Google eMail: After a recent review of your site ... custom placement packs

I am sure on 25 Jan 2007 many have received an eMail from G adsense support team:

Dear Publisher,

After a recent review of your site, we would like to include "yoursite.com" in our custom placement packs ...

How is your experience with that new offer ?

myself I sat down immediately and started - until now and still ongoing work in progress - to modify and restructure the entire Channel system, adsense code placements, adsense formats and make as many channels as possible targetable with a description.

my own experinence so far - even only a few days into the changes - have been extraordinary. I need to say that by the time I received G's eMail I was already many days working on my annual adsense overhaul - hence I was already partially prepared for what G requested/wished to be done by participating sites.

Those who did NOT yet start implementing the new channel targeting features - here a few facts to wake up your motivation:

1. a CTR before of 5+% site wide is now 50% MORE than before

2. eCPM also nearly double - accordingly $ as well

to do so I did all as reuested by G's18 Dec 2006 eMail / newsletter and the last a.m. eMail

PLUS

i totally changed the blog lay out to have the navigation bar on left side
wide skyscraper ON TOP of navigation bar

and I strictly use now ONLY the 3 ( three ) G-recommended successful formats out of the total available various ad formats.

futher - to invite advetisers to bid on top placements
the most expensive placement area - above the fold / top-center - now ONLY has video compatible formats
i.e.
336x280 and 300x280
and as the only additional format the 160x600 usually on the best possible placement - top-left

minor changes resulting in HUGE increase in CTR/$

one step i do totally different from most sites i ever saw - my ad color for ad-title is RED - red a color of activation or "GO" ... adsense title red - link blue - background color as page ..

my 2 absolute TOP (CTR/$) placements clearly leading by FAR any other formats/placment combination are

top-center just BELOW page H1-title format 336x280 or 300x250

top left - on CMS pages above NAVIGATION BAR - on content pages level with first content paragraph format 160x600

hence each page 2 high paying G recommended successful formats - one nit above the fold for videos on each page.

the rewards are excellent so far the change in CTR/$ instant

may be some of you love to give it a try !?

keep in mind:

if you have too much income and no real need for adsense optimization - then of course you may place your ads in right upper (trash-bin)-corners of the page or bottom section of the page or no ads at all or hidden /hardly visible colors...

if however you could use a few extra (ten) thousand $ (depending on traffic volume ) a year to improve your work, life-style, HW, SW, etc

then you may as well give adsense the TOP/very best placement ever available + with the most preferred formats by large advertisers - i.e. those who are willing to bid for TOP-placements on quality sites for txt/video or image ads

 

One of my clients just got this same email from google. After implementing this, his CTR jumped through the roof. I'm putting this on all my sites.

 

it would be intesting to know how many got this eMail and what G's criteria was for selecting.

If Shawn could decide to optimze his adsense to meed the format criteria - I am quiet sure he could double or triple his adsense indom from DP forum as well. right now it looks like fully DE-optimzed to me.

minor changes resulted in major benefits
example:
in my quiet popular photo gallery I had one of the lowest CTR ever something like 2% only.
from leaderboard I changed to 336x280
and the 160x600 that i used BELOW left navigation bar I moved on TOP of navigation bar
now i tripled my CTR

an amazing experience was the simple comparison of
300x250
vs
336x280

BOTH tested on TOP-center above the fold / BELOW H1-title
during several days on repeated occasions I switched for an extended period of time between these two formats - always with the very same amazing results

for the 336x280 I had approximately 3 ( three ) times MORE CTR/$ than for the medium rectangle!

I am still working on the changes - section by section - much of the pages hand coded - hence lots of hand work - now in preparation for the soon to come openads ad-server .... every few hours with every new section upgraded the G-$ go up hour after hour

 

Thanks, hans. I might just give your suggestion a try on my site. Wonder if that's going to go well or not.... depends

 

my success goes even on these past horus !

last night I have added a true ATF - format as requested by G - hence a 300x250ATF ( above the fold ) on my blog - to do so I have removed my adsense-Google search and modified slightly the blog template ...

and now the blog CTR went up to a 2 digit CTR and the $ also nearly doubled as a result of that additional increase. I need to ad that since long I always had the courage to do what G recommended and to add color, make pages bright and pleasant and to add the 3 really successful formats G always recommends.

the success goes on - my adsense goes up by some 50% the last several days as a result of that ongoing work in progress.

I need to add that now for the rfirst time I also care about the link units - I have created separate G channels for the links and so far it appears best to have th e728 link unit all the way on TOP of the pages above all else.

I have done that link part only an about a quarter of my site but yet for the first time I get real $ out of that.

the last change I made to my blog was to most successful one - one 300x250ATF unit on top center in addition to the 336x280 unit just below each blog H1-title and the 160x600 unit top-left on each post.

all 3 most successful formats on each blog page

have a look at my blog or a few other pages like eCards, photo gallery or wallpapers - these are some of the high traffic sections already already finished and showing full success and then have the courage to do make radical changes to FULLY adsense-optimize. change templates or layouts - colors, CSS, ad formats, ad palcements, all if needed until you get a CTR average site wide between 5-10 % then you know that you have truly optimized ..

even then
everything continuously can be improved and further optimized - more revenue means more fun working, more $ also means affording more efficient HW/SW and even having something left to share ...

your site:

your current leaderboard - that no longer is among the successful formats as recommended by G
it was about a yasr ago - now with G moivng toard movie capable formats I would recommend a lay out very similar to my blog - i.e.

as G wishes a 300x250ATF just directly belwo your "neohide" banner - top-center - you then define it in your G custom channel description as 300x250ATF.

then - have a look at the possibility to add the 160x600 top left floating just oiutside your current template
OR
on TOP of your "Breaking News"
while many blend in ad color with page-content color
as you see on my site specially the blog - I have most successfully opted for red #DD0000 precisely and domain-name blue

you also may rethink your font size
may be if you have a G anylytics account - find out what screen resolution your visitors have - mind have by somke 85% a resolution of 768x1024 or much higher

on my ferrari wide screen 1050x1680 your font is so small that only a multiple Ctrl-+ will make it pleasant to read.
hence for that reason I changed all my CSS from px to pt in font size definition to make all font sizes absolute and independent of screen resolution..
the font size I have now is the result of a test - I took a rich man in his best years - i.e. 60+ - and let him find out what is most pleasant for him to read without glasses, etc

further

you may also want to add the meta description tag
and if you have no option to add a description - then at least you may enter in the description meta tag the variable you have for your title meta tag

also
I am missing your RSS logo/ feed ??
RSS feeds are a most efficient way to
- increase your PR from getting a number ( 50-100 ) high PR backlinks form the RSS/blog directories
and
of course you get an additional number of site visitors directly from feeds-subscriptions

Good luck