Rant: Google Ads

[T.S.]

Originally Posted by Ntfu2

wErd, i think one a page is more then enough, if they dont click that one, they arent going to click the other 2

Wrong.

[SmashinYoungMan]

I put a pretty healthy dose of them in my archives, but none on the main pages. The few clicks I receive aren't worth the clutter.

[MPDev]

I was taking $1600-$2000 a month on Google Ads with only one ad per page, but my CTR was less than 0.02%! Thats just 2 clicks per 5,000 impressions and a horrible conversion rate. Sure, you can rationalize it that the money is good but it's really a huge waste of resources - it's like the SPAM mentality, send out 10 million emails and if only 0.001% click its a money maker; but its hugely ineffective. Anything less than 2% really is a waste of space and can probably be better utilized with a little effort.

My rant doesn't suggest that people shouldn't have ads in an effort to make money; it's how they place their ads.

One in the header, one in the footer, one is a sidebar and at least one embedded in the posts themsevles (as if putting them in between posts isn't annoying enough, some even put them actually inside posts to make them appear as part of an actual post).

One ad per page I can live with; three or more and it's unlikely there is anything of value on the site that would keep me looking any further.

[peterska2]

I have been adless for a few months after ditching my previous ad company as it would have taken something like 200 years to get to an amount where they would send me a check for my earnings. Last week I was appraoched by a company who wanted a single advert below the navbar for a fixed monthly fee. I have accepted that as it is not intrusive, but after having the completely cluttered approach, I'm not going back down that road. My site has taken a more professional look and manner recently, and so adverts on the whole are detrimental to this professionalism.

[Coldhands]

There is a thing called ad blindness. I have them show at the top 2/10 of the time, on the left 2/10 of the time and the other 6/10 of the time there are no ads.

I acutally got more clicks that way.

It's kinda like, how many times do you even look at the navbar? But if that area is where the first post is 80% of the time, those 20% of the time ads are going to get 100% face time as oppose to 0 with ad blindness.

Also people read from left to right, so the left side is the best place to put them. Try to not make them blend in as much. Different color links work better. I like the white border with white background, and then wrap a typical vB table border and header around them.

[ericgtr]

I have always targeted guests because they are the least ad blind. Normal users are used to tuning them out. I used to run different colors, outside of the normal theme and after blending them in, my revenue tripled almost over night.

[Bhuwan]

Originally Posted by ericgtr

I have always targeted guests because they are the least ad blind. Normal users are used to tuning them out. I used to run different colors, outside of the normal theme and after blending them in, my revenue tripled almost over night.

Blending them into the SKIN made your ad revenue double? (Just want to clarify)

[Bhuwan]

Originally Posted by MPDev

I was taking $1600-$2000 a month on Google Ads with only one ad per page, but my CTR was less than 0.02%! Thats just 2 clicks per 5,000 impressions and a horrible conversion rate. Sure, you can rationalize it that the money is good but it's really a huge waste of resources - it's like the SPAM mentality, send out 10 million emails and if only 0.001% click its a money maker; but its hugely ineffective. Anything less than 2% really is a waste of space and can probably be better utilized with a little effort.

My rant doesn't suggest that people shouldn't have ads in an effort to make money; it's how they place their ads.

One in the header, one in the footer, one is a sidebar and at least one embedded in the posts themsevles (as if putting them in between posts isn't annoying enough, some even put them actually inside posts to make them appear as part of an actual post).

One ad per page I can live with; three or more and it's unlikely there is anything of value on the site that would keep me looking any further.

Hey ! take a look at my site (and archive) -- i think its very good to get user feedback. Address is in my sig

[ericgtr]

Originally Posted by Bhuwan

Blending them into the SKIN made your ad revenue double? (Just want to clarify)

It was a marginal difference and was immediate. I wrote an article about what's worked best for me here also https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=105295

[Bhuwan]

cool thx!