Referral Ad Code Defaulting

Filler ads when actual referral product not shown

[ryanjensen]

ASA, maybe you can help out here. I have implemented a referral product on my site in the form of a 300x250 flash ad, and have received commissions over the last three days for this referral. At one point today, instead of the flash ad being shown, a 300x250 block of contextual ads is being shown in the default "blue/green" Adsense colors.

I have checked, and the referral product is still listed in the Adsense control panel and the code for the ad is exactly the same.

This is confusing me in several ways:

* Why would a referral product default to contextual ads?
* How can I track this, when the (now) contextual ads are not in a proper channel?
* If this has to happen, why can we not specify the correct colors for the contextual ad block?

Looking again, it appears the referral product ad has returned. Is there any reason behind this temporary switch? Will this happen again in the future? If so, will we be able to specify the channel and colors for the replacement ad?

Has anyone else noticed this?

- Ryan

[Forest Dweller]

Yes, I'm having the same sort of trouble only much worse. I devoted a 125x125 ad block that appears on each page of my site to product referrals on April 7th ... and it has defaulted to contextual ads since then. The ads are in the default colors and stick out like a sore thumb. Not sure if I should just sit tight, or revert to contextual ads on that block until they get all the bugs worked out.

[trinorthlighting]

We noticed it last week on one of our sites. It was the google check out referal banner. We noticed that it sometimes was populated with text or image ads.

[celgins]

I noticed this last week. The banner image I tried displaying on my site never showed. It has always (and continues to show) shown contextual ads.

[AdSenseAdvisor]

Hi ryanjensen and everyone,

Sorry for this delayed response. Right now our targeting technology is optimizing your referral units based on a variety of factors. We find that these rotating referrals tend to produce a better CPM than individually selected ads.

However, the team has realized that some publishers want only very specific PPA ads to appear on their sites. Starting Monday, you'll be able to regenerate your code and uncheck a "display best performing ads" box, which will put an end to the ad rotation.

Do know that AFC ads aren't rotated in with your referral ads - the text ads you're seeing are likely referral ads that are simply formatted to look like expanded text ads, and are still paid on a CPA basis. On the flip side, those of you who have chosen referrals formatted like text ads are likely seeing image ad formatted referrals rotating in.

Hope that clarifies, and sorry again for the slow response,
-ASA