Hello all, I wanted to share an experience I had recently of trying to incorporate AdSense ad formats & sizes that work extremely well for others' sites, but which I experienced very poor results with. I'd been reading -- and you can find this tip in virtually every AdSense advice book and forum -- that 336x280 large rectangle ads were the size to use on your site. They got the highest click-through rates, the best performance of any ad format. Well, was that ever wrong. I tried them out on my site and my click-through rates dropped through the floor, from around 3% to below 0.8%. I had been using 160x600 skyscraper ads which had performed very nicely for quite some time for me, but decided to give the large rectangles a try. There was just no comparison -- even though they looked like they should have worked, my users just didn't find them appealing or useful or whatever, and avoided them like the plague. Now that I've brought back the 160x600 skyscraper ads (with 4x link units also across the top in the main content well), my AdSense click-through rate is back up to its normal and healthy 3% or so. The point I wanted to make is that take all AdSense advice with a grain of salt, and make sure you test, test, test before you make wholesale changes to your site that could dramatically affect your earnings. Just my two cents.
Your adsense tips are pretty good - but if you want to earn even more money from your websites, then learn how to supplement adsense with more ads.
The 336x280 large rectangle ads worked best for most people though. It worked best for me too. But I understand that every site has a unique design and yes, you need to test!
I agree. I experienced the same thing but it only happens to certain sites and I think it depends on topic and page design.