What's a good CTR for Adsense?

[caroline]

I was wondering, what's considered to be a good CTR? I mean, for Forums, 1% is perfect, but what about contet sites? Should/Could CTR be higher than 2? Or maybe higher than 3%? What do you guys think?

I am talking about Adsense here. :)

[fryman]

I have a lousy 0.2% :P

[schlottke]

I'd say between 2-8% for content sites.

[Joel Naten]

I've noticed that Google's Adsense demand is much more than their supply now that they've allowed multiple ads per page. I seem to be getting more PSAs than before.

[fryman]

I have the same average of clicks, but I'm getting about 35% of what I was earning last month. Seems they are paying much less per click now.

[Nitin M]

Hmm. I have seen no noticeable change. I actually had a spike up the past 3 days ... but my guess is just a lucky anomally.

CTR - on "content" sites I see 3-8% and on forums I see .02-.05%.

[Nitin M]

fryman ---- by any chance did you increase the number of adsense units on the site where you have seen a signicant decrease in the payouts?

Someone in another forum made the really insightful point that when increasing the number of adsense units, you run the risk of dramatically lowering payouts from the same number of clicks...

cut and pasted ...

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I am a little dubious about adding additional Adsense blocks.

At present with a single block, you are getting the highest paying ads displayed, and you will have a 1in4 chance that the surfer will be clicking on the best paying ad.

With three blocks of 4 ads, you would have only a 1in12 that the surfer will be clicking on the best paying ad.

AND you have an 8in12 chance that the surfer will click on an ad which will generate a lower value than the worst of your 4 original ads.

I believe that there is a strong possibility that your value per click will go down, so you would have to hope that the click throuhg rate increses sufficiently to offest this.

If anyone does add extra Adsense blocks, I would be interested to hear whether they gained additional revenue from the change.
--------

[fryman]

Yes, I did add an extra block, I have one at the top of the page, and one at the bottom.
I'll try it out for a couple of weeks, if things don't get better, I'll go back to only one block.

[hurricane_sh]

I got only 0.3% CTR

[nadlay]

fryman ---- by any chance did you increase the number of adsense units on the site where you have seen a signicant decrease in the payouts?

Someone in another forum made the really insightful point that when increasing the number of adsense units, you run the risk of dramatically lowering payouts from the same number of clicks...

cut and pasted ...

--------
I am a little dubious about adding additional Adsense blocks.

At present with a single block, you are getting the highest paying ads displayed, and you will have a 1in4 chance that the surfer will be clicking on the best paying ad.

With three blocks of 4 ads, you would have only a 1in12 that the surfer will be clicking on the best paying ad.

AND you have an 8in12 chance that the surfer will click on an ad which will generate a lower value than the worst of your 4 original ads.

I believe that there is a strong possibility that your value per click will go down, so you would have to hope that the click throuhg rate increses sufficiently to offest this.

If anyone does add extra Adsense blocks, I would be interested to hear whether they gained additional revenue from the change.
--------

Yes, that was my post on your forum.

[cobaltlady]

I'm getting the same number of clicks but my EPC has dropped a bunch. I have one adsense block at top of the page and added one to the bottom. Looks like the bottom one will go real soon.

[Owlcroft]

I really think you folks ought to take another look at the Google Terms of Service before continuing this discussion at the level of detail at which it has been proceeding. Google does not want particular (meaning your) numbers discussed. Proceed at your own risk.

In the general sense, that thought on multiple ad blocks was eye-opening, the sort of thing that makes one slap one's forehead and groan. Like the safety pin, it is blindingly obvious in hindsight. Congratulations to nadlay.

Still speaking generally, when I started adding AdSense, about a month ago, I had a CTR that was, so far as I can judge, modestly above average; as time has gone by, that dropped to what I think of as about average; now, as I am adding substantial numbers of encyclopedia-site pages, and impressions, more or less day by day, I find the CTR dropping significantly. Whether that is because encyclopedia-lookup pages hold visitors for a shorter time, or are less carefully read past the first couple of paragraphs, or whether it is because I was trying out doubled ad placements I don't know. I dropped the second ad block instantly I read that post, but it takes a few days for channel data to clarify, so we'll see.

I also see that my CPM went down significantly as the impressions went up--same comments apply.

It will all certainly be very interesting.

[mnemtsas]

Well judging from the CTR mentioned above it seems that content sites clearly rank higher than forums. What's a ridiculour CTR to target? 10% 15% 20%? I'm interested as I've only started with adsense in the last two weeks and my CTR is up and down and round and round....

[schlottke]

I would say over 15-18% would be borderline.

