New Text Ad Formats

Anyone else seen this.

[webcentric]

I was just on one of my pages and saw an ad format I've never seen before. It occurred on a responsive text ad unit displaying a 160x600 size. At the top is one normal text ad but then, the bottom 2 thirds of the ad space have something that looks more like boxed link units in a very large font with small dropdown arrows. Each block just has a title with no url or description underneath. It's hard to describe but it almost looks like a panel control. Has anyone else seen this? It's obviously an "enhanced" text ad feature and I'm not even sure if I like it or not yet but the look is almost shocking to the system.

[snickles121]

I love these new ads because my ctr doubled along with a 50% increase in epc. I have not seen these results in over two years. Great job adsense and its about time! Im very very happy!

[snickles121]

I also want to add that I activated this feature I received from adsense 2 days prior to the new ads "Google Analytics helps you understand your site performance, and now AdSense can help you use those insights to grow your site. Opt in to Analytics’ new Account specialists setting under your Account Settings tab. Then we’ll be able to send you targeted site tips, detailed traffic insights, and fresh ideas around using features like Content Experiments."

This may be a contributing factor to my increased epc. I suggest anyone experiencing problems with the new ads is to activate this option.

My settings on adsense is that I have everything enabled without interest based ads enabled.

[JCKline]

My CTR is up, but eCPM has dropped dramatically....hmmm

[Ramone]

I used to have text ads on blue background and now, background is white?! But CTR is ok anyway...

[CalArch90]

I'm not liking the square arrow format with the mouseover expanding list. The way the text and the arrows get cut off looks sloppy to me. It would work better if they moved the square arrow down so it only shows up when you mouseover. The circle arrow format looks much better imo. CTR seems slightly better though, but it may just be the novelty of it.

[CalArch90]

Also, will they do away with the graphic logos? I kind of liked them, they added some color to the ad units.

[webcentric]

I used to have text ads on blue background and now, background is white?

I'm not liking the square arrow format with the mouseover expanding list.

Also, will they do away with the graphic logos?

I recommend looking at these units in different browsers. Haven't looked in the past few days but a week ago, IE what showing something completely different that Firefox for example. There may be different implementations for different families of browsers e.g. web-kit, Mozilla, IE, etc. or even for different versions of browsers. Haven't had time to do any deep exploring on the subject yet but there definitely seems to be some inconsistencies in how this is being rolled-out. I'm betting that eventually we'll see updates in the Ad Unit control panel (where new ads units are created) with new property settings, options and maybe (just hoping here) a more accurate preview tool that reflects what the ad will actually look like on the page (not holding my breath on that one though).

Until you know how these things look in different environments, it may be a futile effort to try and correct how they look in just a single browser. You may get a look you're happy with in one browser but it may not look so good in another.

[webcentric]

FYI, The first official news I've seen about this is now on the Adsense blog...

[adsense.blogspot.com ]

Not that I think the above adds a whole lot to this discussion at this point.

[ken_b]

I haven't seen these on my site yet, but I have seen them for a couple days on another site I frequent.

If others have seen them on my site I wonder if it might account for the drop I've seen in CTR.

.

[Ramone]

Ok. Now that I checked with Chrome on Windows and Linux, I can tell that layout of my web site is in total mess. Text ad 336x280 is placed in the top middle of page instead bellow title on the left side, as with float:left style should be.

On IE it seems perfect and on Firefox on Linux.
But on Firefox on Windows, background is white instead of blue?!

I really have simple layout and at moment trying to find out why is layout on Chrome gone wrong?

[webcentric]

I really have simple layout and at moment trying to find out why is layout on Chrome gone wrong?

Not sure if this is the answer but it solved a Chrome float issue for me regarding lists. Try using clear:both instead of say, clear:left; when clearing any floats.

[Ramone]

Just now I see that in Firefox on Windows, text ads are also on background that it should be.
Also, fixed on Chrome, thanks to webcentric

[webcentric]

I recommend looking at these units in different browsers...

UPDATE: Seems like the differences in various browsers has evened out a bit. I'm guessing early differences we're due to roll-out schedule and/or fixes after the fact. Not sure everything is consistent but it's looking more so now.

[indyank]

Neither the underline nor the nessie button is visible on 335x280 or 300x250 or 300x600 ads. So it is just the large title (without the underline) which acts as the clickable area on the ads. Is this the primary reason for the drop in CTR? I am not sure why the nessie button disappeared too!

or is it that they are experimenting this (no nessie and no title underline) on a few sites ?

[indyank]

I will have to add that the clickable area is much lesser if you disable "Enhanced Text Ads". Disabling this merely removes the nessie button but all other changes remain as it is including "no underlines" for titles.

When you enable "Enhanced Text Ads" the nessie button appears again. Another thing that I notice is when you hover over the nessie button the entire ad unit gets a greyish blue (or bluish grey) background while hovering over the title just changes the title font color. There seems to be no control for the user to customize these hover effects.

They should essentially give back users the ability to customize the ads so they can give the title an underline or control the hover effects. They seem to have done away with underlines because they make the titles more bigger (they call it "large crisp headlines") by default. large crisp headlines simply doesn't seem to convert as well as titles with underlines for many users.

I am not sure whether people who are seeing an increase in CTR are seeing it with all these new changes in place. moreover, the "large crisp headlines" might not match the current design (font sizes and other CSS) for many.

[webcentric]

Another point to realize about removing enhanced features is that the hover effect is also removed from the title. The choice between enhanced or not enhanced is like a choice between a cardboard sign and a poorly lit theater marquee. At least enhanced ads have some visual clues to clickability. Removing enhanced features leaves you with only two calls to action that I can see.

1. Cursor change when you roll over the title or URL and

2. Appearance of a destination URL in the Browser Status Bar (with a complexity that probably still scares a great many surfers to this day e.g. if you look at a URL and can't tell where it's gonna take you, it's natural to be suspicious).

So, turning off enhanced features is pretty risky in my book these days and I think that's just fine with G because they are obviously committed to combating fraudulent clicks by controlling ad format in ways that combat old-style techniques. I'm wondering when and if they're ever gonna get around to modifying ad-editing features to match settings that actually work on these new ads. It would show some real commitment to those features. Given the changing nature of this, right now it seems like one grand experiment and feeling like a lab rat is not my thing.

[webcentric]

Just re-read this thread and am quite amazed at the variation in what people have seen as these new ads are being rolled out. For awhile, it seems like G was flipping features on and off randomly across the entire publisher universe. It's almost like no two people were having the same experience at the same time even if most people are now experiencing something relatively similar. For example, I actually saw (on one occasion on a single day) a small image in one of my text ads (perhaps an 80x80 button size). At the time, I thought it was a new enhance feature like favicons but it went away and I haven't seen it since. Speaking of which, is anyone still seeing favicons anymore? Who knows, maybe "enhanced" now means text ads are subject to any new feature G wishes to throw into the mix at any given moment and time. I guess time will tell that story.

[EditorialGuy]

For example, I actually saw (on one occasion on a single day) a small image in one of my text ads (perhaps an 80x80 button size). At the time, I thought it was a new enhance feature like favicons but it went away and I haven't seen it since.

We had a discussion of that here back in July or August, as I recall. I saw the ad units with icons a few times--maybe they were being tested? I thought they looked better than the usual AdSense text ads, though not as good as the new text ads that we've been seeing lately.