The other day I blogged about the pros and cons of Adsense image ads. Well, I have experimented and crunched the numbers, and it’s official: both my revenue and my CTR were effected negatively by selecting the default adsense “text and image ads” setting. Therefore, as of Monday, I will be getting rid of the images and going text only.
I still think that if you have the kind of site where images are important (photo blogs, fashion sites etc.) then you would be mad not to at least experiment with image ads. Even if they are not for you, the results probably won’t be catastrophic. For example my average CTR was down by less than half a percent. A significant figure but I am glad I took the risk and find out once and for all, because now I know I can concentrate on other areas.
Just to be clear, what I found from using image ads:
- My CTR was down
- I had more very low paying clicks (bellow 10 cents)
- My overall revenue was down
- I didn’t think the image ads did my site any favours style-wise
So for me now it’s all about getting CTR back up and attracting high paying ads!