[melfan]

the good CTR for content sites is from 1% to 2.4%

[disgust]

it really depends on where you can stick it. if you don't mind making radical changes to your site, you can get a pretty high CTR fairly easily.

two suggested placements:

1) inline ads- no border, in the content. I generally stick it in between the page title/h1, and the paragraph that follows it. you can use an ad that doesn't take up much space and still get a really decent CTR. an example: www.ffshrine.org/ff7/ff7.php

2) if you have a standard three column site (two columns for nav, one for content- you know, that sort of thing), take a skyscraper (borderless, again), and stick it in one of the two columns. left tends to perform a lot better, probably because that's "traditionally" where the nav is, so people look there first

do NOT treat it just like a banner ad- this results in really really horrible CTRs.

[Dominic]

Our homeless site shows more impressions than our youth / travel site.

The homeless site earns bugger all though through adsense as the ads served are few and far between and mainly minimum bid ads (due to the nature of the content) - where as the youth / travel site is as expected a fairly successful site in terms of adsense revenue.

Thanks disgust for the tips on where to place the ads - when we ad a new forum to our youth / travel site I'll see if I can get the ads to serve down the left of the page - will tell you how it goes (if I can get it to work).

[hurricane_sh]

Does Google have any limitations on ad's position? Just feel not so right to put it inside the content.

[disgust]

I've seen it on lots of sites, and there's really NOTHING in the TOS that's against that...

(I think a lot of major news sites do something similar)

it may seem "wrong" because you're used to treating adsense like a banner ad- but that typically results in horrible CTR.

[gooner]

I see adsense tracker's recently been purchased from the original developer and is now only available through a Paypal link.

It provides real-time stats on the performance of your ad's and which advertisers / type of content attract the best CTR.

Dominic, as you run a public service site you may be able to get a free copy which will save any guess work on which colour schemes and layouts work.

http://adsensetracker.info/

[mopacfan]

My ctr is down about 45% but my revenue is up about 25%. I don't know if this is good or not. The holiday does not help the numbers. I'll know more by the end of the month how the extra unit is helping or hurting.

[H-Man]

I haven't worked into the content yet, as suggest in other post. But I get .8%

[schlottke]

H-Man,

I suggest not disclosing your exact numbers, as it is against TOS..

[H-Man]

I will have to review those again. Whoops. New to the adsense thing, so I would hardly call that number acurate. Lets just say if this was the Olympics and the judges had to throw out the low and the high the number would be different.

[schlottke]

Right on, just letting you know. I've got a buddy who got his account canned for posting in the SEW forums *(how bright is that; they have google employees in the forums daily..)

[hurricane_sh]

Now one page can hold 3 ads, with the clever position, it could get a very high CTR, will it be a problem?

[disgust]

actually, the more ads you have, the lower your CTR will be.

with two ads your impressions would be doubled, with three it'd be tripled.

(although 'clicks per unique' would go up, and overall revenue would go up)

[qll]

fryman ---- by any chance did you increase the number of adsense units on the site where you have seen a signicant decrease in the payouts?

Someone in another forum made the really insightful point that when increasing the number of adsense units, you run the risk of dramatically lowering payouts from the same number of clicks...

cut and pasted ...

--------
I am a little dubious about adding additional Adsense blocks.

At present with a single block, you are getting the highest paying ads displayed, and you will have a 1in4 chance that the surfer will be clicking on the best paying ad.

With three blocks of 4 ads, you would have only a 1in12 that the surfer will be clicking on the best paying ad.

AND you have an 8in12 chance that the surfer will click on an ad which will generate a lower value than the worst of your 4 original ads.

I believe that there is a strong possibility that your value per click will go down, so you would have to hope that the click throuhg rate increses sufficiently to offest this.

If anyone does add extra Adsense blocks, I would be interested to hear whether they gained additional revenue from the change.
--------

The idea is to hide #2 and #3 and they will only click #1. You lowered the CTR without lowering profits. But you need to learn how to hide Adsense still flowing TOS. There is only 1 way you can do it.

[qll]

I would say over 15-18% would be borderline.

you would say? have you seen or do you have anything like that?

if you do, did it raise any redflaq from google? i have not gotten any check from those high CTR clicks yet. i should lower the CTR by placing more units now.

[schlottke]

I've heard of things like this, yes.

[qll]

I've heard of things like this, yes.

excuse my english. is your YES for redflag or 15% CTR?
i am sorry to put so many questions into one reply thus a simple yes or no does not really let me know which question you are answered.

