I found using one large text only rectangle ad above the fold works best for me. That seems to give me a decent CTR.

I've tried leaderboard and skyscraper ads, but the CTR is rotten on those type of ad formats on my pages.

I just wish I knew what to do to get a better pay per click, as it has been running quite low lately.

If CTR dropped because the clickable area got smaller, isn't that likely to mean that you're getting fewer accidental clicks and more intended clicks? (That was obviously Google's objective in redefining the clickable area.) In the long run, minimizing accidental clicks is likely to be good for advertisers and for publishers, because it should increase conversion rates, keep advertisers coming back for more, and reduce the need for "smart pricing."

For what it's worth, I've seen a decline in CTR since the change, but average earnings per click for February 1-15, 2008 are running nearly 60% ahead of last year's EPC during the same period, resulting in a higher eCPM. There could be any number of reasons for the jump in EPC, but increased advertiser confidence might be one factor.

europeforvisitors of course thats kind of what I said :) ... however now the time to increase the CTR of actual clicks.

You may not be able to unless you stand behind your site's visitors, grab their mouse hand and force them to click the ad. You should also remember that a significant part of the CTR equation is the quality of the ads themselves. If you can get better quality ads to appear on your site your CTR should go up.

Atomic good point, the ads themselves do reflect the CTR, but sometimes it's repeat traffic and ad-blind visitors that just don't click... only unique traffic tends to click what they havn't clicked before.

So you're asking how to get repeat, ad-blind visitors to click? Good luck with that!

I suppose you could try to bring in a different audience and there are all kinds of ways to do that but that discussion belongs in another forum.

I am happy with the clickable area got smaller. Though my CTR declined, I am trying the conventional methods to increase the CTR. Adding more content, optimizing, etc. I fully agree with EPV, that its good for long run. Now we are facing the real real scinario.

That's my take on it, too. I recently made a move to make my ads stand out more from my content and increased the white space around them to deliberately reduce my CTR. The more I do this, the bigger my checks from Google.

My CTR actually went up noticeably after the change. I have a feeling that before the change, a lot of my clicks weren't being counted because Google thought they were accidental.

If you can get better quality ads to appear on your site your CTR should go up.

disagree. i think it is a common misconception that better quality ads deliver higher ctr. in my experience, the opposite is true: many ads that you'd like on your pages may even pay higher - but don't get clicked very often.

ctr-wise best performing ads are mostly the cheap and dirty ads that promise everything and keep nothing.
people rant about rubbish ads that occupy their real estate. but why do they show up in the first place, especially since they pay only pennies?
answer: the algo naturally assures to only show the best performing ads that deliver the most overall payout. so - at least network-wide - to match the equation "performance = ctr x epc" these low quality ads must be clicked like crazy.

or in other words: quality ads look better but entice fewer people to click.

or in other words: quality ads look better but entice fewer people to click.

I'd imagine that depends on the site and the audience. On a general-interest site, it might be true, but on a niche site whose users are researching purchases, a relevant high-quality ad is likely to do quite well.

For what it's worth, I've seen a decline in CTR since the change, but average earnings per click for February 1-15, 2008 are running nearly 60% ahead of last year's EPC during the same period, resulting in a higher eCPM. There could be any number of reasons for the jump in EPC, but increased advertiser confidence might be one factor.

I have had the same experience, at least on my most popular (and consumer-oriented) site. All signs point to a major increase in advertiser confidence (and spending to match.)

On my other sites, things are less exciting, but they are very low-traffic compared to the main site, and the main site has its own adsense account.

I changed my links & titles to default hyperlink blue (0000FF) and left it at that. Most of my links were a faded blue. I figured that I needed to make sure people who wanted to click knew where to click, and that was all I could do.

For what it's worth, CTR doesn't appear to have gone down for us from the clickable area change, but we are experiencing this strange thing where our CTR goes up signifigantly on Saturday and Sunday, then back down during the week days. It's done this since the beginning of February. This site is a large site covering many topics, we just don't normally see such fluctuations.