Should I block.

[carjocky]

Should I block certain ads that only pay 3 cents per click? I track the clicks and this certain ad only has been paying 3 cents. It just seems to me that I should role the dice and block it in hopes that another add will perform better in its place.

Thoughts...

[hunderdown]

I would say leave it alone.

If you block that ad, you also block all other ads from that advertiser. You can't just block one ad. Do you really want to do that?

Also, it's possible that that ad was the only one those visitors were interested in. 3 cents is better than nothing.

Another thing that may be happening is that that is the 3rd or 4th ad showing on the page, and visitors may have scrolled past 1 and 2, which would earn you more money. Try experimenting with adblocks that only show 2 ads at a time, and see if your average EPC goes up....

[mzanzig]

I was not very fond of blocking when I first tried it, but at that time I was too quick with my decision.

About a month ago I started blocking MFAs, eBay and other (presumably) low-paying ads again. The result: fantastic! EPC up, revenue up, and the positive feeling (!) to offer added value to my visitors (a survey I did revealed that the majority of visitors see the Adsense ads as beneficial for them)! But this obviously can only be true if the visitors see a =real= offer after clicking, not a MFA/useless page.

So, in short, go for it, and let it run at least a week or so before making a decision. Oh, and I would not start during the holidays as this may affect the results.

[danimal]

according to some of the postings in this forum, 3 cents a click is more than some people out here make.

[dxmonger]

How do you "track the clicks"?

I'd like to know which ads to block with the hope of optimizing such that a more profitable ad appears in its place.

How can you do this without violating the TOS?

[hunderdown]

He may be using channels to track clicks. I've also heard about scripts that do it, but I don't use any. Not that obsessive (or thorough, depending on how you look at it). As I said, you really need to be careful about "blocking ads," because you can't block ads. You can only block advertisers by URL. The advertiser with the 3 cent ad on one page may be the advertiser with the $1 ad on another page. Advertisers can have hundreds of different campaigns (and do -- you can learn a lot browsing the AdWords forum).

[dxmonger]

But how would a channel tell you which particular ad paid a particular amount (like 3 cents)?

As far as I can tell, a channel will help a publisher determine which pages (or sections) of a site are doing better or worse in terms of $$$, CTR, etc. - but that won't help you determine that advertiser XYZ inc is only paying 3 cents and therefore should be blocked. To do that you'd have to click on their ad and see what the payout was (against the TOS). Correct?

[hunderdown]

Channels help you narrow things down, but you are right, you can't get an exact click value from a channel, but an average.

I doubt he's clicking. I assume that he's got a script.

Frankly, I don't see the point in looking at individual clicks. If a channel is averaging, say, 52 cents, should I care that that is half $1 clicks and half 4 cent clicks?

[carjocky]

With Adfreestats.com you can see when someone clicks on what ad. So if you notice for instance that the 1 and only click at that moment is from say X advertiser and your payout is only 3 cents then you know that that click was for 3 cents from them. So you can sometimes tell what a click is worth buy seeing how much your last click was worth and then seeing what the last click was. So this particular ad was always only paying 3 cents so I have since blocked it.