Understanding Ad Formats

If you’re not using search boxes on your site, you’re probably using AdSense
for Content, and with content, creating the right ads gets a little trickier.
Trickier, as in negotiating a strange house blindfolded — it’s pretty certain
you’ll bump into things and your path won’t always be the most direct to
your destination, but you’ll eventually end up in the right place through trial
and error.
But that’s the worst-case scenario. Why go through all that trouble when you
have someone who can take the blindfold off, let you see exactly where you
are, and show you the path to exactly where you want to go? (Me, in other
words.) When I get you to understand the ad formats in AdSense and understand
what works best where, it’s like taking off that blindfold.
The infinite variety of AdSense ads
AdSense gives you dozens of different types of ads and ad formats to choose
from. Options include
Text ads
Image ads
Video ads
Link units
Referral buttons
Themed ads
Each of these categories includes 8 to 12 different sizes of ads, and then you
can further customize ads by choosing the referral partners — the folks whose
products or services you want to recommend to your Web site visitors — or
the colors of the ads. There are enough choices to keep you busy testing different
types of ads for a couple years, at least!
Text ads
Text ads are the most popular type of AdSense ad. If you’ve seen a Web site
using AdSense, you’ve seen text ads. It gets a little confusing, though, when
you step back and try to determine exactly what kind of text ad would be
best for what space on your Web site. Should you use a leaderboard ad or a
medium rectangle? What’s the best placement for a vertical banner? When
considering options on your Web page, you could probably come up with
dozens of potential places for placing ads, but really knowing what works
best — rather than just guessing — can be a little tricky.
Here’s where I come in. Table 5-1 shows you at a glance what types of text
ads are available and what the best placements for those ads are. Note: The
size of each ad format is noted in pixels (or the tiny little squares that make
up online images). It’s not essential to know this, but I thought I’d mention it
in case you were curious.
Table 5-1 Text Ad Formats
Format Size Placement
Leaderboard 728x90 Top of the page or between blog
entries
Banner 468x60 Not great anywhere but can be
used at the top of the page
Half banner 234x60 Top of the page, end of articles,
between blog entries
Button 125x125 Sidebars
Vertical banner 120x240 Either side of the page
Skyscraper 120x600 On either side of the page
Wide skyscraper 160x600 Right side of the page
Small rectangle 180x150 Beginning of an article
Small square 200x200 Beginning of an article
Square 250x250 Beginning of an article
Medium rectangle 300x250 Beginning of an article
Large rectangle 336x280 Beginning of an article
Obviously, you won’t use every single one of those ad types on your page.
Instead, you should select two or three of the ads that seem to work best in
the natural flow of your pages. For example, if you have a Web site that regularly
features articles about products or just provides information for site visitors,
it might be best for you to consider using a skyscraper ad — an ad that’s
tall and narrow, just like a skyscraper — on the right side of the page and a
rectangle ad — a shorter and wider fellow — at the beginning of an article.
The size of the ad and the size of the space that you have available for an ad
determine which ones fit best where on your page. The first four ads in the
table (leaderboard, banner, half banner, and button) are horizontally oriented,
. Okay, so the button ad is squarer, but it fits
really well in the screen shot.
The best places to put horizontally oriented ads are at the top of a page,
between articles or blog entries, and sometimes at the bottom of the page.
Don’t expect much by way of performance out of ads that you place on the
bottom of the page. On rare occasions they do well, but for the most part, you
want to remember the rule about keeping your ads above the fold of your page.
Remember, the fold is considered the bottom of the Web browser window.
The idea is that you don’t want your visitors to have to scroll to see your ads
because they’ll often only look at the top of the page without scrolling further
down. If you need a refresher about the importance and function of the fold
of the page, flip to Chapter 3. The exception to that fold rule is with a blog,
where you can (somewhat successfully) place ads between blog posts.
Here’s my take on five of the most popular ad formats:
Leaderboard: Probably the most successful format — so much so that
you’re sure to have seen them everywhere. Publishers — that means
you or anyone who signs up with AdSense and publishes ads to a Web
site — usually put leaderboard ads at the top of the page because they
fit nicely there. They’re designed to be about the same width as a Web
page, and they can blend underneath the header of a page very well.
Banner: I’d say banner ads are the least successful of the top five. That’s
not to say banner ads won’t work at all. Your circumstances might
make them work beautifully for you. However, site visitors tend to hate
advertisements, and the banner ads of old are the reason. When Internet
advertising first started to take off, banner ads were one of the first
types of ads to appear — and they were a pain in the rear. Too often,
early banner ads were graphically challenging to Web browsers, slowing
users down when they went from one Web site to another. Back when
dialup was the main way to access the internet, downloading anything
with large graphics was a pain.
