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Lower AdSense income after segmenting the ad size with @media queries

I show 250x250px ads to less than 500px width users.

         

guarriman

10:30 am on May 7, 2015 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi.

After changing the design of my webpages into a responsive one, and after waiting for 3 months, I've found that the income was 30% lower than before (the traffic remains unchanged).

With the old non-responsive design, my ads shown a fixed size (i.e, 336x280 px). But with the new design, I use the @media query to:
- show 250x250px ad units for the mobile users. I understand that these users are ones with less than 500px width
- show the old size (i.e., 336x280 px) for the non-mobile users (ones with more than 500px width)

This would be my piece of code (following the rules of: [support.google.com...]

<style type="text/css">
.adslot_1 { width: 250px; height: 250px; }
@media (min-width:500px) { .adslot_1 { width: 336px; height: 280px; } }
</style>
<ins class="adsbygoogle adslot_1"
style="display:inline-block;"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-1234"
data-ad-slot="5678"></ins>
<script async src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
<script>(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});</script>


I have some questions:
- Should I use more segments for the users? I mean: 0-300px width, ad of 250x250px; 300-500px, another ad size; >500px, another size.
- Should I use another method to segment the users, different from media query? I mean, by analyzing the user-agent through PHP code.

Thank you very much in advance.

glitterball

11:21 am on May 7, 2015 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I'm seeing something similar (actually worse): CTR rate has dropped dramatically, especially for Tablets.
Frankly, the old non-mobile-friendly unresponsive design was much better, but I foolishly panicked and did what Google were asking for.

netmeg

12:33 pm on May 7, 2015 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



If you're allowing both text and image ads, you want to make sure you allow for as many of the standard sizes as possible. I'm not sure if Google would serve say, a 300x600 ad in a 300x500 space. So you could be lowering your inventory of available ads. I dunno for sure, but that's the first thing I thought of.

webcentric

3:21 pm on May 7, 2015 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



You're specifying exact sizes so I'm not sure if that limits you to just that size or not any more. Used to be there was a setting in the "Allow & Block Ads" tab that was something like ‘Show smaller but higher performing display ads in larger ad units.’ I think it's been replaced with 'Similar sized display ads - show similar-sized display ads resized to fit within ad units'. Look and see if you have that option checked for starters. If it's not, then I'm fairly certain you'll only get the size specified in the CSS which is limiting as netmeg suggests. Not sure if checking that option will override your css and let smaller/resized ads compete or not but it's worth a try.

guarriman

4:28 pm on May 7, 2015 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Ummm, I think that 'netmeg' could be very right. I'm forcing Google to serve 250x250 ad units and, after browsing the ad sizes (https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/6002621), I've found out that 250x250 is not a "Top performing ad size", so I can guess that they have less inventory than others.

I'll try to force 300x250 ad units for mobile users (less than 500px width), and 336x280 (another "Top performing ad size") for desktop users (higher than 500 px width).

Thank you very much again :-)