The Heat Map

Because I recommend Google Adsense so highly, I thought I would write a series of posts with tips on displaying Adsense Ads. Let’s start with tips on where to place the ads.

Google’s Adsense support site provides a heat map, which out outlines how ads placed in certain areas of a sample, three-column layout tend perform compared to other areas.

Here is Google’s heat map:

The darker areas indicate areas where ads perform better.

Test Your Own Ads

The only way to know the ideal placement of ads and the ideal ad formats for your site is by testing. The heat map should only be used as a guide. For example, although the heat map suggests ads placed on the upper left side of the page will have a higher click-through rate, the design of your site might favor ads placed on the right.

Try placing the ads in a particular arrangement for a month or two, which should be enough time get to get a reliable data sample, and then move them around. Keep changing things around until you are confident you have the best ad formats in the best positions for your site.

Use Channels for Tracking

The Adsense Ad Wizard (you’ll use this to set up ads in your Google Adsense account) offers the ability to track the performance of all ad units assigned to a channel. I recommend creating one channel per ad unit in each location. I also recommend naming your channels according the format and the location of the ad unit you want to track. So, the channel for a large square ad unit in the top right column might be named “Large Square – Top Right Corner.”

Things to Consider When Deciding on Ad Placement

1. When users finish reading an article or post, they are looking something else to do on your site. Therefore, ad units placed at the end of an article or post tend to have higher click-through rates.

2. Ad units that appear above the page fold tend to perform better than ad units below the page fold.

3. Ad units placed at the beginning of an article or post, after the title tend to perform very well. Users will usually at least read the title of an article or post, so they are also likely to focus on whatever is near the title.