Positioning Your Ad Units
September 20, 2009 by Luke Manion · Leave a Comment
One of the most popular questions from websites and blog owners is where do they position their ad units. 9 times out of 10 you’re going to be governed by your existing page layout, but if you have the ability to move things around and tweak the layouts, you’ll greatly benefit from the changes. Don’t forget this isn’t guess work, it’s a science; we know what works and what doesn’t.
Advertisers and advertising agencies consistently ask for websites and blogs which have ad units above the fold (or sometimes referred to as above the scroll). This means when you load the website in your browser, the portion of the webpage that can be visible without scrolling down. Ideally we would like to see at least two ads above the fold. If you can’t do this, sometimes it is easy to position a leaderboard above the entire website, like by friend Benjamin has done on his website www.benjaminchristie.com.
Study after study has shown that the told left hand side of any webpage is the position which gains the most attention, even more so if it’s an Island ad unit. We’ll typically see this ad position out perform other positions in terms of click through rate and engagement. If you have the ability to move around content on the page, I would highly recommend positioning an island or skyscraper in this position.
Apart from above the fold requirements and the top left hand side, advertisers and advertising agencies also seek out quality and original content. They know that great content brings quality audiences. So where possible try and position an advertisement within the body of the content. Most online newspapers do this, position an island ad smack bank in the middle of the article. If possible once again try and get it as high as possible, to ensure that it going to engaging with viewers.
We often have websites and blogs apply to AdTorque for consideration in the network and we reject them because of the amount of ads on the page. The key is to keep the pages as neat and clean as possible. Having half a dozen or more ads on a page diminishes ad effectiveness, annoys audiences and thus advertisers aren’t interested. Advertisers have to fight for customers, that don’t want to have to fight to be seen on a page when they are paying to be there. Media planners and buyers not only need to ensure their advertising isn’t running across inappropriate content, but they also need to prevent their advertising from running across websites which are relevant but are cluttered with lots of ad units. Try and stick to a maximum of 4 IAB ad units on a page. That’s it.
So just to recap the key points here in Positioning Your Ad Units are;
- No more than 4 ads units per page
- Try to position them Top / Left
- At least 2 above the fold / above the scroll
- Have at least 1 ad unit within content
If you’d like our advice on where to position your ads, please contact AdTorque and we will take a look at your pages in detail and provide a basic report on how you should position your ads. If you’re not yet a publisher in the AdTorque Network, please apply here.
