Google Testing New AdSense Formats

If you’ve been reading PPC Ian for a while, you know that my posts tend to be very long. In fact, I average about 800-1,000 words per post. As such, it’s become an intimidating challenge for me to post more than one or two times a week. However, it became very apparent to me at SES San Francisco that I absolutely must post at least two times per week to maximize the potential of PPC Ian. I have very big goals for this blog! As such, I’m going to start incorporating some more concise posts in my mix, such as this one. I hope you find the shorter format equally entertaining and helpful!

Google’s Awesome New AdSense Leaderboard

So, for my first shorter format post I wanted to highlight a fascinating change I’ve seen with Google AdSense recently. Basically, they are testing an awesome new format for their leaderboard where you see three horizontal ads rather than the four standard ads (image below).

New Google AdSense Leaderboard

My AdSense Earnings Started Spiking Recently

How did I notice this change? I actually pulled this ad from one of my personal sites from the financial services vertical. I own a portfolio of websites that drive passive income via affiliate earnings, IJL Productions LLC. AdSense is one of my favorite affiliate programs and it drives the lion share of my passive income. The other day, my earnings started spiking due to an improvement in CTR (my page impressions stayed consistent). After a quick audit of my sites, I realized that the new format could very well be the driving force behind this!

Higher AdSense CTR At The Expense of Advertiser Conversion Rate?

So I’m super happy right now (more money is good). However, I have two points. First and foremost, I don’t want to get too happy because this could go away. The jury is still out whether this test will turn into functionality that Google decides to keep.

Second, who knows what this higher CTR is doing to advertisers (I’m also on the advertiser side) on the Google display network. It’s always possible that the higher CTR is at the expense of conversion rate. I’m hopeful that it’s a true gain (CTR up while conversion rate flat to up). In fact, I think this is very possible because AdSense, in my opinion, is overdue for some format changes. It’s been the same too long and some users are getting immune to it. By shaking things up a bit, Google is doing the right thing, both for publishers and advertisers.