On a per click basis, which pays out more? Link Units or Ad Units? Does anyone have any kind of hard data on this?
Link units give you a higher CTR because, instead of ads, they display keywords that people will search, based on your website theme, so they will click because they're searching for that, or are interested in that, instead of some of those dull ads we see on Adsense. What pays more? Make your own conclusion, test it For me, really depends on the website, but in three of them adlinks have higher CTR.
One of my sites has a reasonably busy homepage. It has a link unit center-left and a 160 skyscraper on the right. Recent history is that the link unit is getting 45 percent more clicks (it is in a better position). Although it enjoys 45 percent more clicks, the payout from the links unit is just 33 percent more than the skyscaper. So the cents per click from this link units is lower than from the skyscaper.
The problem with the link unit is that people have to click twice and many of them would just hit the back button when seeing the ads after the first click. The other problem is that when people click on the link unit they see 10 ads, so they're more likely to click a lower bid value link than in case of the ad units.
In general AdLinks offer lower payout, and it takes two clicks from a user for you to get paid. Does this mean that you shouldn't make use of them? Definitely not. Adlinks can sometimes generate more revenue, even with the lower payout, than normal Ad units could. As was previously said, it will depend on your site and your visitors. Best thing is to test it out and see how they perform.
Another issue with AdLinks is that linking to a page full of ads may look a bit misleading or unprofessional to some visitors. Repeat visits are also important for any site.
Yeah, that's my feeling too. I kind of lament the loss of revenue by showing only a link unit above the fold, but having a big leaderboard as the first thing a visitor sees is feels pretty unfair to the user and just feels like whoring -- particularly as the site in question is more user-interactive than content-oriented. If the difference between the two is substantial, I might reconsider though. I'll do some split testing next week and see how things go. Thanks for the input everyone.
I've tried both link units and ad units, both alone and mixed. After testing for a while, my conclusions are that link units get more clicks but the average revenue per click is low. Even though I was getting CTRs of over 100% on some pages, the payout was dismal. I have now removed all link units and use all ad units. The CTR is lower, but the payouts are higher overall.