Promise Media

Online advertising delivers results for customers and revenue for publishers based in part on one simple technique – the location of the ad on the page.

If you have software or a vendor that provides ad delivery reports, it’s fascinating to see the results of moving ads around a page. Here are some examples of how the location of ads impacts the revenue.

A site launched with two ad positions – a 160 x 600 (also called a vertical or skyscraper) on the right rail and a 300 x 250 (also called a pillow or rectangle) in the main body of the page. Both ads are Internet Advertising Bureau standard sizes and among the most common sizes on the Internet.

In December, these two ads delivered an average click-through rate of 1.2 percent, which is far above the Internet average. For the record, the Internet average is so low because the huge volume of ads available dilutes their performance.

The site in question has a higher average in part because it’s targeted to specialty content and in part because the ads are contextual, meaning they deliver ads highly relevant to the content on that page.

Out of that 1.2 percent average click-through rate, the 160 x 60 delivered 1.4 percent while the 300 x 250 provided 1.0 percent. The first position had better results because most of the ad displayed above the fold, so the viewer could see it without scrolling.

In the beginning of January, the site put a 468 x 60 ad at the top of the page. It’s important to note that the ad was positioned below both the header and top navigation bar, but above the page’s main content, because experience indicates that putting the ad above the header and nav will lead to poor performance.

The new position on the specialty site has delivered a 2.25 percent click-through rate. At the same time, the other two ads have maintained their December averages of 1.4 and 1.0 percent, respectively.

Not only does the new ad have a greatly improved response rate, but the other two ads don’t deteriorate in performance. The total clicks nearly double and so does the revenue.

The same thing happens on a news site. News- along with weather and sports – tends to have low click-through rates for advertising. A particular news site launches with a 160 x 600 ad in the right rail. It gets an average click through of 0.24 percent. But then it adds a 468 x 60 position to the top of the page, between the header and main content.

That ad averages 0.43 percent or nearly double the other one.

Whether a site has a local advertiser or national one, brand promotion ads or contextual ones, it’s important to place ads in top-level positions that deliver the highest possible click-through rates.

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