Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I get up this morning and much to my surprise my Sunday earnings are UP and Link Units contributed 30% of the income!
I sure hope this isn't a fluke.
My navigational link titles are also one and 2 words, same as Adlinks showing, but different font and font size, border same color as page and Ads by Google evidently above them. On all my sites I use one and 2 word navigational links, probably why the same Google format works so well.
They go like this on a page offering free widget patterns:
Ads by Google
Widgets
Widgeting
Widget Making
Widget Supplies
Widget Paper
Free Widget Patterns(my navigation)
Angel
Cat
Dolphin
Elephant
Heart
Raggedy Ann
Free Widget Pattern of the Month
.... Once they get to the free widget of the month, only option is to sign up for the Free Widget Pattern of the Month Club(monthly mailing list), then they have no where to go. Besides my directory site, I avoid links pages. Where to go? How about some supplies to make those free patterns or learn more about widgeting, so they click the Adlinks. Oh, wow, look at all the cool widgeting supplies available! Click, *ka ching*!
That's good enought for me, I'll be trying this on a few more sites now.
So far (it's still early), I'm having the best CTR day I've ever seen. My daily earnings are up about 20% vs. the monthly average over the past 4 days. EPC is about the same as the monthly average, but that's A-OK with me when CTR is going up so much!
I had never clicked on someone else's Ad Links, but yesterday while on a site about something I was looking to buy, I clicked a related Ad Links link and saw the following page for the first time (Yes, I ended up buying something from one of those merchants, so don't fret you AdWords folks!)
Anyway, here's what occurred to me upon seeing the Ad Links page for the first time: what else is the clicker going to do? I mean, he has 3 choices, right? He can click one of those ads; he can hit the back button; or he can close the window and open a new browser. Google has nothing on the Ad Links page except their own logo at the top (not a link) and the list of ads. It's ingenious in its simplicity!
Now I get it. I finally understand why Ad Links isn't just another hoop for my visitors to jump through, but is a way to give them links to what they want without any other distractions. NO WONDER my CTR is up! Duh!
Today, my EPC is up quite a bit after adding Adlinks on the 1st of this month, I doubt it's related though. I've made other site changes as well.
Had that little minor revenue relapse the other day but it wasn't significant and today AdLinks is going crazy again, running 50% of total revenue. I'm just hoping this isn't a temporary gain and AdLinks just keeps going wild, most incredible AdSense thing I've seen second only to blending my ads into the color scheme.
<offtopic>
I'm also testing some new referral program that's a pay-per-lead thing which looks very promising at the moment and could eclipse AdSense revenue as each customer referral is paying from $4-$9 and they are clicking thru like crazy. I'd even disclose what it was for others to try except someone in my industry might jump on it {I seem to be the early adopter on this one) and start taking my referral loot!
</offtopic>
If it's a flop, I'm gonna blame Bill! :)
Ok, it's still early, but it pretty clearly looks like I can't blame Bill! :)
Thanks for the motivation Bill, and all you other folks too.
Bill, do you have a lot of repeat visitors?
Forgot to reply to this one....
Yes, I do have quite a few repeat visitors but I have no idea what exact percentage but guessing would be around 25% or less.
My screen saver is now my current 7 days earnings in large type.
But, back to the title topic: I've been making about 25% of my income from adlinks for 2 months now. I have it on a class of pages that constitutes about 90% of my pageviews. Twice I've added it to my other pages. First, I replaced my skyscraper with it -- and saw a drop in revenue. Next, I stacked it above my skyscraper and saw almost no revenue improvement -- which isn't surprising since it just looked like a taller adblock.
Recently, after all the motivation that this thread (reinforced by my own experience) has provided, I decided to try one more time. This time, I applied the principles that have worked so well on my other pages. I blended the adlinks into one of the two color schemes that I use -- the opposite of the colors used for the adsense adblock -- and separated it well away from the adsense block. It's too early to draw reliable conclusions yet, but so far it's outperforming the skyscraper 2:1.
Sweeet!
Go Adlinks! Good luck with them, all!
