Can I Put an Ad at the Very Top?

AdSense loosened the rules, right?

[Sally Stitts]

Many of my pages get 80-100% for AVV (Active View Viewable), with the ad above the fold on mobile.

BUT, I can't get my TOP page to go above 60%. Weird.

So, what if I placed the ad at the very top. Is this allowable? Is it reasonable?
I know that AdSense loosened the rules about mobile ads above the fold, but did they loosen them THIS much?
Would you do it?

I am losing a lot with 60%, instead of 100%. I am trying to figure out a solution.

OR, instead, how about using a shorter and shorter (not tall) ad format, under the initial text, to drive AVV up? Is this a better solution?

Is there a guidance number for how many pixels must be below the ad, before the (average, selected, hypothesized) fold?
Thoughts?

Thank you.
.

[NickMNS]

The most likely scenario is that you are falling victim to the scroll-by. That is when the ad doesn't load as fast as the content, so user begins scrolling before they ever see the ad. In such a case moving an ad even further up will make the situation worse not better.

[tangor]

What NickMNS said. More likely is ad blindness as most users expect either a logo or an ad in the top position and are not even looking since their first thought is the content they searched for.

[Sally Stitts]

Yeah. And Yeah.
OK. Back to the drawing board.

Thank you for your responses. More painful but necessary truth. I won't try it.
.

[QuaterPan]

Ad above the fold on mobile device is rarely a good idea. Like it has been said, chances are users will have already scrolled down, before the ad was loaded (Adsense doesn't look like applying Google's best practices about optimizing page speed).

If you want a nearly 100% AVV, use the anchor/overlay ads. This creates a sticky ads, which will remain on screen all the time.

[Sally Stitts]

Regarding scroll-by -
I do a lot of testing using using mobile emulators (no mobile phone, no service in the mountains).
I see a lot of -
page with no ad = 200ms
same page with 1 ad= 2 seconds
I thought that async code was supposed speed up ad delivery over sync code. Not seeing it.

Sure looks like ad delay to me.
Problem is, when the ad is moved down the page, the CTR drops like a rock.
.

[QuaterPan]

I do a lot of testing using using mobile emulators (no mobile phone, no service in the mountains).

Be sure to activate the throttling , to simulate 3G connection (what is commonly used)

I thought that async code was supposed speed up ad delivery over sync code.

Not at all. Adsense is serving ads at the same speed, why would they slow down non ASYNC requests? Ads download and render at the same speed. The only difference is that, while the ad is loading, your page continue to be loaded and rendered too. In fact, it's only the code used to creating the iframe object which is downloaded. Then the iframe rendering is the same in sync or async. (iframes are loading asynchronously)

[NickMNS]

I thought that async code was supposed speed up ad delivery over sync code. Not seeing it.

Further to Travis' point above,
Async slows the rendering of ads. When a webpage loads each element is loaded/rendered in sequence. If there is an element such as an ad that isn't ready to be rendered, because the server hasn't returned the code yet, the loading of the page will be blocked. In other words the user sees nothing on the screen. By making ads load async, what one is doing is taking that block of code out of the queue. The code is blocked until the request has been returned and it is ready to render. What effectively happens with async is that most of the page elements load and render very fast and the ads are delayed, so they don't appear until after the users starts scrolling.

Switching code to sync doesn't really solve the issue. Loading of the ads doesn't count towards Google's measure of page speed, so delaying the ads is advantageous in that respect. With sync ads one will delay the page load and that could have significant impact on page speed. But it has the one advantage of blocking the page load up to the ad, then showing the ad before resuming the rendering of the rest of the page. In this situation the user gets to see an ad before the content, making it much more visible. (this is not recommended).

The only way to increase viewability is to place the ads in close proximity to content that the user is sure to engage with, and to be sure to make both the ad and content visible on the screen. If one has long article and only shows an ad at the beginning and end of the article it is less likely to be seen than if you place the ad after the first paragraph or below an graphic.

Note that in order for an ad to be considered viewable 50% of the ad must be visible on the screen for at least 1 second.

[frankleeceo]

The adsense code should always be async. Only very edge cases with special setups such as wrapping it inside another async container like DFP async code. But even then, Google takes care of it even of async is used in that case.

I personally don't worry about those speed testers, I worry more about user perceived speed and site response.

The unit at the very top will not necessary get a good AVV, as visitors scroll past that unit fast.

In terms of mobile ads, placing it at the bottom of the first screen works for me. My format is generally:
Site Name
Navigation
Intro 1~2 Paragraph
"insert first mobile banner"
Content

I generally aim for a AVV of 30%, with a minimum of 20%. Sometimes it's a tough balancing act between number of units, demand (coverage), and AVV. I do have a site at 60%. But that is my outlier.

My math is simple for my brands and my tests.

On an impression RPM basis, if I just have 1 unit, I will probably achieve 50~70% AVV my RPM is say $1.00~$1.20. If I have 4 Units, my AVV drops to 30% and my impression RPM drops to 0.4~0.5. But, with 4 units, I doubled my overall income or at least get a +40%~+50% earning. That has been the case for all of my properties.

The biggest issue is that as units are added, AVV drops, account score (my speculation) drops, and sometimes coverage issue and smart price may kick in. It requires a bit of balancing and testing.

My solution for mobile:
1~2 units of 320x50 and 320x100 unit mix near the top and bottom. Usually At the bottom of first fold, and footer.
1~2 units of 300x250 units in content.
For UX / branding purpose, I dislike having 300x250 Above the fold on mobile. I think that's tacky.

And to optimize that stack on the bigger screen, serve 728x90 units responsively for tablet and desktop in place of your 320x50 locations.

And I would add some more units on the side bar on a bigger screen. 160x600, 300x600.

Another side tip that might work for you, is using the 120x600 or 160x600 unit side to side with your mobile content. That unit packs a good AVV punch. Just watch out for the iAB ad experience rule, but you should generally be fine with longer form content.

I have spent nearly 300 hours testing these things out for my own properties. I do variate my ad locations / density on a per site basis. Guessing my audience's habits and what serves them the best in terms of navigation and UX.

Good luck.

[Sally Stitts]

Wow. I am awed. A lot of knowledge. Thank you all.

I need to read this over and over.
.