Text-only versus Text+image ads? Which ones are better?

I tried searching discussion regarding text-only versus showing text+image ads. I'm sure I could test this, but I believe if there's not a big difference then I cannot be absolutely sure which one is higher paying.

Has anybody conducted a throughout test to see which ads perform better? My site is text-intensive, and would be interested to know.

Google recommends having also images, but Joel Comm's Adsense Code says not to display them.

So... should there be ads that show images or not? If you have experience on this, please share.

 

common sense

if CTR images occur on the MOST successful format - the 336x280 - then that advertiser has to bid at least 1 cent more than all for text advertisers are bidding together for that particular spot.

hence of course a full text ad - or even a video ad - pays more than a single text ad.

the opposite
image ONLY of course produces the opposit
if NO advertiser has an image ad for the space and a webmaster configures image only - then a image CTR advertiser may get a full image for as low as 1 cent or so ... because he may find NO competitor bidding against him.

 

Uh.... what are click-through rate images?

Yeh... but what about CTR? Images clicked more often than text?

No plans to use image-only... but I believe you are suggesting text+images, and saying that they would perform better than text only?

 

Images for me have always had POOR CTR. Besides that they usually pay 0.01-0.03 (which is even lower then text ads!)

I have also found most image ads a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and pay horribly.

I would go for text. That is my default setting and I haven't used images in well over a year now.

 

Yup. It's no big secret that image ads are teh suck.

 

Text ads pay better and give the reader more choices.

I like to make the top 2 ad blocks on my page "text only" and the 3rd block is text_image.

 

So it is much better to have text ads rather than text ads and image?. Actually I am very new to adsense so I thought having a text ads and image ads is much more profitable than text ads.

 

For me, text ads have produced the highest CTR on my sites. I've never had much luck with the image ads.

 

Great tips for the newbie trying out Adsense. Thanks for sharing

 

image ads suck.

in order to get rid of 'em, you'll have to make sure that every ad block is text-only.

also consider telling adsense that you don't want any site-targeted cpm ads.

 

Image ads are usually ugly, and if they don't happen to be on target for your site then it just looks like garbage....

 

I use one text-only 728*90 and another image 728*90 on the same page..
What are your suggestions?

 

I think text only works better but maybe you should leave the option open of having image ads also.

 

if you EXCLUDE text ads and limit ONLY image ads - then of course you have the lowest eCPM possible - reason see below post

otherwise my image ads on a fully adsense optimized site always pay excellent - free competition IMPOSSIBLE that an advertiser pays less for image ads than for text ads UNLESS you limt to image ads ONLY

but in addition of course the eCPM depends on the quality of your site - on the market you appeal to - cheap keywords=low $
quality high end topics = high $

as an average i have 2 digits CTR and eCPM
on a site with ALL free competition fully enabled > text plus image plus site advertisers
and all ads given TOP placements and only the 3 ( three ) most successful formats as published by G

birdsq
my recommendation:
use one or all or the 3 most successful formats -- see G adsense pages for details, they always are published and updated when changes occur

on wrong formats you may have LESS competing advertisers and hence lower eCPM - of course by far NOT every advertisers bids on all formats - that very specially is valid for video or image advertisers

for full details
many months ago we had a most detailed and extensive thread ( or 2 nearly simultaneously ) about all details - formats/colors/placements
from search will help

 

It depends. You have to monitor your ads to see if image ads are showing at all with both options enabled. Remember, you will need the image option enabled for video ads which pay a lot better. I've had good luck with the video ads as they have a better pay rate than my text ones.

 

wrong.

just about everyone in this thread has recommended against image ads, because they do NOT pay better than text ads.

one image ad that is off-target, or has bad geotargeting, will eliminate the entire ad block from any potential revenue... but one text ad that's bad still leaves other, more relevant, text ads in the block that can be clicked on.

i have several months worth of heavy channel data that proves it... google is not capable of serving up relevant image ads that pay well, in any of the sectors that i'm in.

 

Yes, nice reply

 

Hmm... true.

The end conclusion from this debate: test it.