Most Internet users today use broadband (you know, cable and DSL),
but the bad taste left by those early banner ads still remains. Users can
spot a banner ad, and out of sheer habit will usually avoid them like that
smelly compost heap in the back corner of the yard.
Another problem with banners is that they’re not the full width of your
Web site, which leaves lots of open space on one side or the other of
those ads. That’s another factor that makes them look like ads. People
will click your ads, but only if they don’t glaringly look like ads.
Half banners: Half as bad as banners, but that still doesn’t make them
good — and they leave even more open space around them than
banner ads.
Vertical banners: Standing a banner upright doesn’t make it any less
banner-ish, it just changes the orientation, but vertical banners still
work on some Web sites in the right column. They’re more graphic than
skyscraper ads, and are somewhat more acceptable than their horizontal
counterparts.
Button: Useful little buggers for any small space that you have available.
Usually, that small space falls in the sidebars of your pages, on the left and
right sides, which is the best placement for those ads. If you have a small
spot on your sidebar where your links don’t reach or there’s open, empty
space, a small button ad fills that space nicely without being overbearing.
Okay, so that’s the top five. On to the next type of text ads from Table 5-1:
the two vertical ads — the skyscraper and the wide skyscraper, . (I treat them both at once.)
I think its okay to place vertical ads on either side of your Web page, right
there in the sidebar area; but in my opinion, the wide skyscraper seems to
do best on the right side of the page. Some experts suggest that could be
because most visitors tend to be right-handed, and the right side of the page
is technically closer to their hand, making it easier to click the ad. I’m not
sure I buy that line of reasoning.
I think it’s more accurate to say that the wide skyscraper on the right side of
the page feels right. Flip back to where I talk about the way that users tend to
view a Web site (Chapter 3, I believe). Users look first at the top of the page,
and then at the right, and finally at the left side of the page. Only after glancing
at those three areas do they look to the content in the middle of the page.
On the right side, the wide skyscraper just fits well. It looks like it belongs
there, and that’s where users expect to see it. One key to success with any
online endeavor, including with AdSense, is to meet the visitor in her comfort
zone. It’s one reason that so many business people in the real world no longer
do business in the office — business types go where their clients are most
comfortable: the beach, a restaurant, Starbucks, or into the client’s home.
Potential customers (which are what your Web site visitors are) are more
likely to be agreeable to your terms or to purchase your product if they’re
comfortable, so make them comfortable. Put the skyscrapers on the outer
edges of the pages and use the wide skyscraper on the right.
Going down the list in Table 5-1, you see a set of square and rectangular ads,
represented in living black and white
The square and rectangle ads are the most versatile of the AdSense offerings.
These ads do well when placed in text, as long as the text is wrapped around
the ad, making it look like part of the article or blog post. Of the six ads
, the large rectangle is usually the most successful when
placed in text, with the medium rectangle being the next most successful.
The thing to remember about these ads, though, is that just because others
find that one type of ad performs better over another in their case, the same
might not hold true for you. Testing is the key to determining what your best
choices are. Look at the space in which you plan to use the ads and then,
based on the space that you have available, try a few different configurations.
If the traffic flow to your site is already established, testing each ad will probably
only take about a week. Put up an ad, watch the numbers for a week, and
then try something different for another week. After you test several different
configurations, you can tell what works well, what works great, and what
doesn’t work at all. Remember though, the effectiveness of your ads could
change over time and with changes to your site, so testing will likely be a
constant process.
To make it easier to keep up with your results over time, write down everything.
Keep track of the dates, the ads and placements used, the format of the
ads (colors and styles, in other words), and anything else that might be pertinent
to the results that you see. After a while, you’ll instinctively know what
will work on your site and what won’t. Until then, you have a written record
to help you keep track.
Image ads
I have this feeling that image ads are what you probably think of when you
think “Ah, yes, Web advertisements!” You have your nice image and your
pithy text, just like the banner ads I mention earlier in the chapter. And, as
is the case with banner ads, everyone has them and everyone ignores them.
Does that mean you shouldn’t use image ads? Not necessarily. Just don’t
expect them to generate as much income as text ads do.
Image ads include pictures or other images that can be very eye-catching,
like the ad . No mistaking it for anything else; you know
at a glance that it’s an ad.
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with visitors knowing that your ads
are in fact, ads. Most users will recognize all kinds of AdSense ads for what
they are. However, visitors really do tend to hold a grudge against image ads
of all kinds, so the better you can blend them into the content of your site,
the less likely they’ll be ignored.
