Using Master Merry-Go-Round To Increase AdSense Revenue
I've been testing something for 6 weeks and am now ready to
make a report.
Some of our sites do pretty good with AdSense. A 7-10%
click-through percentage is not uncommon for some of the
pages. This is less than good numbers I've seen others
report, but still highly acceptable.
However, some of our sites have an abysmal click-through
rate. I mean, really bad.
At the beginning of February, I decided to do something
about it, in spite of being busy with other projects.
The area I chose to pay attention to first is where over
250 Possibilities articles are archived, articles from July
1999 to July 2005.
Page views for the archives index and articles range from
800 to 1100 every day. During the month of January, the
AdSense click-through rate was 0.8%.
Note that these click-through numbers are not coming from
Google. It is my understanding that revealing their numbers
would be against their TOS. Instead, we use ClickWatch™
for our link click reporting software. (Even if it wasn't
against Google TOS, I would still use ClickWatch for the
instant reporting it provides — for all link clicks,
not just AdSense.)
I had to do some testing. And the quicker I got results,
the quicker our income would increase. Every 1% AdSense
click-through increase would mean getting paid for an extra
300 clicks every month.
The quickest way I can think of to rotate some ads to see
which are the best is with Content Carousel.
I set up 4 ads. Two were square, one black on white and the
other white and light blue on dark blue. And there were two
towers, with the same color variations as the squares.
Those 4 ads were set up to alternate between the left side
of the content and the right side of the content.
This made a total of 8 ads. Each was loaded into Content Carousel, which dutifully rotates each, in turn,
displaying the next ad every time a page loads.
The first two weeks of this doubled the click-throughs —
double!
Actually, more than double. The average click-through rate
of those 8 ads, for the 16-day period ending on February 19,
was 1.8%. Each ad was shown approximately 1400 times.
The lowest performer was 1.2%, the highest 2.5%.
Now, that really isn't a high enough number for conclusive
results. But I thought I could see a trend, so I swapped out
the lower-performing ads for some brand new ads, ones with
white, green, and yellow text on a background of browns.
That flopped. I could see it right at the beginning. But I
let it run until each ad was displayed twice as many times
as the first test.
That took 27 days. Each ad was displayed nearly 3500 times.
The total click-through rate was 1.4%, 0.4% less than the
first, short-term test.
The black text on white background ads did the best of any
color combinations during both tests. So that's what is
rotating now, all black on white ads. I decided to see what
positions and sizes did the best, not mixing colors in with
the test. It seems that the less variables are being tested,
the sooner conclusive results might be obtained.
It's too early to predict with certainty what the latest
test results will be. It was started only yesterday. The
first 735 page views have had 15 AdSense clicks for a
click-through rate of 2.0%. That percentage will most
likely change by the time the test has run its course.
Some Observations
These are observations, not necessarily conclusions. And
the observations might not apply to your web sites. Each
site is different.
Observation # 1:
The same ad that was doing 0.8% during all of January, did
1.4% during the first two weeks of February. The difference,
other than the time of year, is that the ad was rotated with
seven others.
Now, I don't know about you, but I find it interesting that
an ad's click-through rate changed from 0.8% to 1.4% simply
because it was rotated with other ads. That's a 75% increase.
It's not that January just happened to be a low month, the
previous October was low, too. (November and December were
used to test different types of ads, different vendors, so
aren't comparable here.)
It appears that the mere fact of rotating ads can have an
effect on click-through rates.
After thinking about it some, it started to make some sense.
On web sites where visitors rarely visit more than one page,
rotation by itself might not make much of a difference. But
on a site where visitors load several pages (willmaster.com
sitewide averages 6+ page views per visitor), rotating ads
could have one or both of these effects:
-
One ad shape, color, or position might be more
noticeable to certain visitors than others are.
Rotation provides a better chance of displaying
the one that is noticed.
-
Rotating ads may not allow site visitors to
subconsciously place ad appearance and location
to then ignore. Or, if so placed, the next ad
display, being different than expected, then
gets noticed.
Whether or not the actual rotation of ads increases AdSense
click-through rates for you, testing ads by rotation can
give you a knowledge edge. Set up a different channel for
each AdSense ad in the rotation. Google's stats can tell
you which are doing better than others.
I've read somewhere that an ad should be seen a minimum
of 10,000 times before results are certain enough to act
upon. Whether or not you do 10,000 impressions per test,
replace the least effective with a different test ad.
Keep doing it. Retain the best and replace the least
effective with a new test.
Gradually, your click-through rate should become better
and better. Also, other factors, including displaying the
same ad over an extended period of time, might cause
click-through changes.
Observation # 2:
The blueish ads in the first test did as well as the
whitish ads, in some positions even better. However,
when the brownish ads were introduced in the rotation,
the bluish ads' click-through rates immediately dropped.
So that's another thing to test, if you'll be testing
colors. Some color combinations can do better with each
other than other combinations do.
Designers know color has an emotional effect on people.
Observation # 3:
Mari and I have had AdSense on many of our sites for
several years.
It has been my observation that click-through rates of
AdSense ads slowly decline if left alone. I don't know
why that is, unless repeat visitors no longer see the
ads and, the longer the ad is in place, the larger
percentage of visitors are repeats.
Sometimes a small change, like a text color, for example,
can increase click-through rates enough for a spontaneous,
"Wow!"
Question:
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Will Bontrager
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