Worst ad format for AdSense?

[farmboy]

There have been several threads about the best ad format for AdSense. What about your worst?

For me, the 125 x 125 button seems to perform less than any other I've ever tried.

FarmBoy

[europeforvisitors]

I don't know what the worst ad format is, but I do know that my average CTR increased significantly when I went from 468 x 60 banners to 728 x 90 leaderboards.

[potentialgeek]

468 x 60 banners were the first main type of gif banner ads back in the 90s. Back then most people had a 800x600 screen (or smaller). Now monitors are bigger and 468 x 60 doesn't look so good. I don't know anyone who's doing really well with 468x60.

Worst ad format for me is image ads (any size). I've tried it a few times but the results were horrible. Also noticed MFAs and other useless sites love to use image ads. Google also has a very hard time filtering out irrelevant image ads (which also explains why CTR crashes).

p/g

[msolution]

Worst ad format by me is those big aquares! especially when people put 2 of them together!
its like holding a red flag! "I am MFA"! :p

M.

[zett]

The worst? The classic banner, 468x60 - a true underperformer.

[vivalasvegas]

Well performance here is closely tied to the number of ads shown. You'll obviously have less performance with 125x125 or 468x60 because they show 1 and 2 ads respectively. To truly compare between ad performance we should look at ad formats displaying the same number of ads. Like 468x60 vs 120x240 for example.

[farmboy]

468 x 60 banners were the first main type of gif banner ads back in the 90s. Back then most people had a 800x600 screen (or smaller). Now monitors are bigger and 468 x 60 doesn't look so good. I don't know anyone who's doing really well with 468x60.

The 468 x 60 format actually performs pretty well for me on the sites where I use it.

To truly compare between ad performance we should look at ad formats displaying the same number of ads. Like 468x60 vs 120x240 for example.

I agree an apples to apples comparison is best. However, I've found that on my sites, 120 x 240 is just as likely to show 1 ad as 2. Same with the square and rectangles - sometimes they show 1, sometimes 2 and sometimes 4.

FarmBoy

[europeforvisitors]

If you want a statistically meaningful result, you've got to compare ad formats in the same location, since placement is another variable. That's hard to do, since (for example) a two-ad banner isn't likely to fit the same spot on a layout that would be appropriate for a two-ad mini-skyscraper.