Adsense Interest Based Ads - In or Out?

[jmccormac]

Has anyone opted out of Adsense's Interest-Based adverts or seen noticable increases in revenue from opting in?

Regards...jmcc

[Swanny007]

I didn't opt in or out, I think the default is "opt in" (correct me if I'm wrong). I can't really tell if it's helped or not. The last two day's revenue were lower than normal but today is back to normal. So who knows... I'll be interested to see if we can determine if we can tell if it's had an effect on revenue :-)

[explorador]

I updated my privacy policy and opted out. I'll see how this goes.

[jmccormac]

I've turned off interest-based ads for today. Monday is typically one of the busiest days on one of my sites so it will be interesting to see if there is any difference to the last week or so.

Regards...jmcc

[netchicken1]

According to ASA its still in beta, and only a few people are involved. How do we know if we are actually being affected?

10 days ago....

here:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Just to clarify, today we're beginning a limited beta. I can't give you specifics on its scope, but I can tell you that right now interest-based advertising is only open to a very small number of advertisers.

[bumpski]

I run several smaller sites and have noticed that ads I see when looking at my own sites are obviously ads that are derived from attempting to track my interests rather than targeted at the pages content. I see ads completely unrelated to content.

I turned off interest based ads on 4/11 and haven't seen apparent interest ads on my sites. Earnings I would say are slightly lower but so much within the "noise" tolerance that I couldn't possibly tell if turning them off really made a difference.

It would be nice if Google would add a third targeting category to the results. "Context", "Placement", or "Interest". I really wish they would mark CPM ads somehow as well, because I see evidence of CPM ads in eCPM and earnings but no "Placement" targeted indications, and I have long in the past asked Google not to show CPM ads on my account and they did so at the time.

[freelistfool]

I have one site where it appears that the ads are interest based. The CTR has been cut in half and the eCPM is down by over one third...and of course total revenue.

I'm going to turn them off and see if my stats revert back to normal. I'll let you know what happens. But so far for my niche it appears that interest based are a money loser.

[sunhapol]

I opted out but I updated my privacy policy. But still its my income is decreasing everyday ....

[netmeg]

I don't think anyone can make ANY determinations on interest based ads as yet.

Ask me in October - *might* have some anecdotal data by then. Definitely not sooner.

[freelistfool]

I don't think anyone can make ANY determinations on interest based ads as yet.

I humbly disagree. There are plenty of metrics I found to use to make the comparison. I was going to wait out the month, but the CTR was so far below my normal CTR from recent months and from the same month (April) over the last several years that I decided to turn the option off. My CTR came back immediately...and so did the eCPM and revenue. Sorry I wasn't willing to give up 30% of that site's revenue until October. ;).

[netmeg]

Unh hunh. Let us know in October how that's held up for you.