Will adding banner ads lower AdSense CTR?

[hhayes]

I've been running only AdSense on my content site for about a year, and have just recently got up to some decent income. Because my traffic has also risen, I've signed up with Fastclick and am getting ready to add some site-wide CPM banners (top leaderboard).

However, I'm worried this move might lower my AdSense CTR (currently around 2%). I doubt the banners will compete for clicks, but I'm worried they might draw the eye away from my AdSense ads. (The banners aren't obnoxious and flashing, but they are big.)

What do you think?

[doingthistoolong]

I also added banners to some pages with Adsense, and they did very poorly while Adsense held steady.

I found the CTR's for the banners to be shockingly low, and frankly I think they are more relevent than some of the Adsense ads, so go figure.

[incrediBILL]

Banners are ancient history

- Banner blindness is rampant, most mentally don't see them

- Firewall banner blocking gets rid of the rest

[jetteroheller]

I removed all banner ads 2001 for pathetic low CTR.

The CTR was between 0.2 to 0.3% only.

It was a 10 cent per click program, so I had $0.2.. $0.3 CPM

[wrightee]

Interestingly, I noticed CTR *increase* after adding banners to my site (buttons actually, banners seem to look 'cheap' somehow). Perhaps the psychology goes "aha, there's a brand name I recognise from TV, if they're advertising on this site then maybe this site is OK, I'll click around a little and see what there is". The banners, of course, barely register on the radar for CTR.

But hey, this is the web and AdSense and so everything will flip reverse the other way next month and go sideways the month after...

[MrAnchovy]

In my experience...

- Article-based/Informational sites
AdSense obviously shines. Traditional banners on these sites do suffer from "banner-blindness", and typically have a hard time staying above the minimum CTR for many banner networks.
They don't take away from AdSense, but in many cases still aren't worth the effort.
Square "banners", strategicly placed within, or near, the article perform well... but AdSense in the same spot will typically topple whatever income those bring in due to being text-based & typically more on-target.

- Entertainment-based sites.
AdSense performance is mediocre... and imho, banners are still effective. With Fastclick 468x60 banners I can easily maintain a 1.5% CTR (even with the extreme-anim ads filtered out).
I still run AdSense on these sites, but in limited fashion.

In both cases, I've found that banners typically do not affect AdSense... so, hhayes, it's always woth a shot to find out yourself.

Since you are new to FastClick, I'd recommend that you go through the ads & filter out most of the ads that are flagged for extreme-anim. It's hard to ignore those ads, and in quite a few cases, can do more harm than good.

[hhayes]

Thanks everyone, this is very helpful. I'll start up the banners tonight and report back if I get any interesting results with AdSense.

I knew not to hope for good CTR with the banners, so have chosen almost entirely CPM ads, most of them at least $0.50 CPM.

And I have already filtered out the extreme-animination ads - yuck!

[AlexPAlex]

I started running a banner ad on top header to an adsense big box already placed on top left aligned for a message board. I did not observe any decline in revenue, on the contrary, my revenue increased for the adsense box. My feeling is that the presence of that banner at top made people to look rather straight to the adsense box (may be due to the perceived banner blindness issue) more vigorously and thus incresed my CTR.

[MrAnchovy]

so have chosen almost entirely CPM ads, most of them at least $0.50 CPM.

Do you have defaults (aka. back-up ads) for use?

If not, you may not want to filter out those low-CPM ads. A $0.10 CPM ad is better than nothing.

[hhayes]

I was thinking of using an AdSense leaderboard as a default, though I hadn't yet checked whether this is possible.

Barring that, you're probably right about needing to include more low CPM ads. It will be interesting to see how often a default is needed at my current settings. (I didn't set up the banners last night as I said I would, got all involved with my other site... hopefully tonight.)

[rmphoto]

if your ctr is only 2% then instead of adding banners, concentrate on raising your ctr... thats pretty low ctr.

[MrAnchovy]

if your ctr is only 2% then instead of adding banners, concentrate on raising your ctr... thats pretty low ctr.

A low CTR for you perhaps... but possibily a maxed-out CTR for someone else. CTR should not be compared from one site to another.

[netsnets]

yea, i'd love a 2% ctr. I'd be sitting pretty with that # of clicks per day..

[hhayes]

I'm doubtful there's much I can do to get the average CTR above 2%, and I think it's about as high as I can go without sacrificing the quality of my pages. I boosted it up from around 1% by removing borders and switching to rectangles, but I think to get it up any higher I'd probably have to remove all other links on the page, images that draw the eye, etc., and I'm not willing to do that. My main goal is to improve traffic so that 2% amounts to more!

Back on topic, I finally added the banners this morning. I included some default ads (AdSense and affiliate banners) as I was wisely advised. I'll report back in a couple days as to any impact it has on AdSense CTR.