I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record now after a full week of this but I'm still finding it hard to believe AdLinks has this potential and I'm afraid someone will pinch me and I'll wake up to realize it was all a dream.
The only thing I'm kicking myself for is had I put AdLinks on my pages LAST month there would've been many $400 days as April had some crazy days in it for my site.
Oh well.
Next, I stacked it above my skyscraper and saw almost no revenue improvement -- which isn't surprising since it just looked like a taller adblock.
I guess this is why everyone says EXPERIMENT as what didn't work for you is exactly where I put mine for a 50% bump. However, I did put a divider on the page between the AdLinks and the Skyscraper so they don't look like they run together non-stop.
I think your page layout matters in terms of where to best place your Ad Links unit. Play around with it until you hit the jackpot. My sites tend to be vertically oriented in either 2 or 3 columns, so I've found that Ad Links work best in the upper left margin, as though they were navigation menus. All I know it this simple change totally turned around a lousy month! THANK YOU BILL!
when we first addend AdLinks when launched our revenue fell dramatically... as people were clicking AdLinks and not AdSense - and eCPM was dismal - so we removed them all...
So this time around we are putting AdLinks only on pages that carry no AdSense...
i also think perhaps your increase of AdLink revenue over time may be repeat users "getting used" to the links and going for them more repeatedly as they are deemed "useful"...?
I'm beginning to think CTR has more to do with the Adlinks that are showing than visitor behavior. My Adlinks seem more targetted now than they were at first.
Right now, all I know for sure, I got some extra dough out of it.
Yeah, keep them away from your regular Adsense, IMO. Although Bill says his worked above a skyscraper. I have mine on same page as reg. Adsense, but totally different area of the page.
OK, here is is a holiday weekend and I'm sitting here obsessing over AdLinks and a gin and tonic instead of out partying like normal people.
The upside is with AdLinks on the site AND it being a major U.S. holiday weekend I'm still breaking 3 digits today ($$$) which my site has NEVER EVER EVER DONE on a Saturday.
I guess the upside is I can party 9-5 M-F while AdSense earns my keep next week while all the sunburned schmucks are toiling away with bosses standing over their shoulders :)
You must have a business related site
It's business and hobby related, my topic can swing either way :)
The traffic has always, as long as I've run the site, had weekend dips. Mainly, because in my topic the business and hobbyists both tend to be out DOING the topic on the weekends!
Never underestimate the power of a single page.
I'm back from drinking loadsa Teutonic beers and only 3 sausages believe it or not:-))
Glad to see the AdLinks are still performing well and it's good to see that they are having a similar effect on your stats to mine.
Obviously your earnings will be well up this month unlike mine which will, unless a miracle happens, be less than last month:-(
I'm pretty sure I've reached saturation point without adding more pages and information which I really do not have time to do at present.
A brief analysis of that on Wednesday before flying to China for 10 days on Friday...it's a good job my real job makes serious profits since Adsense certainly wouldn't be able to keep me in the lifestyle I've become accustomed to:-)
ATM the Adlinks is at the left top and underneath the skyscraper.
Adlinks is about 30% of the total of that pages. Could be better.
where the heck is a fold on a webpage
The fold is at the bottom where you can't read anymore upon first loading the page... unless you scroll down.
So the 'fold' is what you can see on your screen without having to scroll.
<edit>it is nearly 2 am and that hardly makes sense to me upon re-reading...sheesh... oh, well!</edit>
Back to the topic, I made some minor tweaks with some ad positioning and colors to the site before I left for my 2 day jaunt and my CTR is up and here it is Memorial Day weekend and I'm almost hitting a site record with an hour to go :)
It looks like AdLinks plus some other changes is taking the site to the next level.
It looks like AdLinks plus some other changes is taking the site to the next level.
Good to hear iBill however I can see no option but to remove the standard Adsense access to more than 80 sites completely tonight since the EPC has dropped so much over the past month.
I shall continue with AdLinks on some of them to evaluate its effectiveness but Google and Adworders can go swivel...they're not getting any more low cost advertising on my #1 niche network!
Someone is getting a good deal and it ain't me.
