Forum Moderators: martinibuster
[clickz.com...]
One statistic jumped out at me when I read the column: According to Morgan, some people believe that "75 percent of all content that's currently run through contextual networks" doesn't lend itself to AdSense-style targeted ads. That guesstimate doesn't seem unreasonable if you look at the number of news sites, portals, general-interest blogs and forums, etc. that run "sponsored link" ads. (How many readers of a WASHINGTON POST story about the war in Iraq are likely to click a Google advertising link?)
Bottom line: It's pretty obvious that even AdSense, which reaches a lot more niche sites than Overture does, has a problem with "waste circulation." And publishers whose topics don't fit into commercial niches shouldn't be too surprised--or mad at Google--if AdSense doesn't perform for them.
Just a thought!
FromRocky
If I get a .0001% CTR and it results in a sale, should that then be discounted? What if I have a 50% CTR but noone buys? Should that be counted?
Someone searching for "Australia Travel Hotels" that lands on a page for Australian Travel Hotels might click on an ad more frequently than someone searching for "Travel Hotels" that lands on the same page and is presented with Australian Travel Hotel ads.
I hope you see my point. Your solution doesn't analyze the individuality of your visitors - it simply takes an average that doesn't mean all that much in the grand scheme of things.
The idea behind adsense has and always will be that a click will only happen because geniune interest exists. I think AdSense works really well when most of your traffic is SERPS based. When it's organic, Morgan's article is probably right on.
I think AdSense works really well when most of your traffic is SERPS based. When it's organic, Morgan's article is probably right on.
Correctly targeted text ads work extremely well on organic content sites if the topic is commercial. Any editorial site owner who makes good money from affiliate links can attest to this.
If I get a .0001% CTR and it results in a sale, should that then be discounted? What if I have a 50% CTR but noone buys? Should that be counted?
Yes. The above statement has two big "if" so the chance is so remote.
Reasons that Google AdSense should set a cutoff for pages with this CTR as AdWords did for its advertisers on keyword are:
1. Most of AdWords advertisers including myself do not want to see a CTR with a three zeros after a dot. Although, it does not affect the keyword status but this is one of the reasons, the content option is often turned off.
2. The ad inventory for AdSense is limited and we do not want any ad to be wasted. If any page which produces this type of CTR is dropped, available ads for other pages.
The ad inventory for AdSense is limited and we do not want any ad to be wasted. If any page which produces this type of CTR is dropped, available ads for other pages.
AdSense ads are purchased by the click, not by the impression, so publishers with low CTR aren't waste circulation as they would be with traditional CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) banner ads. Publishers aren't competing for ad inventory; they're competing for clicks.
(Note: The word "competing" shouldn't be taken too literally; for many keywords, there may not be enough clicks to drain advertisers' budgets. That's obviously one reason why Google keeps expanding its content network.)
[edited by: europeforvisitors at 5:34 pm (utc) on Nov. 21, 2004]
Google AdSense should set a CTR cutoff for all AdSense publishers as AdWords did for its advertisers.
Well, this would mean one of my sites would get booted ;)
Some sites do have low CTR - does this mean that the clicks that do get made are any less valuable than clicks coming from a higher CTR page? Nope. And some would argue that an extremely high CTR page could actually be sending less valuable clicks to advertisers.
And some would argue that an extremely high CTR page could actually be sending less valuable clicks to advertisers.
Great point. A perfect example would be a page that has very little content and uses borderless AdSense ads as a kind of navigation bar. Such a page would probably have a higher-than-average CTR, but it would be sending junk traffic in the form of "unmotivated leads" to advertisers.
