Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Now CTR has gone down in general by 50% for my network of sites year-over-year, and while income is still well into the six figures yearly, I wonder if "banner blindness" has extended significantly of late to include text links. The economy and its effects are a given, of course, and my sites are as subject to its whims as are many other sectors. Then there is the "window shopping" phenomenon which prevents me from buying that 70" HDTV or trip around the world... In addition, I never click on ads or watch them on TV, so I am admittedly not in the best position to judge what would make anyone click any ad...
A/B and other testing has proven inconclusive thus far, though that may be the only way to get a true statistical answer.
Has anyone shared this experience?
I know that Google says that it recommends using as many ad units as possible and does not penalize those who use the max.
Link units never worked on any of my sites.
Thank you.
2 big boxes, 2 AdLinks
(1) 160x600 or 120x600
(1) 728x15 link unit
Seems to perform the best for me. I also have a number of sites where I have nothing but the link unit.
The reason I did this is to make my content look better and I think that is a key point. A page with 2 ad units that looks appealing to the viewer should outperform a page with 3 ad units that looks crowded with ads. So, my theory is if I design the page with my viewer in mind the CTR will follow. Time will tell.
All, of course, depending on your niche, etc, yada yada.
IMO, biggest factor is amount of advertisers in your niche. Let's say there are 7 major advertisers in your niche - so there is no sense using 3 ad units, because that it allows those $0.01-$0.001 advertisers sneak in. But using only 1 ad units leaves lot of valuable clicks away.
I divided that page into three pages and put 1 content unit on each page.
CTR for that content went from X before the change to 5X after the change.
FarmBoy
ASA
That is an interesting discovery. I will try this out to see if this increases CTR. Normally, I personally don't like to break up articles, for example, into discrete pages, as I find it annoying as a reader to have to go from page to page.
But other types of information can be broken down, of course, to better effect. There is some experimentation needed, I think, as I sometimes get annoyed with sites that seem to wish to increase pageviews by forcing multiple levels of drill-downs and then I become even more blind to the ads--and do not visit them again...
Again, when I see ads in the middle of an article or content, I find that distracting as it interrupts the reading and flow of thought, and would only click them by accident. But it seems that many here and elsewhere on the Web find this method gets good CTR.
Should those who develop their own websites (or perhaps I am alone in what I find as obtrusive ad placements) partially disqualify themselves as judges of where to place ads in an optimum fashion?
If I start seeing too many repeats, I pull an ad unit.
If by "repeats" you mean the same ad showing more than once on the same page at the same time, I don't mind that at all.
FarmBoy