[schlottke]

It was for the question posed to me, the 15% CTR. However, after reading your post, why would you want to lower the CTR % unless you were defrauding google with a site that has a low # of visitors?

[disgust]

the CTR isn't the red flag (I'm guessing). where the clicks are coming from would be, though.

[melfan]

Because of the huge number of publishers, one way google determine fraud traffic is by monitoring our CTR. if the CTR of a website is too high it may be suspected for fraud (still a suspect), but ofcoz it is still subject for investigation.

[melfan]

actually, the more ads you have, the lower your CTR will be.

with two ads your impressions would be doubled, with three it'd be tripled.

(although 'clicks per unique' would go up, and overall revenue would go up)

Actually CTR is based on page impressions not on AD impressions. So 2 Ads in one page is equivalent to one impression

[digitalpoint]

Actually CTR is based on page impressions not on AD impressions. So 2 Ads in one page is equivalent to one impression
You sure about that?

[melfan]

You sure about that?

Yap I already tried it. This concern was also discussed at webmasterworld

[qll]

Because of the huge number of publishers, one way google determine fraud traffic is by monitoring our CTR. if the CTR of a website is too high it may be suspected for fraud (still a suspect), but ofcoz it is still subject for investigation.

i agree. after redesign of the code, my CTR increased by 5 to 10 times. my original CTR was already about average. i only tested the new design for less than 2 weeks. so far, everyday's CTR stayed very high, so i guess it is not a one time thing. overall, the impression is increasing but CTR is dropping. i guess it is because the same person came back to visit but they are used to the adsense and not clicking them any more.

i need to reuse those same visitors, so i really should make the page more dynamic. a static html page may only get 1 or 2 clicks per visitor.

[qll]

Yap I already tried it. This concern was also discussed at webmasterworld

how did you try it? comparing web log files with status? after giving #2 and #3 ads, my CTR dropped to about 1/3 of my normal rate. however, i have not compared the web logs yet, as there is a 3 hour difference between day-cut time. google use PST. my hosting uses EST, so it is kind of difficult to count the log files.

can you please point out the finding on webmasterworld? i see report on webmasterworld about adding second ad drops 3% to 1.4% etc.

[joeychgo]

let me ask a newbie question. Does your rate of payment become higher on a page which has more page impressions??? Example, would my Homepage get bigger $$ then and inside page with less total traffic?

[Geir]

let me ask a newbie question. Does your rate of payment become higher on a page which has more page impressions??? Example, would my Homepage get bigger $$ then and inside page with less total traffic?

If I understand your question correctly, you want to know if earnings per click will be higher on a high traffic page?!

As far as I know, your traffic does not affect what ads you are shown, or how much you will earn per click.

Ads are served based on the content of the page, and a page dealing with high paying keywords will get higher paying ads than a page dealing with low-paying keywords, regardless of the traffic level to each of those sites.

:) Geir

[melfan]

how did you try it? comparing web log files with status? after giving #2 and #3 ads, my CTR dropped to about 1/3 of my normal rate. however, i have not compared the web logs yet, as there is a 3 hour difference between day-cut time. google use PST. my hosting uses EST, so it is kind of difficult to count the log files.

can you please point out the finding on webmasterworld? i see report on webmasterworld about adding second ad drops 3% to 1.4% etc.

I compared my own hits stats against Google Reporting. If 2 ads will double your impression my google impression should be double compared to my hits stats, but its not.

I forgot the topic on webmasterworld just lurk around the adsense section and topics like "multiple ads"

[Geir]

Actually CTR is based on page impressions not on AD impressions. So 2 Ads in one page is equivalent to one impression

Our adsense account shows very clearly that for the purpose of Adsense reporting, each ad unit shown will count as one impression. If going from one ad unit per page to three ad units per page, total impressions will increase, and if google always have enough ads to display, reported impressions will triple.

:) Geir

[qll]

let me ask a newbie question. Does your rate of payment become higher on a page which has more page impressions??? Example, would my Homepage get bigger $$ then and inside page with less total traffic?

they just started 1 week ago.
in fact, you get less, at least it is just me, as sometimes, the top payer got shown the least, so the clicks will worth less.

[joeychgo]

If I understand your question correctly, you want to know if earnings per click will be higher on a high traffic page?!

As far as I know, your traffic does not affect what ads you are shown, or how much you will earn per click.

Ads are served based on the content of the page, and a page dealing with high paying keywords will get higher paying ads than a page dealing with low-paying keywords, regardless of the traffic level to each of those sites.

:) Geir


If this is true, then why do they worry about page impressions?

[Club UFC]

i've only had my site up for 3 months and I'm fighting to make 1%.