Why only one set of Ads?

Repeats improve results on long pages!

[CherryHintonBlue]

AdSense terms state that

You can only place one set of ads (one copy of the AdSense HTML ad code) on each page. Otherwise, ads may be double-served. In an effort to maintain the quality of our program, Google does not support double-serving. Please select the one ad placement best suited for each of your pages.

My sites have thousands of pages of content which often stretch to two, three or more screens vertically. I proved to my own satisfaction long ago that I'd get more clickthroughs for my advertisers if their horizontal banner at the top of the page was repeated at the bottom: whilst clickthroughs weren't doubled, they were certainly up by at least 50%.

I appreciate Google can't allow webmasters to serve up hundreds of AdSense ads on a page, but surely the ability to repeat a horizontal ad "below the fold" would be to everyone's benefit?

[jeremy goodrich]

It would double the bandwidth on the Google AdSense webserver, if you made two calls per page to their box to request ads (hence the double serving of the ads...) which would also result in two impressions for the advertiser, and thus lower the CTR.

In addition, run the risk of having an ad 'taken offline' for low performance.

[woop01]

jeremy, you don't get ads taken offline for low CTR on content sites. In fact, it doesn't even apply to your overall CTR.

From Google...

To ensure your advertising is as effective as possible for you and your users, we require that your account and individual keywords maintain a minimum CTR. However, because we only consider the CTR on Google search pages when evaluating your account and keywords, the performance of ads distributed to our ad network do not affect the CTR Google uses in evaluating your performance.

[jeremy goodrich]

Cool thanks for the correction! However, it would still double the bandwidth on the Google ad server...:)

But, do marketer's really want to see false impressions in their stats, and be tricked into believing their ad isn't pulling as it should?

For myself, as a marketer, I would be tricked, and then proceed to waste my time trying to fix it when there was nothing to fix.

[woop01]

I agree totally. But while we're talking about performance, I'm more concerned with Google giving us separate tracking URLs for Adsense ads.

[jeremy goodrich]

Very good point - I haven't used the program yet myself, though. Is there a different referrer in your logs when the click comes from AdSense?

If that is the case, then it's easy enough to parse it out & tack on a cookie for it...:)

[CherryHintonBlue]

I can see your point Jeremy, but I don't want it to appear like the ad's been served twice, separately, I just want to show the same ad at the top and bottom of the page and have it count as one impression. I do this with my existing banner advertisers, who are more than happy because they get better response, and keeping the advertisers happy is my over-riding aim.

[europeforvisitors]

I just want to show the same ad at the top and bottom of the page and have it count as one impression. I do this with my existing banner advertisers, who are more than happy because they get better response, and keeping the advertisers happy is my over-riding aim.

Isn't that more of an issue with CPM ads than with CPC ads, where advertisers pay only for clickthroughs?

[woop01]

Great point on the parsing. I've just gotten so hooked on tracking URLs for all of my keywords.

Thanks for the idea.

[jeremy goodrich]

Good point, EPV - the CPC ads, getting a better response - helps you as a publisher - however - might actually have the impact of lowering the ROI for the folks that are leveraging AdSense as a marketing tool.

<added>

No worries, glad that you liked the idea on parsing the referrer! Let us know how it works out, eh?

</added>

[vincevincevince]

how about making the adwords float with the browser window? that's popular for some other stuff - then they'll always be seen

[europeforvisitors]

how about making the adwords float with the browser window? that's popular for some other stuff - then they'll always be seen

I don't think you'll see floating ads from a company that's thoughtful enough to incorporate a popup blocker into the latest version of its toolbar.

IMHO, floating ads score an "A" for "annoying."