Favorite ad placement?

[PenguinManiac]

Choosing where to place your ads is probably just as important as promoting your website in terms of influence on a website's revenue. Ads have to be viewed and clicked, ideally, and placing them on the right spot can tremendously help in that department.
However, good placement for income has to be evened out by good placement for smooth navigation. Clog your website up with ads on top and your website will lose appeal and look like it's trying too hard; place them all on the bottom for minimal obtrusion and you'll hardly gain anything out of them.

How do you place your ads? Do you prefer some special placements (e.g. pop up ads as soon as you open the page, sticky toggleable ad, ads in the middle of posts and articles) or do you prefer to leave them be somewhere in the page to avoid annoyances to readers?

 

[Rob Whisonant]

I much prefer and get the best results from using in context links instead of ads and by using native ads. I rarely use old fashion banners, ad blocks etc.

 

[HostLittle]

HostLittle

Piggy-backing off of Rob - inline text ads are what I have found to work best for me as well. The trick is to actually take some time to edit the style of the text ads so that they blend in to your website, creating a better user experience.

 

[PenguinManiac]

PenguinManiac

I can see why you'd go with that, they just contribute to the website's natural flow more. However, wouldn't an excessive blending-in cause confusion and possible annoyance? Unless they're affiliate banners or something, they would be similar to those fake download buttons you find here and there to trick people.
First and foremost, you should let them trust you enough not to turn on their ad-blocker for your website by proving that they can support you without having their experience hindered. Or have I misunderstood something?

 

[HostLittle]

HostLittle

I don't mean placing them in sneaky spots just to get clicks. For example, on my blogs there are usually lists of other blogs and under that section I have that is labeled ADs but the links still look the same as my blog links.

 

[PenguinManiac]

PenguinManiac

Oh, now that's clearer. Yeah, styled ads give off a different feeling, it makes it feel like they just happen to be there rather than forced into. The worst thing about websites clogged up with ads is that they're all so different from each other that it breaks that navigation flow you get with a cohesive style (aside from the obvious fact that you can't even navigate at all, in certain cases). As long as you can tell they're still ads, it seems like a good idea. Thanks for the tip!

 

[smsmbooster]

I prefer on the right columns like this forum. They are all attract me more than the other places.

 

[kkaterina]

As far as I got your point you have a blog. The best option in this case is placing under article native ads. Teasers always looks like suggested content, it's not intrusive, don't break website layout and attracts attention of website audience.

 

[PenguinManiac]

PenguinManiac

True that, although I've grown weary of them myself after seeing them so much on other website. Still, with proper styling, it would be easy to make them stand out to avoid deceiving your viewers. Nice suggestion, thank you!
...still, isn't the pay dependent from the height you place yours ads at? Or do networks now count the space below articles as a valuable one?

 

[kkaterina]

Ad networks know all high CTR spots due to loads of stats in their systems. Besides before releasing new ad format, they test it on different website places to collect information of best ad format and place performance. Any ad network is interested in making as much cash as possible. Btw, have you been working with any of ad networks?

 

[PenguinManiac]

PenguinManiac

That's good to know. It makes sense to promote new ideas for maximum profit, you really need to keep up the pace.
No, I'm only testing the waters right now, I'm still a newbie. I gave Adsense a try many years ago and only for a short time, and aside from that I remember using some hostings' built-in ad system (again, it's been a decade or so).

 

[manmad]

It really depends on the platform, if we're talking about blog ads, I like putting them at the sides of the blog, if they are YouTube ads, I like having ones from the start, which wouldn't bother the people later on in the videos. It might also be a good idea to put some ads in your posts as text that are shortened, so it doesn't ruin the aesthetic of the post and look too needing.

 

[Cchaen]

Usually use native ads at the bottom and popunder ads (so location is everywhere).

 

[petesede]

I hate this topic because my experience always differs from everyone else, and even from what Google recommends. For me, my best performing ad spot is a small banner at the bottom of the article. My thinking is this.. I do create quality articles with good information, so it is my expectation that most of my readers end up at the bottom of the article. I think if you have bad content you will get more clicks from a header ad. So the one that I did do that is kinda sneaky, is that I have no navigation at the bottom of my articles. When the reader gets to the end of the article, they have two choices really.. scroll up to navigate, or click on the ad that is there. I am not one who believes it is a great thing to have a visitor navigating all over your site, especially if your financial incentive is to get them to click an ad. I would rather have them click an ad on the first article rather than have them read a second article and maybe not click on an ad.

 

[Aryan]

I don't like pop-up ads, these types of ads irritate users and user never like to see these ads. I prefer ads in sidebars because they don't disturbe visitors. While in PPC Ads in search results I would preffer 2nd and third position for my ads. These ads placement are low cost competition rather than top placement and even better results.