Joel Comm
09-30-2006, 01:59 AM
In case you missed it, here’s the news: Google has added a new format to its range of ad units. The 200 x 200 ad unit isn’t (currently) visible on the ad formats page but you can select it from the drop-down menu when choosing an ad unit size.
The arrival of the small square raises a few important questions: Should you use it? Where should you use it? And why did they do it?
If you’re not sure about the answers to the first two questions, then you’ve missed an important part of my approach to AdSense success.
You should always be experimenting with AdSense. Just because you’ve got a system that works doesn’t mean that it can’t work better. When something new comes along -- like a new ad format -- pick a page, plug it in and track the results. If you find your CTR goes up, even a little, extend it across more pages and keep tracking. That little change could turn out to be big money when used on lots of different pages.
The same is true for this small square. I’ve got a feeling that this new format could work very well on pages with small amounts of content. At the moment, many publishers embed a square ad unit at the beginning of articles. It’s a very effective strategy. But when there’s only a paragraph or two on the page, the ad can overwhelm the content. The user feels he’s been conned: he’s been given more ad than information.
A small square on a small page with two ads instead of three might just blend in better and give improved results.
That could be why Google created this unit. But I don’t think that was their only reason. They also make it clear that the small square can be used with text, image and... video ads.
It’s the video that’s going to be key for this unit, I think. It will let you blend a video ad into a page without making it the most important element on the page, which is the risk when you use larger units to show video ads.
But again, only experimentation will tell.
The arrival of the small square raises a few important questions: Should you use it? Where should you use it? And why did they do it?
If you’re not sure about the answers to the first two questions, then you’ve missed an important part of my approach to AdSense success.
You should always be experimenting with AdSense. Just because you’ve got a system that works doesn’t mean that it can’t work better. When something new comes along -- like a new ad format -- pick a page, plug it in and track the results. If you find your CTR goes up, even a little, extend it across more pages and keep tracking. That little change could turn out to be big money when used on lots of different pages.
The same is true for this small square. I’ve got a feeling that this new format could work very well on pages with small amounts of content. At the moment, many publishers embed a square ad unit at the beginning of articles. It’s a very effective strategy. But when there’s only a paragraph or two on the page, the ad can overwhelm the content. The user feels he’s been conned: he’s been given more ad than information.
A small square on a small page with two ads instead of three might just blend in better and give improved results.
That could be why Google created this unit. But I don’t think that was their only reason. They also make it clear that the small square can be used with text, image and... video ads.
It’s the video that’s going to be key for this unit, I think. It will let you blend a video ad into a page without making it the most important element on the page, which is the risk when you use larger units to show video ads.
But again, only experimentation will tell.