In Advertisements, Sometimes Less is More... Test, Test, Test!

Especially from newbies I often see websites packed with ads... but sometimes, less is more!
I'm always testing ad-positions, different sponsors or different ad setups (adsense experiments f.e.).
Since I'm driving high traffic volume, tests often reflect in a short time. Here an example:

Below the content i had two adspots, one running content.ad and the other running taboola. The CPC and CTR on taboola was always way lower due to less attractive ads, so I gave content.ad the upper spot. Actually I kept taboola only because of the 'not all eggs in one basket' and the reputation I think they have. But since the difference was so significant, I thought I'd try and remove taboola to see if that will improve the CTR on content.ad (less choices for a user to click on).

Running since ~15 hours, the results speak for themselves. The now even higher CTR on c.ad not only evens out taboola. With less ads, I made more than double the revenue in that specific ad-area.
I'm also running an adsense-experiment right now with mixed results. Usually you shouldn't run two tests at the same time because they can affect each other in the results but I couldn't resist

This is also meant as a headsup for those that struggle. This is stuff I don't do daily but often to optimize everything. While I have more than 10 years of experience, I had to start at one point too and test a lot ever since. This is some of the stuff a webmaster does all the time.

MonsterMag said:

I'm also running an adsense-experiment right now with mixed results. Usually you shouldn't run two tests at the same time because they can affect each other in the results but I couldn't resist

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For Adsense part, I never liked them..One big reason is, the ads they display, sometimes, has no direct relation with page content.
I got "beauty care" ads on my jQuery tutorial site. WTF? I then disabled Adsense on my website and placed affiliate premium E-books..

Happy with the earning!

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. For me the real shock was when after more than five years I decided to test Adsense link units. I always assumed they will never work and didn't use them. My earnings shot straight up, like really high up. I now have only Adsense link units in all premium spots. The strange thing though this didn't prove to be true on all sites. On some sites, even those that use exactly same Wordpress theme, it didn't work. Testing is important!

LJ Junior said:

For Adsense part, I never liked them..One big reason is, the ads they display, sometimes, has no direct relation with page content.
I got "beauty care" ads on my jQuery tutorial site. WTF? I then disabled Adsense on my website and placed affiliate premium E-books..

Happy with the earning!

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That's because you don't understand what 'relevant ads based on your interests' means... you or someone else using your computer probably visited a beauty-care website or that exact website previously.

matrix79 said:

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. For me the real shock was when after more than five years I decided to test Adsense link units. I always assumed they will never work and didn't use them. My earnings shot straight up, like really high up. I now have only Adsense link units in all premium spots. The strange thing though this didn't prove to be true on all sites. On some sites, even those that use exactly same Wordpress theme, it didn't work. Testing is important!

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Thanks for that, I have also never tried link units, will give it a shot once the actual experiment is done.

Someone had to say it , phew, hope people follow this advice

Decent reminder OP. Just changed something up off the back of this that I'd been meaning to get to. With thanks.

Thanks for that, I have also never tried link units

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Yeah, I remember that day: I was inspired by Tim Ferriss when he said something like, "If I had to get this particular result ONLY using resources that I have now, how would I do that?"

So I was thinking among these lines when I realized I never really used Adsense link units. I added one 200x90 link unit to the middle of my post and the earnings shot up for that day. I moved it higher, it raised even more.

Eventually I had one 200x90 right under the title and one 200x90 after the first paragraph. All other ad blocks are under the fold. I think the increase was about 40 percent overall, approximately that is. I filter sensitive categories, like Religion, too.

Then yesterday again I was thinking of what I could do to earn more and realized that I never used Content.ad. That's how I actually found this thread. I searched blackhatworld for content.ad and found your thread