Fortunately, there are several different sizes of image ads that you can add
to your page. Table 5-2 gives you a quick overview of those sizes and how
they’re best used. (If you notice some similarities with Table 5-1, your eyes
aren’t playing a trick with you. The formats are pretty much the same.)
Table 5-2 AdSense Image Ad Formats
Format Ad Size Placement
Leaderboard 728x90 Top of the page
Banner 468x60 Top or bottom of the page, in between
articles or blog posts
Skyscraper 120x600 Right or left side of the page
Wide skyscraper 160x600 Right side of the page
Small square 200x200 In sidebars, on the right or left of the page
Square 250x250 In sidebars, on the right or left of the page
Medium rectangle 300x250 In the text of an article or a blog post
Large rectangle 336x280 In the text of an article or a blog post
Image ads, like text ads, need to blend into the surrounding elements of your
page as much as possible. You don’t want to make them invisible — if that’s
your goal, you might as well not put any ads on your site. If you can make
them appear as if they belong on your page, your site visitors will be less
likely to shun them completely.
For horizontal placement, the leaderboard and banner ads are your best
options. These ads, , work well at the top of pages,
usually directly below your page header, or between articles or blog posts.
The thing to remember with these horizontally oriented ads is that they have
to be really great ads that work really well on your pages, or users will ignore
them for the most part. It might take some tweaking to get the ad just right
for your page. If you have a choice, text ads are probably the better option.
Save the image ads for other areas on your Web site.
The next set of image ads — the skyscrapers — are also likely to be ignored if
not integrated well into your site. Such ads, , are best
suited to the edges (the right and left sidebars) of your pages. And much like
the text ads, the wide skyscraper is always better suited to the right side of
the page.
As for square and rectangular ads, they work best embedded in (or surrounded
by) the text on your page. These ads, when placed in the text and matched to
the color palette of your Web site, can actually look like they belong with the
article or blog post. When they look like they belong, that’s when visitors’ old
aversions to image ads are less likely to rear their ugly heads.
The square and rectangle ads you see in Figure 5-18 are the least evil of the
image ads. Test a few of them in your text and see how they work for you. If
they don’t do well, you can always switch back to text ads.
Video ads
Video ads are one of the newest additions to the AdSense family. Technically,
though, the ad is not the video. Yes, videos are streamed for advertising
partners that have YouTube accounts, but the actual ads are displayed in the
video player that’s embedded in your content, not in the video itself. To see
what I mean, check out Figure 5-19.
The formats available for video units include
Leaderboard
Skyscraper
Wide skyscraper
Small square
Square
Rectangle
Large rectangle
I won’t subject you to another table because the size and placement of these
ads are the same as the size and placement of the image and text ads shown
in the earlier tables in this chapter.
When a site visitor clicks the video player, the content from the advertiser’s
YouTube account is shown, along with a link to his site. The video player also
becomes a large graphical link when the video is finished playing.
For you to get paid, your site visitors must click through the video player to
the advertiser’s site. It’d be nice if these types of ads were shown on an impression
only basis — you’d get paid each time someone viewed the video — but
that’s not the case. The click actually has to happen.
That doesn’t mean video ads aren’t good for your site. Today’s Internet users
love video content. If the content of the video units on your site isn’t too
advertise-y, you may find that these units are good for your AdSense income.
Of course, that also depends on how well they work with your Web site content.
Test them to see how they perform. If you don’t like the results, you can
always go back to image or text ads.
Link units
Probably the second most used ad type in the AdSense program (after text
ads) is the link unit. Link units are very cool because — when used properly —
you can make them look like they belong on your page, so users are more likely
to click them.
Making a link unit look like it belongs on your page is pretty simple. You
adjust the template colors of the ad to match the template colors of your
page. Then, when the link units are displayed on your page, they look like
links that are related to the content of the page.
Link units come in several sizes, as detailed in Table 5-3. (In the table, you
see some ad sizes followed by the number 4. This indicates there are four
links in that ad display. All others have five links displayed within the ad.)
Table 5-3 Link Units Ad Formats
Size Number of Links Best Placements
120x90 Up to five links Sidebars
120x90_4 Up to four links Sidebars
160x90 Up to five links Sidebars
160x90_4 Up to four links Sidebars
180x90 Up to five links Sidebars
180x90_4 Up to four links Sidebars
200x90 Up to five links Sidebars
200x90_4 Up to four links Sidebars
468x15 Up to five links Top and bottom of the page, between
articles and blog posts
468x15_4 Up to four links Top and bottom of the page, between
articles and blog posts
728x15 Up to five links Top and bottom of the page, between
articles and blog posts
728x15_4 Up to four links Top and bottom of the page, between
articles and blog posts
Although there are several sizes of link units, there really are only two types —
vertical and horizontal.
