SEM Tycoon

**robhustle** · 11-02-2006, 10:29 PM

Does anyone have data on what types of ad formats pay out better? I'm NOT talking about CTR. What I mean is, if you run a skyscraper vs. a button, or a leaderboard vs. an image banner.

Although my experiments have indicated that the text ads produce a higher CTR, that doesnt necessarily mean a better payout. Why? Because, the more ads you show on your site, the more low bidders you display. If you are displaying the low bidders, you have a better chance of getting a crappy $0.01 click.

On the other hand, if you only display ONE ad... say a single text link, or a single banner, then you'd automatically get the payout for the high bid if someone clicked on it.

If the high bid is $1.00, then you could make up for 100 low paying clicks with a single top click. I am working on an automated algorithm to optimize my on page ads based on these ideas. But, I thought I'd ask some of you what your experience has been.

Does displaying fewer numbers of ads on the page result in increased payouts? Let me know what you have found. Please, NO SPECULATION... only hard data.

In the meantime, I'm going to run some experiments.

**imported_Tom** · 11-02-2006, 11:26 PM

large rectangle wins

**Valentin** · 11-03-2006, 12:11 AM

I use a text banner, a image banner and a link unit on the same page .. I have a 34% CTR and about 50 cents per click!

**robhustle** · 11-03-2006, 01:58 AM

Tom - people say large rectangle wins for clickthrough. But, the crux of my question is... if you run ONE ad, does it pay more than if you run FOUR ads.

The logic is, if you only show one ad, it must be the top bidder. Whereas, if you run FOUR ads, then you are getting three lower bid ads to show.

So, are you saying that it pays out more? Or that you get more clickthroughs? I am asking because I"m not concerned with optimizing CTR with this question, but rather payout.

Mahalos,

rob

**xboxundone** · 11-03-2006, 09:30 PM

i use the 350 box works wonders

**acclaim** · 11-03-2006, 10:27 PM

It has to do with the topic of your site. If the topic is popular the the keywords are expensive the competitive nature will result in very small differences between #1 and #3 ads in terms of price. So it's best to display all of them. If it's a small topic without many competitive bidders, then running top ad might make more $.

**slava75** · 11-06-2006, 01:18 AM

I have tested this approach in the past. I used to run 3 adsense blocks on my website pages. Then I cut it to one. For the first week or so this one block was making more than three. Then there was a decrease.

As a result, I have placed three ad blocks back.

**robhustle** · 11-06-2006, 08:09 PM

Thanks for the feedback sl7... maybe a hybrid rotating approach would be the optimal solution.