I just started an ad campaign here today. Doing $5 a day, got 5,000 impressions and 4 clicks. Is this bad? Decent? Somewhere in between? I just started the community and want to pick up at least a new member or two for $25. My banner is the Techno Nook one, for http://www.technonook.com Any advice on things I could do to get a better CTR?
It really depends on your banner more than anything... a good banner will get 10x more clicks than a poor one.
My banner is http://www.technonook.com/ad.png. Pretty basic, but it covers the relevant topics. If it is a banner issue, any suggestions on changes I could make to make it more appealing?
I'm not a design guy myself... best to Google for "good banner examples" or something to maybe get some ideas. Not saying yours is bad or anything, just saying there's a huge disparity between CTR on a good vs. bad banner.
You definitely should try the left sidebar for your banner. Ads will be more visible. Put Adsense as a links inside every post.