Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Why is it, that I can't spot Google Image Ads when surfing the net? Has everyone turned them off? I mean, I should have noticed them because of the little "Google Ads" mark, shouldn't I?
Couple of months ago, I tried them shortly after they had been introduced. Google said in their announcement, they could provide a bit more EPC but I coundn't notice that. Maybe you get better earnings these times? Are more advertisers running image ads nowadays?
Here's why I as a publisher don't like the whole concept:
Let's take a leaderboard for example - four text ads versus one big banner ad.
Provided, that both ad types are balanced at least partly in CPC, and that CPC for an image ad is slightly higher, users still should have to click nearly as likely on the image ad than on ONE of the text ads in order to be more profitable for me as publisher, right?
I can't notice this user behaviour.
In fact, it's the informational content of the decent text ads that are often not really percepted as ads if done clever, that makes out their success.
Next point: Branding.
Besides ad clicks, an image banner provides, due to the graphical capabilities, a far bigger brandig effect. One big advantage for the advertiser.
But you know what? This branding effect earns me zero cent, as far as my users don't click. Branding for free on my website with a supersized (eventually blinking/animated) banner that overshadows my content? no way!
Next point: No choice.
Whereas it's not that important for me, which products are shown as text ads on my website, I'd like to have some control over which products are sold via the eye-catching graphical ads on my content sites.
And not only by selecting them out step by step with a negative list.
Excuse me, I don't have a junk site and many image ads simply don't fit thematically (or graphically!) for my users.
Conclusion: the concept of balancing image ads by CPC must fail over time. Moreover we should see an increase in good old-fashioned CPM-models, if we want to create a win-win-situation. Is Google already shifting to it?
In the meantime, i chose to market image ads for myself.
Did you understand my english :) and what is your experience?
IMO, Google created this option with an eye to the future, not the present. When large advertisers--national brands and the like--start to see the web as a place to spend money, they will want image ads.
1. to generate a lead or sale (like direct marketing)
2. branding and awareness (old school like ads in a magazine)
for publishers, this is irrelevant. we want to earn the most bucks for our ad space.
my point is, that as long as image ads are paid per click like text ads, publishers will prefer text ads, because of the side effects i mentioned that don't pay off.
on the other side, like alika said, advertisers might only slowly adapt the image ads.
these two reasons combined, no graphical google ads are to be seen on adsense sites.
i think, that cpc is the wrong concept with image ads, you will have to pay per impression like in offline-media to be worthwhile for the publisher.
you can't treat both ad types the same, the bill just doesn't sum up.
