Skyscraper vs. Wide Skyscraper

which one is better?

[webmastertexas]

I've just noticed something. I run a movie site, and I noticed that for the most part the movie ads served by Google (at the moment the biggest ads for them relating to movies are "Taxi" and "Frankenstein") don't run on my site despite all the obvious keywords because of one thing: I use the WIDE skyscrapers! I think the ads were formatted for regular skyscrapers. I say this because on some pages I only use the regular google skyscrapers, and the image ads pop up all the time! Almost 90% of the time, actually, and on the wide skyscrapers it's zero appearance.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, is it benefitial to use the regular skyscarpers if it's almost guaranteed it'll get me the image movie ads? The ads are relevant to my site, since I am running a movie site, and I might convert more clicks. as it stands, the wide skyscrapers only show the text ads, which doesn't really stand out.

I'd like to know what you guys think.

P.S. For the rest of today, and tomorrow, I'm going to convert them all to regular skyscraper, and see if I get more converstions. I'll post the results if anyone is interseted.

[diamondgrl]

What you really need to do for all such questions is run a test on all such questions. It should be a side by side comparison. Half the time, your site should display the skyscrapers, the other half the wide skyscrapers. Make sure you get a statistically significant sample and compare the effectiveness of both. You can do this with channels.

Do NOT do a comparison by switching to all of one or all of the other and then back again. You never know what other influence came in. Instead, you need a controlled experiment.

[RaZor_Edge]

If one thing is for sure, it's that it is impossible to have an image ad on the wide skyscraper. The images ads are posted only on the formats 120x60, 300x250 and 468x60 (see google.com/adsense/adformats). So... it seems to to me that you would be better to use normal skyscraper...

[webmastertexas]

In the half day I've changed from wide to normal skyscrapers, the image ads have started showing up about 50% of the time (that's still 50% better than before!). I haven't noticed too much of an increase in the CTR, but I'm going to leave it on for a full 2 to 3 days just to be sure. And maybe a whole week, if I don't see a drastic drop in CTR. For personal and I guess industry reasons, it just seems more prestigious to have the image ads selling upcoming movies rather than just plain text ads.

[webmastertexas]

Right now I can'tsay as if I've seen some major improvements in CTR, but I also haven't seen any dip in it, either. So I'm going to keep the experiment on for another week just to be certain. In any case, if there is no difference in CTR at all, I'm going to leave the normal skyscraper. The wide skyscraper just took too much room and tend to stand out too much. I don't want to distract from the site's content, which is the primary focus of the site.

[DamonHD]

Hi,

I've decided to try rotating between normal and wide skyscraper formats on different days (to keep repeat visitors awake) and I'll compare the CPM. In a week or two I can provide a summary of relative performance if anyone is interested.

Rgds

Damon

[PatrickDeese]

120x600 format cuts off parts of the creatives and titles a lot of the time, I actually redesigned a site template to use a 160px column precisely because of this error (I don't want image ads on my sites).

[xxxxxpp]

I'd go for the small skscraper, they look better and if image ads are so precious for you, then it's kinda obvious you should take them.

[DamonHD]

Hi,

Some preliminary figures as promised...

With a few (4!) days of channel data I find that I am currently getting much more than twice the CTR on wide towers than normal towers. Note that these are usually in the second AS slot, but sometimes in the first slot.

More days will obviously give clearer answers and help even out the effects of when (eg day of week) I displayed each format. etc.

I wouldn't like to give up unique inventory that might be in either format, so I will keep a mixture for the time being.

Rgds

Damon

[DennyTang]

Having image ads will probably decrease the CTR because image ads are easier to identify as ads than word ads. Internet surfers see ads all the time and most don't even bother reading it. However, if you use text ads, people don't immediatly recognize it as an advertisment and might actually read it.

[DamonHD]

Hi,

I'm still seeing about twice the CTR and effective CPM on the wide tower cf the normal tower, FWIW, with a few more days' data.

Rgds

DHD

[Freedom]

I find that the medium skyscrapers, 140X600 do a real good job.

:-)

[DamonHD]

Well, given your encouragement, Freedom, I'm going to double the fraction of wide towers I display.

Rgds

DHD

[DamonHD]

Hi,

Further experience suggests that I'm now getting pretty much the same CTR and EPC from the two tower formats...

Rgds

DHD

[Reflection]

Having image ads will probably decrease the CTR because image ads are easier to identify as ads than word ads. Internet surfers see ads all the time and most don't even bother reading it.

The flip side to that is advertisers continue to use image ads, so obviously they still work on some level.