Pruning my adsense offerings before the holiday season.

Good idea or bad?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I'm a bit of a stats freak and I keep records of everything. In looking over my adsense records I am inclined to make some changes before this holiday season that could be considered pruning (ie: removing my worst performing units).

My ultimate goal is of course to raise my total revenue and I realize that removing ads seems counter-intuitive to earning more but my goals are long term and here's what I'm thinking. Let me know if you disagree with anything.

Removing poorly performing units (consistently below 1% CTR month after month despite minor changes to color, border etc) will...
- raise my account averages for CTR, eCPM, earnings per unit etc.
- slightly speed up my sites, 200-400 ms load times per unit can add up.
- possibly lead to increased visitor satisfaction which may yield other benefits.

Would you hold off until after the holidays?
Would you worry about a sudden spike in your CTR and eCPM causing a review?
Is there even a benefit to having an account with a higher CTR or eCPM?

I don't anticipate any problems but whenever I consider any type of wholesale change when nothing is really wrong to begin with I get an uneasy feeling. You know the one.

[Rockyou]

Removing poorly performing units (consistently below 1% CTR month after month despite minor changes to color, border etc) will...
- raise my account averages for CTR, eCPM, earnings per unit etc.

No way removing them will increase your money, infact it will reduce your earning, Increasing CTR place ads above fold. Reducing page download time is a good idea, Use section targeting it works well.

Increasing ecpm, Only way to increase ecpm is to get search engine traffic with people income above $0.15 million annually or someone bidding to advertise in your site.

[edited by: Rockyou at 9:46 am (utc) on Oct 28, 2010]

[incrediBILL]

Makes no sense.

Just leaves more ad revenue for the rest of us ;)

[maximillianos]

I agree with the others. Removing ads only helps if they are hosting the top paying ads for the page in a low visibility spot while a high visibility ad unit gets the second tier ads.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

On a per-ad level you're right but I'm looking at overall unit and account averages.

I'll try to clarify a little more, as I said I realize higher averages will cost me a little in earnings but I see possible benefits.

Yes, the ads I am considering for removal are in fact below the fold, in the sidebar etc, not in the hot zones.

If I have 10 units and I get rid of 2 which had a CTR of 0.25 for example when the others are all 1.25 CTR my CTR AVERAGE per unit jumps from to 1.05 to 1.25.

maximillianos, you mention tiers, what if my entire account is deemed 2nd tier, would raising my averages (shown at the bottom of adsense reports) not get me closer to the top tier?

Everyone, do you think Google may be profiling webmasters/sites even in adsense? See [webmasterworld.com...] for discussion on that.

[incrediBILL]

higher averages will cost me a little in earnings

Removing AdSense when it's just costing you earnings isn't worth doing.

Been down that path, averages don't pay the rent.

[Swanny007]

In my experience taking ads off the page anywhere will result in lower overall earnings. If you want to remove ads, that's your choice, but the consensus is that you likely will lose money.

As for my niche, Q4 is always the strongest so any experimentation I do won't involve removing ads. I usually have one or two ads per page, and sometimes one link unit. Are you using the maximum number of ads? If so then your results may vary. Who are we kidding, AdSense is a bit of a "black box" so your results *will* vary ;-)

[HuskyPup]

Yes, the ads I am considering for removal are in fact below the fold, in the sidebar etc, not in the hot zones.

One of the major improvements to my overall CTR/eCPM this last few months has been the addition of a 336 x 280 below the fold, actually at the bottom of every single article/image/reference page.

iBILL is correct, many of us have tried this, waste of time.

[shallow]

I usually have one or two ads per page, and sometimes one link unit. Are you using the maximum number of ads?

One or two? From sites I've seen that's not a lot of ads. Maybe less is better?

I have three ads per page; if an article is long, I may stick in a small ad unit within the text.

Are 3-4 ads on one page too many?

btw, anyone know what is a good "average" ctr?