Ah, where would I be without commenters to spur my grey matter into action? One of my readers left this question in response to my recent post on How Low-Paying Ads Can Dominate Higher-Paying Ads:
I don’t think it enhances the look of a page or the readers’ experience by having the max number of ads, but from my experience it has increased revenue. However, now with the very low earnings per click I’m getting, I’m wondering if it would be better to carry fewer ads.
Let’s stay away from the aesthetics and talk only about the earnings. So what’s the right strategy: more ads or fewer ads? As it happens, I deal with this topic in some detail in Chapter 14 of Uncommon AdSense. Here are some excerpts from that chapter.
Chapter 14: Display the Right Number of Ads
[The following is excerpted from Uncommon AdSense, Volume 1 and is copryight ©2007 by Eric Giguere. All rights reserved. Please do no republish this anywhere without my express written permission.]
When AdSense first appeared, publishers could only place a single ad unit on a page. (Yes, I’ve been using AdSense for that long!) That restriction was later relaxed to allow up to three ad units per page. (See Chapter 22: Know the Program Policies.) As you can imagine, many publishers immediately added two more ad units to their pages. Assuming each ad unit was showing four ads (the maximum allowed), that meant that up to 12 ads were being shown on a given page. But is that the right thing to do? Does each ad unit you add make you more money?
The Highest-Paying Ads Go First
AdSense displays the highest-paying ads first. Which is great for you, but what does “first” mean? There are two scenarios to consider:
- Within the ad unit. In horizontal ad units, the leftmost ad is the highest-paying ad – ads are ordered in decreasing value from left to right. In vertical ad units, it’s the topmost ad – the ordering is from top to bottom.
- Within the page. The highest-paying ads are displayed in the first ad unit seen by the browser. The ads shown in the second ad unit (as seen by the browser) pay less than the first unit’s ads, and similarly for the third ad unit (again, as seen by the browser) compared to the second ad unit.
Most publishers understand the ordering of ads within an ad unit, but you may not realize that the ordering of the individual ad units also influences your earnings. The ad unit the browser sees first is not necessarily the first ad unit visible on the page. It depends entirely on the HTML that defines the page. If the ad you think is first isn’t actually first from AdSense’s viewpoint then you may not be maximizing your earnings.
[An extensive discussion about page layout has been omitted.]
You may not care. If your pages are in a competitive topic area with plenty of ads to fill each ad unit (so you don’t have to worry about public service ads or alternate ads appearing in the prime clicking area) and if the bid gap (see Chapter 38: Mind the Bid Gap) is narrow then the ad unit order probably doesn’t matter. Of course, you’d be wise to test this assumption with the AdSense Preview Tool (see Chapter 17: Use the AdSense Preview Tool) to confirm that the ad inventory is as extensive as you think, especially when the page is viewed from other countries. See Chapter 18: Properly Handle Missing Ads for related information.
What Are The Alternatives?
But what if you do care? What are the alternatives?
- The obvious solution is to change the physical order of the ad units so that the highest-performing unit (which may or may not be the one shown in the AdSense heat map – the heat map is a general guideline) appears first in the HTML.
- If changing the physical ad unit order isn’t possible, another solution is to change the entire layout of the page in order to place the highest-performing ad unit in a position of prominence.
- Instead of changing the page layout, consider moving the ads themselves to different parts of the layout.
- Reducing the number of ads you show on the page is the simplest alternative. You can do this by removing ad units or by changing the ad formats you’re using.
[Note: The book describes each of the above in much greater detail.]
There’s no magic formula for determining which ads units to remove or reformat. Ideally, you’ll be guided by the tracking information you’ve collected for each ad unit (see Chapter 19: Track Ad Performance) and start by adjusting the least-performing ad units.
Test, Test, Test
There is no “one layout to rule them all” in the world of AdSense. What works on someone else’s site may not work on yours. What you have to do is test and make your changes in increments, seeing what happens.
[End of excerpt]
More Or Fewer Ads?
So the answer to my reader’s question is “maybe”, which I know sounds like a cop-out. But there are too many variables that influence what kind of earnings you get that it’s hard to come up with a blanket answer for everyone. Let’s say, for example, that in the particular layout you’re using it’s the second ad unit that’s getting most of the clicks. Then the right way to increase your earnings would be to drop the first ad unit entirely and leave the second (now first) ad unit where it is — this should increase your average per-click earnings. But that strategy wouldn’t work if the first ad unit was getting most of the clicks.
Now is a good time to re-read my post The One Answer To All Your AdSense Questions. You’ll have to look at your earnings, track where they’re coming from, and make decisions accordingly.
Sponsored Link: For a complete set of AdSense best practices, read Uncommon AdSense.
Eric Giguere is the author of Uncommon AdSense and the award-nominated (that just means it lost!) blog Make Easy Money with Google and AdSense.
I had read this about ad placement a while ago, but had forgotten all about it. Thanks for the great post to jog my own grey matter! And, of course, way to pimp your book, too!
Can you cast any light on what happens when you combine a link unit with a regular text ad unit? In particular, if the link unit is first (as they often are across the top of a page), does it steal the best ads from a regular text unit appearing later (e.g. a tower on the sidebar)?
My experience with horizontal link units is that adding them at or near the top of a page always leads to increased earnings. I’ve never seen earnings go down. Of course, your mileage may vary!
Ooops, didn’t really answer the question you asked. No, the link units don’t steal the best ads away from the ad units. The ordering is completely different for the two types.
Thanks very much