A Potentially BRILLIANT Solution to the Image/Text Ad Dilemma?

Interesting..
lets see what google say about this..

 

I don't think it's against G law, it's just two ads next to each other, right?

 

Is it performing good?

 

Another trick I saw on a site,was using an image banner on top of the page , and underneath a text link box ( both were G ads ).

 

LOL blogaddict, that's great. I nominate you for president

 

I have a feeling it won't get the results we hope for since the image ad is one large image instead of small images lined up with the text ads. Perhaps a small bump in CTR if the image ads draw people's attention to that area. Hopefully somebody will post results after testing it.

I was getting huge CTR on the home page of my main site with a 120x600 skyscraper on the left with 4 small randomly rotated images lined up left of the ads. The images were thumbnails from the photo pages on my site. CTR on that page has dropped to 25% of what is was since I removed the images to comply with the Adsese policy clarification of 12/18.

 

One problem is that there are much fewer image ads than text ads available, so this technique won't work in all niches. But you can make it work with another kind of ad...

In the January 7, 2006 issue of my free AdSense newsletter (and also in Chapter 29 of Uncommon AdSense) I described a similar technique using referral buttons. Here's the relevant paragraph:

The nice thing is that referral buttons are always available no matter what the niche. Again, another paragraph:

You can see it in action on my demo site The Toolbar Guide. I especially like placing referral buttons next to my favorite ad unit format, the half-banner (favorite because I think it looks the best and because it only shows two ads).

 

Check my thread out, about this exact idea:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=211230

 

This isn't new, I've seen it on many sites. I use it myself. I have a left hand column with a 250x250 image ad, followed by a 250x250 text ad right below it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it. You can have two idential ads next to each other on the same page, it's simply that one of these is text and the other is image.

 

I've done this on proxy sites before. The CTR is decent, in my opinion. But I haven't done any specific tests on these proxy sites. Maybe I will when my new network builds up more traffic.

The problem with doing this on a regular content site is that you can only have three adspots, and this uses one up, since it is most likely going to be the text ad being clicked on, not the image one.

 

I don't see why it would be a problem.

The reason Google didn't like images next to ads is that the image might not be related, in topic, to the ad.

This way the image will be an ad, and naturally be of the same topic as the other ad, based on the content of the page.

 

I don't mean to sound rude, but i seriously doubt how that will help. :-/

 

Well, after 12 hours of testing with this method I have yet to get one click, where I would have had an estimated 6 clicks with the image/ad technique.

I think I'm going to try the referral button technique as Eric mentioned above.

Overall, by getting rid of the image/ad technique I'd say revenue will drop by at least 50% or more. I wish Google would start offering a blogad type solution - regular adsense ads are very rarely clicked on.

I bet Google's stock price is going to go south because of this... I'd sell if anyone owns it.

Oh well...back to the drawing board!

 

You test based on 12 hours and 6 versus 1 click? That's way too soon to have a decent metric.

 

This was brought up ina previous thread regarding images...I think it looks like a good idea, but none of the google image ads are so intriguing, it would make visitors want to click on the ads below.

 

Yeah, I'm keeping it up to continue the test... it would be interesting to hear from others who are trying a similar technique... ahem...

 

Definitely not. And if it does, it will only be by a fraction of a cent. The truth is that AdSense publishers hold a very small percentage of Google's shares. Think about everyone that DOES buy lots of Google stock. They aren't webmasters - wall street, investing firms, the average joe, etc..

A tiny little thing like this that was announced on the adsense blog isn't going to cause Google's stock price to fall...

 

Wanna make a bet? Nothing on this forum is going to make Google's stock drop, but when adsense income drops for thousands of publishers, Googles earnings will decrease...and so will their stock price. There will be some lag time, but I bet it will go down.

 

Ok while it is too early to tell I do already see an unusual decrease in CTR....will leave them up for the day though.

 

I have a whopping 2 clicks from 266 impressions raking in a massive 32 cents. I think one problem is a lot of the image ads on google look really cheesy/homemade...and, they look like ads which may repel people.

On the other hand, when you look at some of the ads on blogads, they are designed and written in a way that is more appealing:

http://www.blogads.com/examples

I wish Google would come out with a text/image ad format...sigh...