Forum Moderators: martinibuster
It looks terrible. Any ideas how to get it to show four ads?
(I have opted out of CPM and "advertise on this site".)
The EPC surely isn't compensating for the decrease in CTR I'm seeing personally. eCPM down approx. 50%
I'm going to try some other formats to try to get rid of this.
Definately not worth the trade so far for my sites.
On the other hand, my Adwords campaigns are doing much better with regards to CTR and no change in conversions.
This tells me that results are definately VERY dependant on how the ads are integrated into your site. As a publisher my sites are sucking wind (bad for me, bad for the advertisers), but as an advertiser, the content sites my ads run on are doing better (good for me, good for the publisher).
I hate to think about starting a network wide redesign but it may be necessary if things don't start to moderate.
Freq---
In case anyone cares - the format I'm using that I am seeing such a dramatic decrease in CTR with the 336x250's showing only 2 ads is as follows:
G = Google Ad
C = Content
N = Navigation
Z = Image/Other
B = Blank Space
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
ZZZZ CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC NNNN
ZZZZ CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC NNNN
ZZZZ CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC NNNN
ZZZZ GGGGGGGG BBBBBBBBBB NNNN
ZZZZ GGGGGGGG BBBBBBBBBB NNNN
ZZZZ GGGGGGGG BBBBBBBBBB NNNN
ZZZZ CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC NNNN
ZZZZ CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC NNNN
ZZZZ CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC NNNN
ZZZZ CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC NNNN
I am under the assumption that if I were to wrap the text of the article around the advertisement, the impact would be far less noticeable. It just makes a huge empty void with 2 ads in the above format. I would happily wrap the text around the ads, but I frequently use images early on in articles and the formatting gets crazy with lots of images, text, and ads - not to mention, when Google is showing 3 or 4 advertisements inside the 336x250 I get a really respectable CTR with the above format.
eCPM is also back to normal levels on this channel.
I wonder why they impliment these changes throughout the system when it obviously doesn't have good results on all sites. I thought they did things like this on a per site basis...? There should be nothing statistically that could be telling Google that my site performs better with 2 ads in the 336x250 unit, as it has never affected me in a positive way. I'm a bit confused in regards to this. I'd like to think that the changes they are making to the ads on my sites would be for the better, but I guess I still can't complain - it's a lot less maintenance than Chitika.
After I changed to 250x250 - all was well for awhile, earnings were going up, ecpm up, ctr up.
Things were looking good... now Google is showing only 2 ads in my 250x250 units. Now I'm not even going to mess with other Google formats because this really is a poor judgement on the part of Google. YPN will fill the void until whatever knob got bumped gets bumped back... or longer.
;)
I wish they would stop engineering us lower CTRs :)
+ 1
I am so thankful that other programs have launched recently. I don't know what I would do if AdSense was my only option... especially when things like this keep popping up. It's like a constant uphill battle.
So ASA can you tell us?
Rectangle ads have worked really well for me up till now.
That is a good point -- if even Google admits that the large rectangle is, overall, one of the better performers -- why would they change it, en masse?
It's probably the layout impacting it as well because the two ads and white space actually okay in many sections of my layout. That's probably holding it up, plus possibly the two highest paying ads being shown most of the time?
On another site, 4 ads are still being shown in the Large rectangle, and full ads in the skyscraper.
What gives?
Happy new year. My resolution is to get through this post with no typos... drunk.
Was she joking?
If it was a joke, it is about as funny as a gut full of pinworms. My CTR is down by 40%.
(a) it only seems to be rectangles that are affected, which are one of the less commonly used formats, and
(b) most of us aren't actually suffering much anyways. My eCPM has actually been somewhat higher than average, although that often happens when traffic is low. Hard to extrapolate anything based on the period between Christmas and New Year's.
I have to wonder how this is affecting advertisers also, as would likely be fewer ad spaces out there. (assuming that all sqaure blocks are showing two instead of four ads. And all of the ones I have seen over the past three days only seem to be showing two ads.)
To increase monetization and improve the relevance of ads, we now vary the
number of text ads that appear in an ad unit. When we determine that
increasing the size of the most relevant ads will improve performance,
we'll drop the lowest-performing ad or ads and expand the remaining ones
to fill the entire unit. Showing fewer ads works to your advantage,
allowing the better-performing ads to draw more user attention and
click-throughs.
Ok. If so, then, how come:
a) Google has somehow determined the relevance of ads on all the sites of those who uses any large rectangle, all at once?
b) I am not sure if I buy the line about showing "fewer ads works to your advantage, allowing the better-performing ads to draw more user attention and click-throughs." as if this were true, then all of us would likely make the most money off of a 125x125 or half banner, provided it was as optimally placed/deployed. Plus, if CTR would improve, then how come there isn't a flood of "My CTR has gone through the roof with my large rectangle posts"?
I guess I'll leave them up for now and see how it goes. Overall I'm doing better but that may just be because I'm getting a lot more visitors now that the holidays are over.