Vertical link units are best used in the sidebars of your page. Use them at
the top or bottom, before or after any set of links that you might have in
your sidebar. The ads, as shown in Figure 5-20, work well when matched or
blended with your template colors. In essence, users think those links belong
with the links surrounding them, and they’re more likely to click those ads
than most other ads.
Several different sizes of vertical link units make it easier to integrate them
into the sidebars on your Web site. When you tweak colors with the color
pallets provided by Google, you can make them appear as if they’re an intentional
part of your site design.
The horizontally oriented link units, as shown in Figure 5-21, work essentially
the same way — they just work better on the top and bottom of your pages,
and between articles and blog posts. Like the vertically oriented link units,
tweak the colors of these, and they’ll blend well on your Web site. The key is
to make them look like they belong.
As with everything good, there has to be a catch. Link units are great to blend
in with your Web site, and they look less like advertisements than anything
that’s available in the AdSense program. But here’s the rub — with link units,
site visitors have to click twice before you get paid. They must first click a
link within the link unit, which takes them to a page that looks very much like
a search results page. The real difference is that the results shown on the
page that the link unit leads to are all advertisements. For you to get paid,
users must click through one of the links on the results page.
Here’s the trade-off, though. If users are inclined to click through the links
on the results page, it’s also likely that they’ll click through more than one of
those results, meaning you could get paid for more than one click.
With link units, they either work really well or they bomb completely. The
only way to know is to test link units on your site and see how they perform
for you. Try different configurations and locations. If they’re going to work,
you’ll find your sweet spot. All you have to do is watch the change adding up.
Referral buttons
One last type of AdSense ad that you should consider is the referral button.
Here’s the trade-off, though. If users are inclined to click through the links
on the results page, it’s also likely that they’ll click through more than one of
those results, meaning you could get paid for more than one click.
With link units, they either work really well or they bomb completely. The
only way to know is to test link units on your site and see how they perform
for you. Try different configurations and locations. If they’re going to work,
you’ll find your sweet spot. All you have to do is watch the change adding up.
Referral buttons
One last type of AdSense ad that you should consider is the referral button.
120x240
180x60
468x60
120x60
125x125
110x32
When you’re setting up your referral button ads, you can select up to 15 different
ads to rotate through the referral button. So, if you choose to use a
125x125 square referral button, you can have referrals from up to 15 different
advertisers. That doesn’t mean you have to choose 15 companies to refer
visitors to. You can select just 1, 5, or 12 if you like — whatever works best
for your site.
As an added bonus, with referral button ads, you get to choose exactly the
companies that you want to show referrals for. You’re not surprised by an ad
from a competitor or a company you’re not willing to endorse.
When you’re making the selections for your referral ads, you can browse the
different categories of vendors and even look at the products and URLs that
you’ll be supporting. Referral values are also listed next to each product, so
you’ll have a ballpark figure of how much you’re paid for each referral.
Themed ads
Themed units are basically text ads that have a specific theme. Google offers
these around holiday times, and they just appear in your ad structure. You
don’t have to do anything special to use themed units — they’re automatically
enabled in your ads when you set up your AdSense account.
You’ll find themes that surround the various major holidays on your calendar.
How themed ads work varies from the way that text ads work, however.
The theme makes it obvious that an ad is an ad, unless you’ve changed your
whole site to reflect the holiday theme.
If you’re into decorating for the holidays, you might consider using themed
ad units. If your site stays the same (appearance-wise) day in and day out, it’s
probably best if you just avoid the themed unit altogether.
If you decide you’d rather not have the themed advertisements showing on
your Web site, you can disable themed ads (they’re enabled by default) using
these steps:
1. Point your browser to www.adsense.com and log on to your AdSense
account.
2. Click the My Account tab.
You should be automatically taken to your Account Settings page. If not,
click Account Settings in the link strip below the tabs.
3. Scroll down the page to the Ad Type Preference section, , and then click the Edit link, next to the Ad Type
Preference heading.
You’re taken to the Ad Type Preference page.
4. On the Ad Type Preference page, , select the
Display Text Ads Only in All Ad Units option.
5. Click the Save Changes button.
That’s it. Themed ad units are disabled and won’t show during holiday
periods. Of course, neither will any other kind of picture ad, so you have to
decide whether you want text only or if you’re okay with themed units on
occasion.
With any of the AdSense formats, only half the art is knowing what ad to place
where. The other half is knowing how to format your ads to make them more
appealing to site visitors. Because the name of the game is garnering clicks
on your ads, you want them to appeal to site visitors — the color, style, and
placement should all entice the visitor to click the ad. So, there’s way more
to it than just placement.