"Enhancements" to Text Ads

[netmeg]

Hey, remember those arrows we were all talking about a while ago that Google was testing and we all hated?

Well, get used to 'em. We are about to be "enhanced".

You'll notice a new clickable arrow icon, as well as slight optimizations to font size, spacing and text layout. These enhancements are among the largest that we have made to text ads, and our experiments indicate an uplift in clicks across publishers on the Google Display Network.

[adsense.blogspot.com...]

(I do not see them on my own sites as yet)

[ken_b]

Oh goody!

sigh..... well, maybe they'll pay better .... ya think?

They only talk about text ads.

Maybe time to switch to image only?

[breeks]

I have seen a few. On desktop computer 160 x 600 one ad and then grey arrow. 160 x 600 is one of my better paying ad units so I hope they intend to put more than one ad. Not much we can do, as my old boss used to say at the daily meetings "If you don't want to to the job we will find somebody that does"

[ken_b]

I have a couple of adblocks that appear on every other page a1 - a2 - a1 - a2 etc, these two blocks do approximately the same as far as earnings go.

Both have been text/image for the last couple of years.

I set one to image only today. I'll see how that goes.

[JCKline]

If it somehow "increases" clicks that are good paying, then fine, but I'll hate visiting my own site or anyone else's with adsense. sigh

Next they'll create ads that expand slowly to full page over content..oh crap, just gave G an idea.

[Clarence]

i got warned by Google for putting Arrows near my ads years ago. The Arrows helped draw more attention to the ads. Guess Google stole my idea lol. These Arrows will increase CTR.

[Clarence]

Any image or close to the Ad units will draw more attention to the ads and increase CTR. It would be better if Google put rotating red animated gif arrow pointing toward the ads.


Yeah the ads won't look good, but ad's aren't supposed to look good they are supposed to make money, and if the ads can't make money, the site can't continue to give great free content.

So i guess Google tested and the new arrow earned the highest CTR. More money for publishers.

[moTi]

they show these arrows on the mobile banner for some time now, don't they? they are performing well on my webapp. much higher ctr, but way more ugly and in-your-face. i guess that's the trade-off we have to live with. the highest earning ads are always the most annoying.

that said, it could be that there is only a slight improvement for regular desktop usage where people use mouse navigation instead of actually touching on the arrow. we'll see.

I set one to image only today. I'll see how that goes.

good luck with that. i've always wondered, if there are any members here who really have success with image ads. i mean in terms that they outperform text ads income-wise? i can't believe that. image ads regularly pay only lousy pennies for me. even if i select text/image and let them compete with the text ads, they do not add any noteworthy amount to the income at all. i'm talking way too low earnings here, maybe one hundredth of the cpm of text ads.

[Bewenched]

It's going to make pages look cluttered if there's more than one or two of these.

Did they do this to prevent accidental clicks?

[martinibuster]

...image ads regularly pay only lousy pennies for me.

In many contexts affiliate text links paid better than affiliate image ads for affiliate links. I got the idea years ago from a member of WebmasterWorld who had text link style ads on his site, years before AdSense existed. This member's text ads looked like AdSense ads, only this was before AdSense existed. So I played around with it and discovered that the text ad style unit actually delivered better conversions than image ads.

Messing around with Affiliate work can give insight into how AdSense works and how you can optimize content, AdSense ads, or both for the best revenue.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I'm all for A/B testing but these hurt my earnings a good deal in October - [webmasterworld.com...]

[netmeg]

Still haven't seen any arrows. Image ads do quite well for me in some spots.

[moTi]

Image ads do quite well for me in some spots.

compared to what? to text ads or to blank space?

hypothetical adsense earnings example for one banner per month:

text only: 100$
text/image: 105$
image only: 5$

which option optimizes revenue? obviously text/image.
but am i willing to give image advertisers a free ride for 5 bucks a month? nope. i choose text only.

[HuskyPup]

I've been seeing these for months now and only the othe day I saw one that actually matched that site's colour scheme, it looked really good, far better than the one-way street arrow!

[vivalasvegas]

I see these arrowed ads from time to time and I find them quite appealing.

[netmeg]

compared to what? to text ads or to blank space?

Compared to text ads, of course.

My primary sites have virtually no images (other than the image ads) That might make a difference, I dunno. Also, my sites are locally focused, and the image ads *I* usually see are for local businesses or organizations. I'm sure that helps as well.

[Zygoot]

Wow those arrows look so spammy.

[breeks]

Starting to see these ads all over the place now. CTR might be up at the beginning but after a while its going to be real easy for the average web surfer to avoid the ads with the arrows.

[moTi]

Starting to see these ads all over the place now.

confirmed. my first thought was, that users might confuse the arrow with the known small arrows which turned over to another set of ads. or think this is part of the webpage navigation.
so yes, i think it will increase ctr. but for a good part because it provokes accidental clicks, which will likely result in lower earnings per click through smart pricing..

[ember]

Those arrows are now all over my site and really ugly. I cannot see how this is going to help CTR.

[JCKline]

@ember, they are ugly, and 2 to 3 ads make it worse. I guess it's time for one ad per page.

[breeks]

Adding some gray highlights to my templates. One site switched to gray background, got to work with it :)

[JCKline]

@breeks, good idea until the arrow turns pink :)

[netmeg]

Saw em on my own sites for the first time today, but only on some 728x90 banners so far.

[breeks]

So far today CTR has tanked. Dropped by nearly a half percent. Arrows are sucking, at least on my sites.

[londrum]

it would be nice if they gave us the option of turning them off. they let you change the colours and font, why cant they let us choose the layout too? they need to let us test stuff out, to see what makes the most money

[breeks]

I see them on chrome but not on Internet Explorer. On both most ad blocks only have one advertiser per unit.

[ronalds8]

CTR down, CPC up

[HuskyPup]

CTR up, EPC up, the arrows look nicely colour matched on my sites, especially 728 x 90 where I'm seeing only single ads.

@netmeg - Are they doing an AdWords promotion for these?

[netmeg]

I haven't seen any, but I don't do a whole lot in the display market at the moment - all my PPC clients right now are B2B and they all just advertise in search.