I doubled my Adsense CTR on a site by including image ads.

efeezy

efeezy

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Oct 5, 2007
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This isn't anything groundbreaking by any means, but I recently got one of those "Adsense Optimization Team emails" saying how I was losing clicks because I was only using text ads on a particular site. Usually they don't know their ass, and I had been doing a very steady 5% CTR on this site for a couple of years. For the fuck of it I decided to include image ads as well to try it out. That day I instantly doubled my CTR. Thinking it was a fluke I kept it running, and it's stayed at 9-10% for a week now.

I'm not sure if the image ads are just better quality than they used to be, or if they're more targeted now, but for those of you who run just text adsense ads, you might want to select text + image and see if your CTR increases.

Just a heads up from your old uncle efeezy.
 
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I have some fairly specific niches. Not really weird, but pretty targeted. Like a cell phone niche or sports niche would probably do well with the image ads also. Something like vintage toaster niche probably wouldn't...but who knows.
 
Thanks for sharing.

Once the novelty factor wears off (1-2 months), it will be interesting to see what happens to your CTR.
 
i used to avoid image ads like the plague because image ads = damn cheap clicks (and lower CTR too) ... are you making more money after you've made the changes?
 
prince said:
i used to avoid image ads like the plague because image ads = damn cheap clicks (and lower CTR too) ... are you making more money after you've made the changes?
Click to expand...
I avoided them as well, that's why I am VERY surprised to see Efizzle Dizzle's post. It has been so ingrained into my psyche that image ads are useless that I can't even bring myself to test this again. I have been heavy into adsense for 3 years now and things are going good but Efeezy's PRE-image ad CTR is really impressive to me! I have 2 100+ page sites with totally unique content and and an average of about 450 words per page, many with normal images on them, but I am ALWAYS sitting in-between 2 and 3 percent. ALWAYS. I'm pretty sure my ad placement is on point(above the fold, incontent big blocks, 336x280 and 300x250) and I use complimentary colors for the ads to match the sites. Can Uncle feezy help a nephew out with some tips for that high CTR? If I ever hit a consistent 5% I'd be pulling in a hundy a day EASY.
 
1yerrot said:
I'm pretty sure my ad placement is on point(above the fold, incontent big blocks, 336x280 and 300x250)
Click to expand...

You ever test taking them out of the content and putting the blocks above the content instead?

For example:

instead of

adsensecontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent

try
adsense
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentconte
 
prince said:
i used to avoid image ads like the plague because image ads = damn cheap clicks (and lower CTR too) ... are you making more money after you've made the changes?
Click to expand...

Why would image ads make less money? google wont show them unless it's going to make more money than 4 text ads... they're not idiots
 
johnmatrix said:
Why would image ads make less money? google wont show them unless it's going to make more money than 4 text ads... they're not idiots
Click to expand...

that's true in theory, but in the past whenever I have image ads appearing on my sites.. the CTR would drop and would be getting penny clicks... not sure why, ask teh guggle
 
1yerrot said:
I avoided them as well, that's why I am VERY surprised to see Efizzle Dizzle's post. It has been so ingrained into my psyche that image ads are useless that I can't even bring myself to test this again. I have been heavy into adsense for 3 years now and things are going good but Efeezy's PRE-image ad CTR is really impressive to me! I have 2 100+ page sites with totally unique content and and an average of about 450 words per page, many with normal images on them, but I am ALWAYS sitting in-between 2 and 3 percent. ALWAYS. I'm pretty sure my ad placement is on point(above the fold, incontent big blocks, 336x280 and 300x250) and I use complimentary colors for the ads to match the sites. Can Uncle feezy help a nephew out with some tips for that high CTR? If I ever hit a consistent 5% I'd be pulling in a hundy a day EASY.
Click to expand...

See below. RockDiesel has it exactly how I do it on this site. Two 300x250's right next to each other, above the content.

My page eCPM is nearly the same, but I have double the number of clicks, so yeah, I'm making more money than with just the text ads. I used to HATE the image ads that I almost didn't bother testing this. Glad I did now, especially if it lasts long term.

RockDiesel said:
You ever test taking them out of the content and putting the blocks above the content instead?

For example:

instead of

adsensecontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent

try
adsense
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontent
contentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentcontentconte
Click to expand...
 
bizousoft said:
those are not static image ads I assume?
Click to expand...

Actually now that you mention it, I think they're all coming up as Flash image ads. That's probably why they're converting so much better than the old images.
 
Within the last year I started following the heatmap and using the optimization guide instead of sticking Adsense wherever it fits and have found it tends to result in 5-10x higher eCPMs:the heatmap is very accurate and the biggest ad units have the most competition so the highest payout. Keep in mind in the last 2 years The Goog's gotten really ban-happy and the bigger the ACH is, the more scrutiny your sites get. It's best to avoid putting like ad units adjacent to each other, the closer your adsense layout is to the example layouts the less likely you are to have issues. Two rectangles above your content aren't likely to perform better than one.
 
ArgentCloud said:
Two rectangles above your content aren't likely to perform better than one.
Click to expand...


They do.

This site get's 3000-4000 uv's per day and I've tracked every change I've made from color, to position. Until this recent change to include image ads, those two 300x250 ad blocks, right next to each other, above the content performed at 5-6% average CTR.

When I had only one ad unit there, it was between 3-4% CTR. I tested this for a month before I changed it back to the double ad.
 
efeezy said:
They do.

This site get's 3000-4000 uv's per day and I've tracked every change I've made from color, to position. Until this recent change to include image ads, those two 300x250 ad blocks, right next to each other, above the content performed at 5-6% average CTR.

When I had only one ad unit there, it was between 3-4% CTR. I tested this for a month before I changed it back to the double ad.
Click to expand...

I've had that layout on my Adsense sites for over a year and I can say without a doubt it works. My CTR is always over 5%. Looks like ass but it gets the clicks.
 
Well, You Doubled Your CTR with Image Ads - Great! Thats Great To Hear :)

And What Happened to your ECPM? Can You Check That? :D

~ExP~
 
I quit using image ads when I realized that these clicks paid less than text ads.

I know for sure that this was the situation on several of my sites a couple years ago when I made this test.

It sounds stupid, since as it has been said, a click on an image should make them more than the potential clicks on 3-4 links, anyway my test showed that there was a difference in favor of text ads.

@efeezy: I appreciate how you share small and big finds on WF
efeh.gif
 
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