What is ad optimization?
A successful ad is defined by how many responses (clicks / conversions) can be associated with it. A conversion is an action such as buying something from a website through a banner shown on your webpage, or registering for something advertised on your website. If your conversion rate / click rate is not as high as you think it should be, you should consider making changes to your ad to make it better. Welcome to the wonderful world of ad optimization.
How can I optimize my ads?
Don’t trump your logo:
A common mistake people make is putting an advertisement up above their logo or header image. This is attractive to do because it is generally outside of your design, which makes it easy to implement. The problem is that people generally start reading at your logo, anything above your logo is taken to be an advertisement or unimportant, and it isn't likely to be read. If the ads aren't read, they will most likely get no response from the visitors.
You might think it’s okay to put a CPM based advertisement (traditional graphical banner) where you're getting paid by views, not clicks, in such a position, but even CPM ads are important to get a good CTR on. An advertiser will most likely want to target his high priced CPM to the best performing websites. Even when an advertiser merely wants his name branded he will want your visitors to notice the ad.
For CPC campaigns it’s obvious that the more response you get from your visitors, the more you will earn. This, however, does not mean you should incite your readers to click on the advertisements: as well as being considered click fraud, such practices lead to a record of high click rates without conversions, which might end up cutting that site out of the better CPC campaigns.
Number of ads on your webpage:
Don’t use too many ad sizes on your webpage. If you do use multiple ad sizes it is important that you do not crowd your site with advertisements, a practice that does not always work as well as you would like. Crowding ads together can actually lower your performance, so keep them spread out. This is easy if your
site tends to have longer pages. An ad at the top, an ad in stories/reviews, and one on the side is 3, fairly easy to accomplish. Never use the same ad size more than once. So for example don’t use two banners (468x60) on the same webpage – this will lose you impression counts on both ads.
It’s easy to understand why too many ads on one page don’t work. Let’s say you put 6 ads on your webpage. A visitor at this point may do one of two things: they will either click on one of the ads, or they will not. In case they do, they will only click on one, and the remaining 5 ads will get no response. It should be fairly obvious at this point that such a crowded set up is doomed to low CTR rates.
Preferably place your ads above the fold:
To maximize your ad responses, and therefore your revenue, always try to place your ads above the fold of your website. The term "Above The Fold" was used in the newspaper business, where it represented everything above the fold on the top half of the page - the Premium Content Area.
Internet marketing today requires the same key concepts that once belonged only to the news print industry. Deciding what to place at the top of the web pagemay be the most important marketing decision of all.
First, it is important to understand that visitors will come to a website in one of two ways. The first is they know your website by name. The second is they foundyour website through a search engine, web directory, or reference link. Each of these has its own set of variables when deciding what to place above the fold.
Let’s say the visitor knows your webpage by name. Some have said that you only have three seconds to grab the attention of the viewer. If attention of the reader is captured in these first few seconds, they are much more likely to respond to the ads on your webpage. Is it likely they will see the ad on your webpage in the first three seconds they enter your website?
How do I know when ad optimization is needed?
Your ad network account (eg Google Adsense) has reports that can help you analyze your website’s
performance. These free reports can include the average cost per click (CPC), number of impressions, click through rate (CTR) and many other variables. By analyzing these reports, you can determine if you need to adjust your ad placements, create sections on your website, send better traffic or perhaps re-evaluate your use of ad sizes. We recommend periodic reviews of your reports to help optimize all aspects of your revenue to achieve success and maximize your earnings.
0 comments:
Post a Comment