll try that hope it works. :-/

[moftary]

I have a site unfortunately of low traffic as its banned on google index which has an eCPM of $40 for using that method.

One ad block, blended in and complying with adsense heat map.

[JuniorOptimizer]

I also switched to One Ad unit on many pages (to give Google less exposure) and also noticed a better payout.

[MrSpeed]

As a webmaster I love the large rectangle and have seen the same results as you.

As a surfer I hate sites with the large rectangle. It throws up a large spam flag.

[vordmeister]

I'm with MrSpeed on this one. I run a leaderboard in the footer on my highest earning site. It's down there so it doesn't bother people but it still gets a middle of the road CTR (2-3% maybe). The site has big potential and I still need a lot of natural links.

I'm keen to put an ad unit further up the page - above the fold maybe (horror). I can position a 628 banner, but much more and I worry the natural links will not come. I'd love to know how you positioned your rectangle Spacey.

[spaceylacie]

It's set up like this, my pages are long. At 800X600 the rectangle is below the fold, at 1024X768, part of it shows above the fold. C is content, N is navigation and A is the ad unit.

LOGOLOGO N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N---Fold at 800X600
AAAAACCC N
AAAAACCC N---Fold at 1024X768
AAAAACCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N

[FrostyMug]

I've done tests and yes, these large rectangles, on about that position, on the middle of the page fold, do have the highest CTR. but i also have a bottom long banner and a link unit on top, and when removing the banner and the link unit, the performance and earnings of the large rect. stayed about the same. so i keep all the ads, since having an additional 1-3% in earnings is not bad at all.

[vordmeister]

Thanks for the positioning information. That makes sense. Give people information from the top, then offer some ads for when the disinterested ones or the ones looking for something else get bored.

My pages are long too - but I hadn't thought of that layout. Thanks once more.

[mafew]

Hi spaceylacie,

Your posts are always an inspiration. I'm very interested in how your site looks overall. Would you mind stickying me a link to the site? Pretty please?

[maxgoldie]

IMO, the best performer is a 336x250, blended, above the fold in the center. Evertime I tried this over a leaderboard, it always outperforms it.

[bose]

Congratulations, spaceylacie!

It's good to know the new ad placement is working out for you. Considering your content/article pages are long, it is probable the visitors were clicking on second or third Ad units at the bottom. Any impact on the CTR?

If it is possible, you may want to further test by using CSS to position at the top the code for the ad-block that was being shown at the bottom. This may help you get more "valued ads" into that ad block, while still allowing you to use second adblock at the bottom of the page. Just a thought...

[incrediBILL]

Spacey, I might give your idea a whirl just to see what happens.

If my income goes down what's your address where I can sent the bill?

[spaceylacie]

IncrediBILL, will you also send me a check if it works out?

I did still keep my ad links unit so my diagram really should have looked like this with the first A being the ad links:

LOGOLOGO N
CCCCCCCC A
CCCCCCCC N---Fold at 800X600
AAAAACCC N
AAAAACCC N---Fold at 1024X768
AAAAACCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N
CCCCCCCC N

I noticed a drop in my ad links unit earnings after making the change. Just to do something different, I switched from 5 links to 4 links which makes the font a little larger. This seemed to make it stand out better causing CTR and eCPM to recover.

It's been about 10 days now since I made the changes and so far, so good.