Less ads can mean more $$$

[KLB]

In our constant effort to squeeze more ad revenues out of our websites we all feel the need to add more ads to our web pages. Sometimes this can have the exact opposite effect and actually decrease net revenues. While there is probably many reasons for this I think these are the primary reasons:

1) Too many ads create too much noise and users don't see ads they might otherwise be interested in, and

2) A low revenue ad might actually be stealing clicks from higher revenue ads.

As a real world example, I recently removed a search engine search box ad (for Global Spec) from almost all of the pages on my website http://EnvironmentalChemistry.com. As a result I saw an immediate and dramatic increase in the click thru rate on my Google AdSense ads. In fact I'm now experiencing a near record high eCPM. The extra daily AdSense revenue is well in excess of the monthly revenue the ad I removed was generating.

Currently I am only running the Global Spec search box on my main page, but in time I may also remove it from there. While I was promoting an engineering search engine, I'm sure the effect would have been the same for a generic search engine box like Google Search.

I've also noticed similar effects when I removed traditional banner ads from my line up. We're all out to earn more money, but sometimes more ads don't mean more money. Web publishers should carefully monitor the performance of each ad and carefully experiment with their ad placement. With Google AdSense ads I find it particularly useful to designate specific channels to specific ad positions so that I can monitor performance closely and see how adding other ads affect the performance of existing ad slots.

Just some food for thought.

[Chris]

I'm considering doing this too. I am thinking about getting rid of one ad placement on my literature site but then adding one further down the page to spread it out a little.

Another side effect of less ads I think is more incoming links as there are people out there who do not link to ad heavy pages.

[KLB]

Another side effect of less ads I think is more incoming links as there are people out there who do not link to ad heavy pages.
The same goes for the use of ad-blocking countermeasures like I deployed. A couple of years ago deploying them was a necessity because bandwidth was expensive and I routinely exceeded my allowances and I couldn't afford to pay for more bandwidth. Today bandwidth is much cheaper so bandwidth is no longer an issue and ad revenues are much better so paying for the bandwidth also isn't an issue.

When I first implemented my measures, I was allocated 60 gb per month in bandwidth and was consuming around 65-70 gb per month. Today for the same rates I was paying back then I'm allocated 300 gb per month.

Two and a half years ago I implemented ad-blocking countermeasures because I needed an easy way to to reduce my expenses. Today that is no longer a concern and for some time I have been weighing the idea of disabling my ad-blocking countermeasures.

Due to the way I programmed my countermeasures, I can actually turn them on or off by changing a single variable in the PHP source code so it isn't exactly hard. As an experiment and due to my efforts to try promoting some of my articles via Digg.com and the like. I have turned off my ad-blocking countermeasures for now to see what happens. If I like the results I'll leave them turned off. If I don't like the results, I'll turn them back on.