Google Adsense Split-Testing New Minimalist Ad Design - Considerations

[Ryuzaki]

Here's something I just saw which led to a thought process I'd like to share:

Google is testing these new looking ads as a new default look I guess. Thin fonts that look elegant, they don't stand out visually, which might make them stand out more.

And that's what I was thinking about... Ad blindness.

For those of us with sites with lots of return visitors, ad blindness is a huge deal. I remember some old wordpress themes that were built to randomly load different templates to change your ad placement around to help combat this. However, most of us are split testing our placement for the most earnings...

Google isn't testing the look of the ad because it's going to out-perform all other looks forever. It's just a way to combat ad blindness.

Have any of you guys ever locked in solid ad positions and then continued to split test the look of the text ads simply to watch the trends shift? Seems like it'd be worth doing every few months on a gigantic site with return visitors to keep the earnings high.

I've always worked in low traffic / high value niches so I've not ever done this. I'm in a high traffic vertical now but I'm not geared up enough with that much return traffic yet to test it.

You guys?

 

[eliquid]

I had a series of paintball sites and boating sites at one time I would do this with because I had my own product I was pushing on them.

I haven't done it for years now though.

I am however trying to write more and Im struggling with it and I had the concept to split test the headlines my articles have as traffic comes in. Kinda like testing ads, but with the headline of the article.

Let us know what you find out.

 

[Dani]

I'm always aiming for direct sponsoring from firms which are in the vertical my site is about. Cuts out the middleman (Google) and you could rent out pages for a fixed price or a CPC-model if your traffic is at a great amount. Right now I'm still using adsense as long as I'm waiting for the #1 rankings to happen.

Still, I always go for a quite minimal ad/sponsoring placement like this:

right next to the post where it slides with the reader or simply one underneath. I didn't test it to an extend where I could say this is it but it works with my site & design.

 

[Sutra]

I'm always aiming for direct sponsoring from firms which are in the vertical my site is about. Cuts out the middleman (Google) and you could rent out pages for a fixed price or a CPC-model if your traffic is at a great amount. Right now I'm still using adsense as long as I'm waiting for the #1 rankings to happen.

Still, I always go for a quite minimal ad/sponsoring placement like this:

right next to the post where it slides with the reader or simply one underneath. I didn't test it to an extend where I could say this is it but it works with my site & design.

How do you decide how much to charge? I recently had a company offer to pay to place an ad on my site and they want to know how much I charge. So need to figure that out.

 

[Ryuzaki]

How do you decide how much to charge? I recently had a company offer to pay to place an ad on my site and they want to know how much I charge. So need to figure that out.

Take a look at what people in your industry are charging on the BuySellAds Marketplace. That'd be a good starting point.

Also, you could list your site there to get more exposure (paying BSA a cut of course). I've never had a site listed there but I assume you can backfill too for when there's advertiser biting at the time.

 

[Dani]

Take a look at what people in your industry are charging on the BuySellAds Marketplace. That'd be a good starting point.

I haven't thought of that yet. Good idea; my problem/luck is that my sites are too niched down for BSA.

How do you decide how much to charge? I recently had a company offer to pay to place an ad on my site and they want to know how much I charge. So need to figure that out.

Most of the time I've no idea how much exactly they're profiting from one client so I have to investigate and in the end guess. One example I'm going for with one page is buying yachts. This is a multimillion sale most of the time. If I get my website ranking and get a decent amount of traffic I would charge at least 5k a month for this site alone. In the end it all comes down to selling.

In an other case I'm trying to rank for personal fitness trainer in (every city) which is more difficult to rank for than fucking yachts because of all the competition and amount of personal trainers. Still I could hardly rent out these pages for 5k. At most for 200 bucks.

Still I went for it. Because I could target 30(+) cities with one hit. But this was before my mindshift, I don't want to compete with the small fishies for this small amount. Right now, I'll always go for the yacht.

I found a service which has 5k+ in every sale and a search volume from 3600 per month. This business has a potential 18.000.000€ spend per month; I let the potential of renting out a page which has 90% of the traffic in this vertical to you. Talk about fishies and yachts. All I have to do is to rank. You guys can follow along on my journey here.

 

[Sutra]

Awesome, thanks man. I'll be following your journey as well.

 

[Future State]

There's lots of information out there about industry average CPMs. Whether it's accurate or not is another question but all you can do is jump in at the "average" and start building your own supply and demand curve.

Here's something I found with a quick google search: http://monetizepros.com/display-advertising/average-cpm-rates/

 

[miketpowell]

As a huge buyer of ads over the years also let me give you another insight here that Google is testing.

Often times colors/font changes in the ad not only changed CTR but also the conversion rates, sometimes significantly. So I imagine that's something big Google is playing with, not only trying to reduce banner blindness and increase CTR but simply increase CPMs overall by increasing conversions too. The sole goal of Google isn't just to get a click but a sale for the advertiser.

For a webmaster I'm not sure the best way to apply this knowledge but I imagine the concept is don't just look at CTR. Certain locations can probably get higher conversions which won't lead to higher ad rates over night but certainly eventually should. Obviously this is something you can test much easier if it's an affiliate product your selling so you get to see the conversion rate.

 

[secretagentdad]

I'd trust Google on this one. (but only tiny bit)

You gotta remember its not all about click through. Ad slots are auctioned off. Lower value ads with good headlines steal clicks from higher value ads. At the end of the day the points to make as much money off your traffic as possible.