Adsense test – blended ads go better than emphasized
I conducted these days a small Adsense test on a couple of my sites in order to find a better color scheme that would ensure me a better CTR. These schemes differs from site to site, but here is the main conclusion after the first stage of the test: blended ads are a lot better than emphasized ones.
On 3 sites i used to have the following color schemes:
Background: white
Title: blue
Url: blue
and i had the following CTR:
Site1: 4.15
Site2: 1.47
Site3: 4.34
After i changed the schemes, here are the results:
Site1: new CTR: 3.06
News scheme: Background: black , Title: blue, Url: red
Site2: new CTR: 0.2
News scheme: Background: orange , Title: blue, Url: red
Site3: new CTR: 3.7
News scheme: Background: white , Title: blue, Url: red
All these ads spots were 336 x 280 boxes placed just above the post like in this blog. The new CTRs are the average of the values measured in the last 7 days while the old ones are averages measured in the week before the test (so that’s for the previous week). Together with the CTRs, the eCPM values dropped too.
So, here are the conclusions:
* blended ads are better than emphasized ones, at least for the 336 x 280 box placed above the post in the top focus zone
* Blue is the color asociated with the link and people are more likely to click your ads if you use blue (as seen int est number 3, where all that was changed was the color of the small link, from blue to red)
* CTR drops brings also eCPM drops (but that’s not a rule)
From this small experiment i did not find better color schemes but a worse one. Now I’m moving forward for new schemes hoping i will improve my initial CTR. Testing and retesting will bring results on the long time. Keep in touch for more results.
Tags: Adsense, affiliate marketing, money
Wow. What a nice study! I have to try it on my sites too.
thats really good to know im going to have to think about doing that for my website
Good to know Thanks.
good info, thanks for the test results…I would definitely think that blended ads would do best and this confirms it…I am going to subscribe to your feed, thank a lot!
Hey, nice to read the blog – i like it!!
I have had some problems with my ads as of late. I put in some color schemes, its better, but not great. My impressions are off the charts, but my CTR sucks big time. Any suggestions? In the meantime I am back to the drawing board to refurbish my money sucking ads. thanks for the help!
Good info, thanks for the test results…I would definitely think that blended ads would do best and this confirms it…I am going to subscribe to your feed, thank a lot!
I’ve found on my minisites that blended and blue hyperlinks work best as well. I guess people or really conditioned to look for that blue lettering for a link and are more prone to click at it.
Thanks for the test results…I would definitely think that blended ads would do best and this confirms it…I am going to subscribe to your feed, thank a lot!
Tricky tricky adsense. Nice test though.
Thanks for the information you provided about the test results. You have done a great job.