Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I've found that the 120x600 works best for me, by placing it within the vertical menu column on the left hand side of my pages. But more importantly, customizing the background and border colors to blend into my site colors.
I think this works best because when the colors are blended in the creative looks less like an ad, and more like a part of my Menu column.
I have tried the banner,leaderboard, and tall skinny one.
banner ---> worst
leaderboard --> best
tall skinny ---> average
I changed the color scheme a few times too. I made them the same color as the site and I also tried bright, blinding RED. They were both about the same in terms of click-thru rate. I changed it back to my site's colors so it looked better.
If you look through some my posts (they are boring and whiney) I mentioned I was having a lot of trouble with lousy click-thru rates. Recently I changed all the ads to leader boards placed above my main content. They are the same color as the surrounding table borders. This has worked wonders. My click-thru as gone up 50%!
So, my advice is to experiment. Do not wait until you have "lost" thousands in potential revenue because of a small change in your layout. I am still kicking myself in the butt for not trying different things earlier. I was so afraid of losing a few hundred dollars that I did not dare try anything.
I do very well with affiliate programs, so it makes sense for me to use the skyscraper below my affiliate links. That way, I don't risk losing affiliate revenues by having my affiliate links "below the fold"--even though I may earn less from AdSense than I might with a leaderboard.
Also, what kind of content do you have? And do many of your readers arrive through search? My site consists largely of information, and a huge percentage of my readers arrive through search. In many cases, those readers may be more inclined to click on an ad for, say, Widget Cruises or Whatsit Railpasses after they've read a Widget Cruises review or an article on rail travel--which means I may be better off having a skyscraper next to my text than a leaderboard near the top of the page.
(For what it's worth, I've tested both the leaderboard and skyscraper formats, and I haven't noticed any significant difference in clickthrough rates. So I've gone with my gut instinct, which tells me that skyscrapers should work better on my pages. Skyscrapers also fit nicely into my column of affiliate links and result in a less cluttered and "commercial"-looking page--which is a plus for an editorial site, especially in a category where many big-name editorial sites are littered with junky ads.)
Am curious to know what ways of presenting/displaying the creative gets the highest CTR for you.
Random placing (through script programming) in various places of the web site/web page. The answer is therefore variation so that users cannot "get used" to these banners and couldn't become "banner-blind". It works for me.
The answer is therefore variation so that users cannot "get used" to these banners and couldn't become "banner-blind".
Not necessarily. It depends on your audience and their expectations.
If you have an information site that gets a high percentage of its traffic from search engines, many of your readers will be new and won't have gotten used to the location of ads on your site.
Also, if your site is on a topic that attracts readers who are researching ways to spend their money (e.g., travel or product reviews), a consistent ad location may be a good thing. In hobby and trade magazines, for example, advertisers often prefer the same location month after month, year after year because they know readers are looking for their ads.
Looking at todays numbers, it looksl like everything is much better (double).
Has anyone else played around with background vrs no background colors?
BZ
This ad is placed in a skyscraper below the basic site navigation
However, with adsense, the banners at the top only have 2 ads, so in theory, there is twice the chance of getting a click with the ones on the side.
If you change your 2 ad banners to 4 ad leaderboards, you will almost definitely see an increase in your CTR. I changed mine 6 weeks ago on the day the leaderboards became available and I have maintained a CTR double what it was with the 2 ad banners.
Will the leaderboards split or give you scroll bars at the bottom of the browser window if the browser window is less than 728?
Everytime I go to look at colors in adsense, I get a js error. Anyone else having this problem?
