Hybrid text ads showing up

Forum Moderators: martinibuster

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Hybrid text ads showing up

Looks more like imge ad

Content_ed

7:00 pm on Oct 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

I took a look at some of our pages for the first time in a while because the CTR crashed on one channel (why else:-)

I was surprised to see a single ad that looked like an image ad where normally we'd have three or four small text ads in a horizontal banner. I double checked, we only allow text ads, but Adsense showed a single "text" ad spread over 300 or 400 pixels with the top line in a very large blue font, like 28 point, with a single line of text under it, and then the link line.

Is this something that's always been around that I just haven't seen before?

danimal

7:14 pm on Oct 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

is it on a channel? have you checked to see if site-targeted ads are appearing on your site?

MediaSpree

7:23 pm on Oct 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

is the ad for sleep medication and unrelated to your content? cause I am getting the same thing on several pages :)

plasma

7:35 pm on Oct 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

I've seen this on a page about Pets on a norwegian site ~ 2 months ago.
IIRC it was something like "Google vet" skyscraper in a huge black font.

Chapman

7:36 pm on Oct 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

Recently my leaderboards (728 text only with no site targeting) were showing a single ad for Panasonic notebooks (in a VERY large font) several hours at a time. It appeared to be only happening on pages using section targeting. After a day or so it stopped and I've not seen it happen again.

Chapman

jimbeetle

7:53 pm on Oct 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

This doesn't necessarily have to be site targeting. Google has been using this format for a very, very long time. It serves a single text ad in that format when the algo thinks that one ad has the best shot at making some bucks.

warth0g

8:06 pm on Oct 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

i see that alot - sometimes they will only show 2 ads in a large rectrangle, or a single ad - I think they are just putting the highest bid ad in to see if it makes more $

Chapman

8:28 pm on Oct 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

jimbeetle-

I agree they've been around for quite a while but on the only occasion I've seen them... the Panasonic notebook ads were appearing on fine art reference pages.

My targeting is typically close to perfect (print & poster sites) so I don't think there could have been any expectations that this was a "good fit money maker". My CTR for those pages, over that period, was dismal.

Additionally, out of 300 pages of similar material, they only appeared on the few pages that needed a "little help" with section targeting.

Chapman

Content_ed

9:18 pm on Oct 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

Thanks all. My problem with the particular ad was that it just looked spammy, but part of that had to do with the subject, inviting people to join some sort of retail club.