Hi
Like many of you I mostly displayed Text Ads for blending and also because I thought clicks on text ads earn more (which they do because Image Ads are CPM Ads!)
HOWEVER after receiving a google message telling me that my webpage does not use its full potential by not using image ads I started to rethink my approach.
What does google adsense support says about image ads?
We can’t guarantee that you’ll earn more by displaying image ads.
However, by choosing to display image ads in addition to text ads, you can help ensure that you’ll have all available advertisers bidding to appear on your site.
Both text and image ads will compete in the same auction to display on your pages, and we’ll automatically display the ad(s) that we expect to earn you the most.
so far so good.
Not much info here to help me/us decide what approach we should take.
Inside Adwords however offers this explanation:
Because an image ad takes up the entire ad unit on a site in our content network, instead of being one of four text ads on a page, we use an effective CPM, or eCPM, model to rank all ads in the auction. This ensures that both CPC and CPM targeted text and image ads are evaluated in the same manner.
As always, the highest ranking ad(s) will be served to our users. If this happens to be an image ad, this means that the ad has an eCPM that is greater than the sum of the next four ads that it out ranks.
This does make sense and clarifies a widely spread misunderstanding.
Image ADs are CPM based and you don’t earn anything when users click on them.
However you earn each time an image ad is displayed.
The lower your CTR is the more valuable CPM based ads are.
I for myself decided to activate text and image ads on all my ad spots on my main site to see if it will increase my earnings over time.
Because I have a high eCPM on my major earning ad spot I doubt there will be much image ads to be served on that specific spot but most other ad spots should receive increased earnings over time.
What are your thoughts?
admin
So for instance on a 728x90 ad banner, usually there are 4 spots for text ads paid at CPC.
There's only one spot for a CPM based big text-ad. There's also only one spot for a CPC or CPM based image/video ad.
Image/video ads can be paid by CPC or by CPM.
They analyse each ad eCPM, no matter if they are paid by advertizers by CPM or CPC.
SO, if an image ad has an eCPM of $10, it will display only if 4 text-based ads SUM of eCPMs is less than $10.
Hope you understand better now.
Now, for my own opinion, I always let adsense decide to display text or images, because I know their interest is the same as mine and that is their job to take care of that part of the process (choosing ads)
I have read hundrets of threads talking about a decrease in earnings when activating image Ads. Most users did a Test that run 2days up to a week to decide which works better.
I think a test this short does not deliver the results you need to decide if allowing image Ads too will bring in more money.
Also I think that allowing Image Ads in combination with placement targeting is the best way to increase revenue over time.
If anyone reading this does not use placement targeting yet read my article: Do you harness the full potential of placement targeting?
I for myself did not see any decrease in earnings since I allowed AdSense Image Ads besides my Text Ads on the contrary, my AdSense Earnings are increasing rapidly: Some Secrets to my success
I let Google display both but it's something each web master should investigate for him or herself,
I don't think there's a general rule favoring one over the other.
Image Ads will in most cases not create the eCPM that Text Ads do but in some cases they do.
So whenever they do they are shown. Allowing image Ads increases the competition for your Ad Inventory and with that your earnings.
The more competition in an auction the better the prices.
Allow both image and text Ads and let google decide on which page which Ad earns you the most. Image only will most likely cost you money unless you run very graphic heavy websites.
admin
One Ad with image only, one ad with image&text and one ad image only.
Let them run for 4 weeks and see which earns you more.
But in the long run it's better to test longer because AdSense has a lot of fluctuation on its own and you might misinterpret the results and come to the wrong conclusion.
It pays to watch those boring Adsense videos from Google's beer gut employees on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vWp2-QMOz0.
I don't trust Google very much in other areas like their site ranking algo. etc, but I believe they do have our best interest at heart when they give adsense suggestions.
I happened to ignore many of their same "dude you are leaving money on the table" emails for years and the minute I took action my earnings jumped 150%.
Image and txt ads have been a blessing for my site. Earnings have kept rising since then.
I'd say give them a try with interest based advertising and third party advertising on as well as section targeting implemented.
Here are some statistics:
August 2010: 0,9% of all my impressions were image Ads or Rich Media Ads September 2010: 4,51% of all my impressions were image Ads or Rich Media Ads Oktober 2010: 5,8% of all my impressions were image Ads or Rich Media Ads November 2010: 10,43% of all my impressions were image Ads or Rich Media Ads
Since August the overall eCPM (RPM) raised about 167% Since August the eCPM (RPM) for Image and Rich Media Ads raised about 565%
So this looks very promising.
Read this for more information:
Does the first AdSense Ad Unit really gets the highest paying Ads