Now that users have a stake in the AdSense revenue here, I'm curious if people like the AdSense color scheme used. A little more obnoxious colors (or rotating the color scheme) would probably yield a higher CTR since it would be more noticeable. If you don't know what I'm talking about (regarding users having a stake), check this thread. - Shawn
I think the more obnoxious schemes would make more money, but it would make the board less eye appealing. I'm not too worried about the couple bucks, lets keep it pretty.
Well I don't think that dull gray is very eye appealing. I think it is ugly in fact. Shawn uses the color rotation scheme on his tools pages and I think it looks fine. I'd use it here rather than the gray. On a separate note since the new Adsense tracking tools have come online I can tell you that the click through rate from my SEO articles is very low. I suppose this stands to reason because the people who are reading these are webmaster and web savvy people. I have heard other forum owners complain about the poor performance of their AdSense ads. So I don't think we are all going to get rich off the ads on this forum. But if you decide not to rotate the colors at least pick something that is more attractive than that ugly gray.
I might try the color rotation like is used in the tools section. See if there are any noticeable differences. If that doesn't work out, and I just use a single color, do you have any suggestion compar? - Shawn
I like the color rotation idea best. Or just make it blend in with the forum, (white backgrd, blue border, black text, and blue links), no biggy really.
Leave the rotation up for a while. They are all fairly pastel in nature and don't clash too badly. But they do draw some attention to themselves and that is what we want.
I like the new colors. I didn't even really notice the ads before b/c they blended in with the page. I notice the pastels and the other banners a lot more now...but they aren't so colorful that they are too obnoxious.
Okay, they have been up long enough that I have a day of channel data for them with the new color rotation. Interesting thing is the clicks are roughly the same for that one day as they are for an entire week previously. Also, average $ per click is way up. Which of course is directly unrelated, but I think search engine users coming into the forum searching for certain things are searching for non-SEO related topics (which pay more), so I think it's coming from the non-regular forum users. I wish Google wasn't so tight about disclosing specifics, I'd post a nice little AdSense chart for you. - Shawn
This is indeed interesting. Now I can't help but wonder if some color families would result in more clicks than others? Shannon
I added color rotation to one of my sites today. It will be interesting to see the results. I agree that it certainly does hurt this site esthetically. In fact I kind of like the ever changing splash of color.