Link Units - Not All They Are Cracked Up to Be

I read Google's FAQ and realized that Link Units must not only be clicked, the page with all the sponsored links must be clicked as well. Therefore, you could have 2294339723984729347 clicks to your Link Units, but end up with $0.

 

yup, as i've been learning over the last few days with adtracking software.

Basically the adtracker logs when someone clicks on a AD on my page, i've been noticing way higher clicks, than adsense is reporting, so i look into it and notice its the linkunits that are being clicked, but oviobusly alot of people aren't acutally clicking the sponsered links after that, or they would be showing up on my adsense account and earning me $$$

 

yeah, but that's old news That's why I rarely use adlink units on my pages.

 

I'm gonna replace mine tommorw with a normal ad unit and see if theres much of a difference in earnings.

 

I agree but then no-one has ever really claimed they are any special - just an added extra really.

The problem is that they send a visitor off your site and unless they click the back button they are gone for good. At least with an "ad" you get paid for the exit.

I do so hope that one day Google allows ads pages to open in a new window.

I can't think of any good reason why they shouldnt do this (Im sure others will enlighhten me though).

Maybe we should start a petition lol

 

I used to hate the idea of link units - then I put a link unit on each of my pages and ... earnings doubled, CTR went through the roof ... by using channels to track the perfomance of ad units I can see that the link units outperform the banner/skyscrapers/leaderboards by 300%. I am earning slightly less per click ... but am getting way more clicks.

It is going to depend on your users and your content and your site. My london maps site gets phenomenally good returns from the link units.

 

Link ads made me about 1$ since a month and a half, outstanding performance, right?) It could rock if you have one paged website without any links I didn't tried, but maybe it's a good tip.. Twan I like your site, the most simple I've ever seen, simple, useful.. r u earning at least 50$ a month? and how old is the site?

Good luck all!

 

Its the same for me, the linkunit on my site outperforms everything, but by using the AdLogger software has made me realise the potential, seeing that my linkunit has had sometimes double the amount of clicks that adsense is showing. I have never expierimented with a banner or anytyhing in the position where the linkunit is, so ill try it tommorow and see how it goes.

 

Good posts - making me have second thoughts and will have another look inot these

 

I thought, everyone knew that already? Or it would atleast be pretty obvious. I wouldn't take out link units...I would do better placement and better tracking to see how they perform. Like Sara said, Link units have the highest CTR because, when users press the back button, they are pressing the back button to more ads, not your page. So they are more likely to click on them.

I had the same result with link units. Great stuff, from G to have them.

 

I started my site on the 29th for those who want to know....and I made about $10 my first day because I advertised heavily. Then I found out that Link Units make you alot more. So I put those on my site. Wrong! I made $7 my next day, 5 my next, and I'm at less than half of 5 today. I put the normal ads back...and I'll let you know how it turns out for me.

 

Good to hear that. I'm kind of pesimistic about link units, but right now I give them a test try.

 

I think they're most certainly worth a try - perhaps on different pages, and generally they work best when placed just below a nav bar. But it does also depend on the site, I guess. They seem to work well for some people and not at all well for others. All you can do is play about with them, add some channels to track how well they do, and sit back and gauge their worth for each site owner.

 

I've had similar results to Sara. Not really sure why, but these things just seem to work.

 

If a visitor has already clicked on one link, the likelihood that he'll click on a second link when presented with even more options is very high. It's been proven that adlinks are very high money earners. There is no "gotcha" here.

 

You need to give any adsense placement experiment at least a week. Why? Because there are fluctuations every day -- earnings go up, earnings go down for various reasons (just look at all the "My earnings are down today!" and "My earnings are high today!" threads) -- so you need a full week, at the very least, to see the average from the experiment. If I change up a site, I give it at least two weeks, sometimes a month. You have to factor in the variables.

 

jackburton2006, do you use link units frequently on your pages and do they work on most of sites?

 

Yes, I use the leaderboard adlinks on almost all of my pages. It's very lean and mean and barely takes up any space, which is why I like it. It is actually my second biggest moneymaker after the 336 large rectangles.

 

Superb. Nice to hear that, it seems that adlinks really do the job. I must try it.

Were you also sceptical about adlinks at start like I was?

 

Actually, yes. LOL. I didn't think it would work as well as it has.