2 adverts better than 4?

[jakob77]

is it just a freak of accident or did you also notice that the banner with 4 text adverts produces less click throughs than the one with 2 text adverts?

[Blue_Fin]

Conversely, I think the consensus here has always been that 4 ad banners produce a higher CTR than 2 ad banners. There have been many posts about increased CTR when publishers switch from the 468*60 2 ad banner to any of the 4 ad banner formats.

[Sunflux]

...and I'd imagine that, given equal placement, the Skyscrapers would likely get higher clickthroughs than the squares, simply because the text in squares is smaller. Although in the end, squares become more "noticable" due to their placement (big honkin' box in the middle of the screen).

Incidentally, would anyone else have a use for a 3-banner 600x75 space?

[acidic]

>> Incidentally, would anyone else have a use for a 3-banner 600x75 space?

I'd kill for it.

[Blue_Fin]

I'd kill for it.

Hopefully you've let Google know then since they are very open to feedback and suggestions and even encourage it.

[jakob77]

you might also argue that 4 banners get ignored as they are perceived as "just advertising" and 2 banenrs might look interesting and there is a "which one do i prefer of those 2" question and the user clicks on the one he likes most.

with 4 ads he subliminally can not decide and just regards it as advertising?

what do you think? I am not a psychologists, just tried to change it and compare the stats

[davewray]

I went from banner to inline triangle and my CTR nearly doubled (revenue doubled too)....exact same placement on page and exact same colour scheme....enough said

Dave.

[Blue_Fin]

you might also argue that 4 banners get ignored as they are perceived as "just advertising" and 2 banenrs might look interesting and there is a "which one do i prefer of those 2" question and the user clicks on the one he likes most.
with 4 ads he subliminally can not decide and just regards it as advertising?

what do you think?

I thought my initial response would have already addressed this. After all, it was based on many comments posted here over the past few months. Not a single person has reported a lower CTR when switching from a 2 ad banner to the 4 ad format.

You can try to rationalize psychological behavior all you want. I don't think that will change the reality.

[irock]

Well, for my site, 468x60 works better simply because it blends in with the rest of text more easily due to its size. Whereas a 120x600 will be still somewhat 'identifiable'

[Blue_Fin]

Well, for my site, 468x60 works better simply because it blends in with the rest of text more easily due to its size. Whereas a 120x600 will be still somewhat 'identifiable'

Aesthetics and CTR are totally different though and this topic is about which format brings a higher CTR.

Most webmasters will forego the ideal look if it means more revenue. Obviously you seem to feel different about that, but I don't think that changes the results given.

[Sunflux]

Re: a 600x75 size banner.

I use 468x60 banners on my site, but put Google into a 120x600 space since it makes the most sense for my purposes. However, the 120x600 space is only on *really* long content page (maybe 35-40% of all page views).

For those pages without the 120x600 space, I'd love to be able to use the industry standard 600x75 size (the max horizontal size my site can use), which I figure ought to be able to hold three horizontal ads in a good font size.

If Google's looking to add a fourth size option, I think a 3-ad 600x75 would be ideal. The huge squarish size is much harder to place and really doesn't fit anywhere for me.

[danny]

If we get a horizontal three-ad, I'd prefer a 702x60 to a 600x75... But what I'd really like is a "resizeable" option, for pages that use fluid-design - so there wouldn't be ugly white-space when the full quota of ads is missing.

[Sunflux]

702x60? That may be some standard somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be a very popular one. Since it's pretty thin, I guess it would hold 3 wide 2-line ads (600x75 would probably hold 3 narrower 3-line ads).