More data on multiple ad units?

Has it raised or lowered overall revenue?

[javahava]

I have placed three ad units on my site, and have found that only one of them generates 97% of the revenue (the leaderboard at the top, vs. a banner in the middle (5%), and a leaderboard at the bottom (2%)). Has anyone else tried such a structure?

I'm unsure if the other two ads may even be decreasing the revenue per click of the leaderboard (can anyone confirm that multiple units does this?)? Have others found multiple ad units a net positive or negative on overall revenue? I'm tempted to remove the bottom two units - anyone have similar experiences?

[steve40]

I tried similar test and allowed it to run in controlled test for 5 weeks and my findings were significant decrease in overall earnings

My belief is that this was due to the inabillity to target the highest cpc adds in the best place for ctr and have now removed all multiple add units , back to running single block with 4 adds

since the change back my earnings have reverted back to previouse ctr and similar epc to before testing
so doubt if i will ever try again on my sites

it could be other publishers have different results
so just my 2 cents worth
steve

[rapidcars]

I've discovered its raised revenue about 25%. I put the 2nd ad below the original one so that it didn't affect targetting or anything like that. Original stayed in the same place.

[europeforvisitors]

I tried a second ad unit on two different occasions, and it didn't have much impact on revenues (though it did cut into CPM since each ad block counts as an impression). I decided against keeping more than one ad unit because the second unit wasn't earning its keep and looked ugly.

[Jenstar]

I found the CPM/EPC on second and third ad units to be about 1/5th to 1/10th of the first ad unit that I ended up dropping them from most pages. I've tested it on a couple different occassions (once when they launched and again recently) but the drop in CPM/EPC was dramatic - not to mention surprising.

[ownerrim]

Coincidental with additional ad blocks, my epc and daily earnings took a significant nosedive. I removed the additional ad blocks. EPC and earnings remained stuck in their depressed stuck, causing me to curse google on a daily basis for luring me into their "webmaster trap of greed". Sometime later, since epc seemed permanently flattened (who knows why---advertiser budgets, my zodiac sign, storms in florida...), I decided to add another adblock back. Now, earnings are back on track. Again, who knows why.

Basically, I don't have a clue, and I sincerely congratulate google on that. The "inscrutability" of adsense bodes well for the future of the program.

[alika]

The CPM dropped. But the second ad unit (bottom of each article) now accounts for 15% of our revenues, while the 3rd ad unit accounts (skyscraper at the side) for 5% of our revenue. Hence, we always have a 2nd ad unit but keeps the 3rd optional - only on long articles.

We're sticking with the multiple ad units as we do not want to risk losing 15-20% of our revenues, never mind if the CPM dropped.

[Never_again]

As usual, experience with multiple ads will vary based on site content, ad positioning, etc. Therefore it is interesting to hear what others have experienced.

We experimented with multiple ads, but saw no increase in revenue. We dropped back to one ad per page as a result.

[sholtodhr]

I have seen something interesting about multiple ad units. In our industry (travel) some of the most interesting advertisers are not ranked in the top three or four, which are often multinationals, and so including more units does mean that more interesting ads are shown on the page.

[europeforvisitors]

In our industry (travel) some of the most interesting advertisers are not ranked in the top three or four, which are often multinationals...

So? Tell 'em to bid more per click. :-)

[sholtodhr]

so the advertisers aren't paying attention to this. But I have found that a destination directory site has better revenues with more ad units as visitors did not click on the higher ranked ads which were not really relevant... expedia doesn't do guesthouses in the Highlands of Scotland, but some of the lower ranked ads were exactly relevant.

Thats the point. So it might depend on which industry you pages are most relevant to.

[elguapo]

In our sites, some of the biggest multinational names are not in the first ad unit. Sometimes, they're even in the 3rd ad unit, which tells me that they don't necessarily bid the highest apparently.