Falling CTR

Forum Moderators: martinibuster

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Falling CTR

I may be onto the cause of mine

Powdork

7:32 am on Jan 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

I would have replied to a thread I started a while back, but alas, it is too old. I have had a problem of dropping CTR for the last three years and I think I may be on to at least part of the cause.
I use a liquid layout which involves three css files. As the screen res gets bigger so does the text. However, as screen res gets bigger, Adsense text stays the same size. There has been an explosion in screen resolution over the period during which i have experienced the drop in CTR. So in effect, during the last three years the Adsense on my sites has become on average smaller and smaller in relation to the rest of the text and links on the sites in question.
At this point I have not tested this theory, but it should be easy enough.

Quadrille

12:30 pm on Jan 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

Worth testing.

Do you use image and text ads, or just text?

I ask because several threads have highlighted changes in image ads over the past few months; several of my sites used to occasionally feature image ads, and when they did, they were relevant and interesting (partly by virtue of rarity).

These days, they are ubiquitous and boring, and unlikely to attract clicks from anyone - other than one with the attention span of a goldfish*.

If that's an issue for you, test for that too!

*no goldfish were harmed in the creation of this post, which is not intended to imply that a short attention span is necessarily a 'bad thing' - indeed, with the current quality of TV drama, it's probably a real asset.

Powdork

4:04 am on Jan 7, 2009 (gmt 0)

initial results have been positive, although it is still early to tell.

m0thman

12:12 pm on Jan 7, 2009 (gmt 0)

Quadrille, interesting you say that about image ads. A week or so ago I spotted a lot of irrelevant image ads on my site and decided as an experiment to switch off image ads. Income went up (CTR went up a little too).

Quadrille

1:19 pm on Jan 7, 2009 (gmt 0)

I'm hoping for a similar benefit - but I'm not looking for a few days ;)

But in all these cases, simply changing the Adsense offering may help, for sites that have a reasonable proportion of return visitors.

Powdork

9:45 am on Jan 14, 2009 (gmt 0)

definitely have seen a boost in CTR. Naturally, it has been accompanied by a drop in CPC, keeping revenue constant.

Falling CTR

I may be onto the cause of mine

Powdork

Quadrille

Powdork

m0thman

Quadrille

Powdork

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