Combating Ad Blindness

A Great Idea

[Heartlander]

I saw in another forum where someone suggests using various Javascripts in place of an Ad Unit (rotating the 2)- to combat Ad Blindness, and encourage viewers to put their eyes in that space habitually.

I'm currently using it on one of my forums after the first post of every topic.
Suddenly the options are endless!

I'm using Trivia and the like...

[GusMcCrae]

Hi, please explain further what it is you are doing. Sounds interesting.

[Ankhenaton]

I think s/he just means that s/he displays randomly other stuff [non-ads] so that users don't get used to only finding ads at a certain position and overseeing it. Sounds like it could work, if the gain in CTR. ePCM is outweiging the cost of less adimpressions. Should also be within TOS, I think.

[Heartlander]

I am a "he", so ya know...LOL

Anyway- that is pretty much exactly what I'm trying to accomplish.
But I will point out that less ad impressions (for me anyway) pushes the click rate up every time.

Of course, there are so many reasons for that I'm not even going to speculate. It's been beat to death already here.

I'm finding some cool games and such to insert.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I would be careful with this idea. Either of the following could rule it out.

Any AdSense ad code, search box code, or referral code must be pasted directly into Web pages without modification. AdSense participants are not allowed to alter any portion of the ad code or change the layout, behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads for any reason.

Web pages may not include incentives of any kind for users to click on ads. This includes encouraging users to click on the ads or to visit the advertisers' sites as well as drawing any undue attention to the ads. For example, your site cannot contain phrases such as "click here," "support us," "visit these links," or other similar language that could apply to any ad, regardless of content. These activities are strictly prohibited in order to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs. In addition, publishers may not bring unnatural attention to sites displaying ads or referral buttons through unsolicited mass emails or unwanted advertisements on third-party websites. Publishers are also not permitted to use deceptive or unnatural means to draw attention to or incite clicks on referral buttons.

Welcome to WW GusMcCrae. You have to be Scottish with a name like that?

[21_blue]

Heartlander wrote:
>I am a "he", so ya know

Unfortunately, you weren't given the full range of multiple-choice options. It should have been: 'he', 'she', 'it' or 'indeterminate' - the latter applying, for example, if you are in the middle of a sex-change operation.

Behind the humour, though, I wonder if there are gender differences in clicking habits. And if there were, could anything be done about it?

[Ankhenaton]

I would be careful with this idea. Either of the following could rule it out.

You just need to alternate code not change any adsense code. The same I believe people do with yahoo etc. :\

Something like

x = random(); // giving you a value between 0 and 1

if (x < 0.5) show unaltered adsense code
if (x > 0.5) show some other code

Is this not within Terms? :¦

[Heartlander]

Let's simplify this somewhat.
A user makes a post in a forum, and there is a rectangular box below the first post in the thread.
Through my admin panel I can put anything I like there.
I choose to rotate numerous things, rather than stick with just one.
The unaltered AdSense can go there, OR- Chitika eMiniMalls, Yahoo! ads, Javascript games, an animated cartoon, weather info, a sports ticker......whatever I choose.

Nowhere is there anything encouraging anyone to click anything.
What this accomplishes is simply providing people with the understanding that it's not always just advertisements, so perhaps their eyes would like to look there from time to time.

Unless Google encourages ad blindness, this looks to be very acceptible under their TOS.

[centix]

I find very useful to use the random function to change the position of the ad in the page. For example I have a skyscraper that I show randomly on the right or on the left and I have two different Adsense monitor channel in order to monitor the click behaviour. The result is that I prefer a moving skyscraper instead a always left or always right one.

This topic is about ad blindness, well changing the position, the type and colours of Ads can be very useful to avoid such a blindness especially for pages visited more than once from same users (ie: forums). This can be done very easily with the random function of jscript, asp, php or whatever language you use.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Unless Google encourages ad blindness, this looks to be very acceptible under their TOS.

I suppose it's a matter of opinion. I would think that you are definitely "changing the delivery" of the ads, which is against the TOS.

Why don't you ask them?

[vincevincevince]

Something like

x = random(); // giving you a value between 0 and 1

if (x < 0.5) show unaltered adsense code
if (x > 0.5) show some other code

Is this not within Terms? :¦

It depends how it is done. If you view the source of the web-page - can you see the Adsense block, exactly as it was provided by the Adsense management tool? No escaped ', ", or loading into a variable.

From what I've read here, javascript methods of ad-rotation seem to be out, but server-side implementations seem to be okay.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Ask them first unless you can afford to take a chance on losing your account ;)