Forum Moderators: martinibuster
On this particular site, the average earnings were $4.50 per day. However, on Saturdays, they were only about $2.50 to $3.50. The average for the site on a monthly basis was in the $130 range, and weekdays we do about $7 average.
Friday, we switched over the entire site. At that time we had one 728x90 unit across the top of the page. That was it.
We modified the color scheme a bit, and changed our ad block color schemes as well, better blending them into the site, as advised by Adsense. We also widened the pages to 1024x768. It is one of our older sites, on the web four years, and had been designed back then in 800x600, the norm. We increased font size, and modernized the site as a whole.
We changed the ad blocks to one 160x600 near the scroll bar on most pages, and a link unit across the top. But, on longer pages we placed two of the 160x600 ad blocks on the pages, and one link unit across the top.
After 24 hours, our earnings for that site, on a Saturday no less, were about $17. We are eager to see what the weekdays will bring.
That site has never made any more than $10 a day and that was a peak period weekday. All other sites had normal earnings, and normal traffic. Traffic on the test site was normal as well. However, our CTR nearly TRIPLED in each ad block, an increase of over 5 times the normal CTR for the site as a whole.
We just wanted to share those figures with the other publishers. Hoping it will help those who are stuggling to improve their weak earnings.
We are so pleased with the results, we are going to change over another smaller site tomorrow. We will keep all updated on how these changes pan out long term. If both smaller sites hold these increases, we are going to make the changes network wide.
I'm just wondering if you have tried having only one banner on the page? I found that on my site multiple banners decreased the income for the page. Are you using channels to check that all the ads are paying their way?
Interesting about the 800*600 comment - I still find that's the most popular resolution for visitors.
As far as smart pricing, we will see. We have yet to have a negative impact from smart pricing. In fact, our impressions are down sligtly due to jagger, but PPC is up, as would be expected for this season and month. Smart pricing doesn't have a negative effect on every website. There are numerous factors that come into consideration, and if you site or network doesn't have those factors, it is not a problem.
Right now, it is early on Sunday. We have typically weak traffic to draw conclusions from, but our CTR is 2.5 times higher over previous averages. Given this is a Sunday, also typically slow for us, that is excellent. I would expect that CTR number to grow as the day progresses, and the pool is larger.
We will see.
At this time, 2pm, this site has almost $5.00. The site normally is lucky to get $2.00 after a full day, and frequently doesn't reach a buck. The click through rate for this site has more than doubled, with the link unit bringing in 80% of the revenue.
This is enough proof for us. We are going to work to covert the entire network. It is a huge job, but we will begin with the smaller sites and work our way up.
I did do a very tiny test on one of the large sites. We have a topic that has seven pages. So, we did that test on those seven pages, using one channel for them collectively sorted into specific ad blocks. We had a link unit, and three 120x600. That collection of pages was one of the last that still had three ad blocks on it, due to our renvovation most have only two. As expected the 120x600 'A' block, performed the best with weaker CTR on the 'B' block and no action at all on the 'C' block.
The link unit is performing very badly. It is very clear why though. The link unit we chose was the not the same as the one we used on the other two test sites. It is much smaller, has smaller font, and is hard to see. Also it is in a bad location, a result of that paticular template.
In order to resolve it, it will require a time consuming site redesign. We will tackle that soon. Certainly it is worth it.
I do want to say with over one thousand pages, and several thousand ad blocks, channel tracking them is impossible. But, clustering them into channels by location on the page has been a big help in tweeking CTR.
I did try the link unit when it first came out, without success, and removed it. Looking back, it was not the link unit, it was my placement. It is easier to blame failure on others, than to admit we made a mistake. But, doing so in this business, can be very costly. I have to make a mental note to practice what I preach, not just sometimes, but all the time.
For a couple days I let it run and was checking my stats and realized it wasn't showing up. What I had done was put the wrong channel on it.
At the same time I have website I spun off of these pages. In the past both sites had the same advertisers and EPC. (smartpriced low)
When I went back yesterday and applied the code that was suppose to be on it, at the end of the day the earnings were double on the pages versus the pages on other site for the same amount of clicks.
I find this really strange, and it makes me want to change the code around on all my sites occasionally. Seems like sometimes the default ads pay more.
Change is good, especially when it increases revenue, as it seems to have done for both of us.
