Hi everyone ... 2 weeks ago I saw a new game was almost being released, being a big fan I registered a domain name for it and built a site with Joomla CMS for it. The game can be expanded with plugins which users can create, so the game has a large community around it, and will have for quite some time (WoW anyone ?). I was already using adsense on a different, low traffic site (100 visitors per daymax), so I didn't have to wait for google to approve me .. I plugged inthe ads from day 1. After 2 weeks, google placed me on 1st place for 'Oblivion Mods' (3rd or 7th on some data centers), and right away my traffic skyrocketed. Of course I worked hard to get that position... Now I'm getting 70.000 pageviews per day, from about 4000 unique visitors... You would think I could earn some serious google dollars from that. However, no matter what I try, my CTR is just awful. I can't say exactly (Google TOS) but its the lowest I have ever seen, or heard mention by anyone. Far, far, FAR below 1%. I have tried moving the ads around the page, left, top, right and in the middle of content .. but it doesn't seem to help. I'm using 3 way matching to blend in with the site, to no avail. The ads are responding to the keywords correctly and are therefore related to the content of my site. (My site is about an RPG game, and the ads are for other RPG game materials like cheatbooks and gold for WoW and EQ2). I really would expect at least SOME of my visitors to be interrested in that.... I'm planning to try to get away from 3 way matching and try 'screaming colors' now to see if that has any effect. What am I doing wrong ? You can see my site in my signature below. If I could just get 1% CTR I would be very happy. ps: 70k views is from my site stats .. google counts only about half of that, I'm guessing due to ppl running various ad blockers.
Experiment. Try an adlink unit at the top of the pages, just below the header. (One max per page.) Put an ad unit consisting of 2 advertisements at the top of a news post. But remember - 3 max per page. Don't have too many adverts per page. The highest paying ads are shown first. So 3 adunits with 2 ads each is more than enough. You might want to just use 2 adunits with 2 ads each. See how well that works. Ignore adsense page impressions vs your own stats tracking. Google will filter out and delay updating your stats, then there are timezone issues. Adblockers are few and far between (I wrote an article about this in my blog, if you want more information). Good luck.
well I tried an adlink unit at the top already, but the problem is also, google doesn't have a lot of ads for my frontpage (other / deeper pages seem much better), so when I have adlinks in the top, other ads become blank. This is also the problem when I place a skyscaper on the left, other ads on the frontpage blank out. The most ads I've been able to shove down my users throats, is by using a small banner along the top with 4 ads, that leaves enough to have 2 more adblocks in between the articles on the FP. The skyscrapers all take 5 ads .. and then others go blank (go figure ... it doesn't add up I know). I checked your blog, and I really think you're wrong. I'm seeing 70.000 views on my site, and google is showing less then 30.000. Granted there might be a page or 2 on the site with NO ads at all (I doubt it), and google needing a few hours to catch up, this difference is still way to big to explain the difference. Weekly stats also don't match up so I think you're wrong about the 1% ad blockers. It's just the type of visitors on my site (gamers are generally computer savvy folk). I also see in my stats about 50% firefox users, I bet that is different for you too.
wow, ur ads really stand out and not in a good way. make me want to leave right away. I would go back to blending them in to your site and trying to find better ad poitions. You just need to tweak and experiment some.
Not entirely. 45% FF on one site. And no-one using an adblocker. Maybe more are using an adblocker when visiting your site (or JS is disabled entirely?). I see plenty of relevant ads - is geo-targetting a problem? I'm in the UK. All adunits are filled, it seems. No problem. But anyway, I also mentioned in my blog to target your visitors correctly. If they're not interested in ads then find out what they are interested in and make money that way. Maybe as an affiliate for selling RPG games that you review on your site. As your site is targeted at gamers then this would interest them. Make it look less like you're trying to "shove down my users throats" the adsense ads. Especially if geo-targetting is an issue, then the less ads in an adunit the more relevant and higher paying are the ads that are displayed. Try section targeting so that you can focus adsense on specific content. EDIT: To help blend further, have the adunit in a separate block so it looks like another part of the site. The brown seemed a lot better than the other colours I've seen.
Yeah I'm just trying out these extreme colors for a day ... gotta try everything I figured The pink is a bit too much if you ask me ... but who knows it might help (so far not really). The experiment I have planned for tomorrow : go back to the top with banner shaped (468*60) adblock and use google default colors on it I would really like to find a gaming company that like to advertise on my site. That would probably work better then adsense. Any ideas where I could find one?
Put together a sales-pitch and contact relevant games-companies (i.e. ones making games of the genre your site relates to). I'm not into games nowadays (back in the days of Amiga I was) but ign.com seems like a good place to start for compiling a list of target companies. It might be worth trying some polls to find out what else your visitors like and target that. Good luck.
With that traffic , i think you'get over $4000 a month , right ? For an idea about advertising , if your site is game and have a small content modifying you should using non-contextual ads(If your site major visitors is not adult , don't use chitika. They don't have money to buy that) www.tribalfusion.com Code (markup): (Non-contextual advertising) or clicksor , fastclick , mediaplex. but in my opinion , tribalfusion pay best Tribalfusion's minimum requirement is 2000 visitor/day/site
Welcome to the world of advertising to geeks The computer savvy users are the least likely to click an ad, bar none. Some of the most popular pro-gamer and pro-geek sites have the worst CTR imaginable. A friend of mine is a programmer and designer for a huge gaming company, and he consults with a mega-gaming site. He told me they were happy to get 0.01% CTR! They know you make money on the ads, they have no desire to buy what the advertisers are selling, and many know how to get the domain name of the advertisers to go direct without clicking. This is unfortunately how it will be -- you'd be better off with finding an advertisers directly to pay CPM rather than CPC. This problem will only get worse as more people sign up for AdSense and more people becoming computer savvy.
That's one ugly ad. You definately swung to far to the screaming than the blendng. 4000 uniques isn't "that" much, plus your viewers would be more use to exciting flash ads like those at penny-arcade.com and less attracted to simple google ads; just by the nature of your "client" base.
Interesting post.. I see everywhere that the Game Section isnt a success.. I have the same problems.. I get enough unique visitors.. We are based in Holland but 30% vs, 30% germany, 30% uk.. 3% Holland. AdSense is no happines.. How about CPX Interactive.. Also a good option..?