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With AdSense, Less Can Be More
Posted by Scott on 30th June, 2008 | 11 commentsWhen you add an AdSense block to your site, and it starts making money, there’s a temptation to plaster your pages with as many ad blocks as you can. But there’s a catch that most people, including myself until recently, are guilty of overlooking.
The top most AdSense block will contain the highest paying ads, period. This is top most in your HTML code, mind you, not necessarily top most on the displayed page. So that’s caveat #1: if the top most AdSense code in your HTML doesn’t actually get displayed at the top of the page, e.g. it appears in a side bar or even below another AdSense block, then you’re throwing money away by displaying lower CPC ads in a more prominent location.
More importantly, though, is that you may actually make more overall money by removing ad blocks from the page. Let’s say you have a 728×90 at the very top of the page, a 728×90 embedded in your content where your readers eyes are primarily focused, and a 160×600 in the right sidebar. If the content-embedded 728×90 has a higher click through ratio than the top banner (and it probably does, since banners at the top of the page tend to get ignored due to banner blindness), then you’re getting lots of clicks on lower paying ads, since the top-most block contains the highest paying ads and the content-embedded block contains lower paying ads.
By removing the top most ad block, you’re shifting those high-paying ads into the 2nd space, the content-embedded ad, and generating more $ per click. This is counter intuitive and is very much worth testing, since it yielded several times more revenue on one of our very popular pages.
I’ve also had good luck stacking 468×60 ad blocks, which can even outperform a single 728×90. I believe this is because Google serves a CPM ad in one of the 468×60 blocks, and CPC ads in the other block, combining the best of both worlds.
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Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 11:16 pm and is filed under Web Business. If you like this post why not subscribe to my full text RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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It may depend on the length of the content as well. If you have short posts or articles then having more than 1 or 2 ad-blocks on the page just makes the user wonder if this is a serious page. And then he doesnt click any more. In this case even 2 adblocks could be too much.
But your idea with the top-paying block is good and new to me. I will have to check this on my pages. It reminds me again that i have to do MUCH more testing to find this kind of ideas.
Great tips for generating more revenue from adsense ads! Thanks!
Yea, I have thought of placing 468×60 right on top of one another. Never tried it though.
See i did not know that! I actually banned google for now and went with bidvertiser you can see it on my page
That is very interesting to hear, you obviously have a lot more data to base this on than I do, but it is not something that I have come across.
What do you think about the buttons on the ads now? I would rather not see it as I want the click to count, not distract the clicker!
Jim
Interesting, not got as much data on this as you obviously have but how do you know this?
BTW, what do you think about the new button on the ads now? I don’t like, I want clicks, don’t want the clicker to be distracted!
Jim
I know this because when I remove the top ad spot, the ads that used to be there, start showing up in the embedded-content block (since that’s the new top-most block). Plus, overall revenue increases substantially, as does the CPC, when I remove the block from the very top of the page.
Thanks for the useful tips. Will remember this concept
Ahh - I’ve never thought about stacking up 468×60 ads before. I currently run some 468×60 on my sites with content, and they seem to be performing quite well, but it never hurts to test some more
You are right, I will remove some of the low-paying ads from my blogs. I’ll try stacking 2 468 ad blocks instead of a 350×250 and see the results.
Thanks again for your tips.
[…] With Adsense, Less Can Be More Scott Wainner discusses how you can really improve your Adsense revenue after testing his method out. It’s a great read considering most webmasters uses Adsense and can probably help bring in a little more cheddar to your pockets. […]