iZachy » YPN

Adsense Tip #457

Ken Cheung — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 20:19:59 +0000

Like many of you, I test my Adsense ads to improve the performance of the ads. In my latest test, I tested blended ads against ads that were slightly highlighted. The blended ads matched the content — white background with blue links. The highlighted ads had a light blue background. First, unlike most publishers, highlighted ads performed better for me in the content area. The click-through rate for the highlighted ads was three times higher than the blended ads. However, the ecpm was slightly higher for the blended ads. Though my guess is that the higher ecpm has more to do with Google serving better paying ads than because of the color of the ads.

Read Adsense Tip #457 (333 words)

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Hello, I am an Annoying Ad

Ken Cheung — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 03:53:41 +0000

Update: Darren over at ProBlogger thought I might get in trouble for running the fake scrolling ad that I mentioned in the post below. After I got a heart attack and was brought back to life by a baby yanking on my hair, I emailed Adsense and YPN. Adsense guy didn't see a problem. However, YPN dude told me I need to pull the fake ad because it was blocking part of their ads. Strange I thought. I tested the fake ad on three different browsers and it didn't block any Adsense/YPN ads. So I sent a reply to YPN dude telling him that the fake ad did not block any YPN ads. I also sent the URL again in case I forgot to previously. YPN dude again sent me another email telling me to remove the fake ad because it was blocking their ads. I was pissed at this point because I concluded YPN dude didn't look at the URL I sent him. Then I had an idea, what if YPN dude didn't have his browser in full screen mode? Sure enough, when I resized my browser, the fake ad did indeed block both Adsense/YPN ads. As you can see, I no longer have the floating ad to show on this post. Thanks for the advice, Darren.

I bet you are having a little trouble reading this post because of the annoying ad in your face. The floating ad is an example of the post-it ads Jensense blogged about today. You scroll down, the ad moves down. You scroll up, the ad moves up.

The new ads by AdImpact look like post-it notes. Unlike real post-it notes, the ads are very annoying. Regardless of how much you scroll, the ads keep their same position. AdImpact offers the post-it ads for $20 a month. However, as Jennifer suspected, there are free scripts available. In case you have not noticed (ha-ha), I implemented a floating ad on this post so you can see it in action. I could have used a graphics instead of text to make them look more like real ads, but I figure you will be annoyed either way.

These floating ads are a good way to drive away your visitors. You might make a little extra money running them in the short term, but you'll pay for it in the long term. These are the types of ads I expect to see on the sites that game the search engines. You go there looking for something, but they don't have any real content — just keywords stuffed all over the page. All you can do is hit the back button or click on an ad. These sites do not expect repeat visitors. If you run floating ads, don't expect your visitors to return either.

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Yahoo! Video, Take Seventy-eight

Ken Cheung — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 06:11:06 +0000

YPN has a post about their latest version of Yahoo! Video. Other than additional content, I'm not sure how this will translate to more income for publishers.

However, the tool sounds cool. Yahoo! Video is a web-hosted service that gives publishers the ability to upload video content directly to Yahoo!, manage, tag and share it with others. The service also includes the ability to publish video on publishers' blogs. Hmmm, I wish I had some video to play around with. I gotta get my camcorder repaired.

One of the key feature of Yahoo! Video is being able to embed a video player window into a blog and play video content by copying and pasting code that Yahoo provides. So, how we embed YPN ads into the video?

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The Secret to Tracking Ads

Ken Cheung — Wed, 31 May 2006 21:28:43 +0000

The YPN Blog has a post about using reporting categories to test ads on your site. The post doesn't contain anything new and is very basic. Must be targeting the newbies to YPN. I'm also a little confused about the title, "And The Survey Says . . ." I thought YPN was going to release the results of a survey or something. Maybe that's the point — to make me click on that darn link. That's why I titled this post, The Secret to ~~Increasing Your Blog Income~~ Tracking Ads (I've decided to change the title before I lose what little credibility I have left). ~~Ha-ha~~.

Now that you are here, you might as well listen to what I'm putting down. Hey baby, I'm your handyman. I'm not the kind who use a pencil or rule. Sorry, James Taylor is playing in the background. OK, this is what I would like to add the YPN post:

The post forgot to mention reporting URL's. Instead of creating different categories for different sections of your site. You can also define different reporting URLs. Reporting URLs will track your results based on the URL. Categories will track your results based on whatever parameters you want to use (color, size, etc). From what I can tell, neither categories nor URLs are retroactive. You can only start tracking results after you have created the categories or URLs. I though reporting URLs might be retroactive, but they are not. I think Adsense works the same way.

One more thing, with categories, you have to update your YPN ad code. With reporting URLs, you just create them on the reporting URLs page, under the reports menu.

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Color Matching Your Way to the Bank

Ken Cheung — Thu, 25 May 2006 18:31:03 +0000

Boy, that Jen girl (woman) from Jensense is every where. Today she has a post on the YPN blog about color matching ads.

Jennifer outlines four techniques you can use to determine the best color scheme for your site:

1. The blended technique (using same colors for ads and site)
2. The matching technique (ad colors are from the same palette as the site colors, but not necessarily for the same elements, ie – page background color for ad text color)
3. The complimentary technique (ad colors that complement your site)
4. The contrasting technique (using ad colors that look ugly on your site, best to avoid this scheme if you want repeat visitors)

As Jennifer mentioned, its best to setup categories (channels for adsense people) and test your color schemes to see which works best for your site. With the right color scheme, your revenue can increase dramatically.

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Adsense, YPN, Chitika, and FeedBurner News

Ken Cheung — Wed, 24 May 2006 00:19:26 +0000

OK, what's going on? It seems like in the past few days, there has been a flurry of activities from Yahoo, Google, and others. Today, Google announced their new video ads on their blog. If you opt into image ads, you will be opted into video ads as well. Though this doesn't mean video ads will run on your site. The video ads will use the following formats: 300×250 Medium Rectangle, 336×280 Large Rectangle, or 250×250 Square. Hmmm. Since I've started running 3 ad units on some of my sites, I noticed my sites take longer to load. Now, with the video (and Flash) ads, my sites will slow down even more. I might have to decrease the number of ad units and/or go back to text-only ads.

Read Adsense, YPN, Chitika, and FeedBurner News (445 words)

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YPN Offers Ad Placement Tips

Ken Cheung — Thu, 11 May 2006 18:24:13 +0000

Interesting post on the YPN Blog. In the post, Yahoo suggests that the best placement of ads are:

leaderboard ad above the fold between the top nav and content area
skyscrapers and vertical banners in the right-hand rail or margin
square and rectangle ads placed within the center column (content area)

I'm surprised the click-throughs are higher on the right side than the left side for Yahoo ads. In my tests of Adsense, ads work better on the left than the right. Then again, as the post indicates, actual results will vary with the publisher.

Read YPN Offers Ad Placement Tips (253 words)

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